Maternal emotion regulation and mother-infant interactions
Stone, R
Date: 5 October 2020
Publisher
University of Exeter
Degree Title
Doctorate in Clinical Psychology
Abstract
Background Poor maternal emotion regulation is associated with poor maternal mental health. In turn, poor maternal mental health is related to disrupted mother- infant interactions and risks for poor child socio-emotional outcomes. There is limited research examining the impact of different emotion regulation strategies on mother- ...
Background Poor maternal emotion regulation is associated with poor maternal mental health. In turn, poor maternal mental health is related to disrupted mother- infant interactions and risks for poor child socio-emotional outcomes. There is limited research examining the impact of different emotion regulation strategies on mother- infant interactions. This study examined the relationship between two emotion regulation strategies, self-compassion and suppression, on a mother’s ability to display mind-mindedness in interactions with her infant. It was hypothesised a self- compassion induction would increase maternal mind-mindedness relative to a suppression induction, and this would be intensified following a challenging task. Method A mixed (pre-post, between groups) design was utilised whereby 42 mother- infant dyads took part. Mothers were asked to complete a range of self-report measures assessing maternal mood, maternal responsiveness and emotion regulation abilities, as well as two (pre-post induction) mother-infant interaction play sessions. Participants were randomly assigned to either a self-compassion or suppression induction to assess the impact of maternal emotion regulation on maternal interactions. Videos were coded for mind-mindedness using ratio scores for both appropriate and non-attuned comments. Results Consistent with hypotheses, the self-compassion induction had higher appropriate mind-related comments relative to the suppression induction. No differences were found between groups for non-attuned comments. Self-compassion was also associated with larger increases in pleasant mood and arousal, and decreases in negative mood compared to the suppression condition. Mothers in the self-compassion condition showed a greater desire to want to comfort distressed MATERNAL EMOTION REGULATION AND MIND-MINDEDNESS 79 infant faces and were less likely to turn away or feel anxious, relative to mothers in the suppression condition. Conclusions Findings demonstrated that relative to suppression, self-compassion improved maternal mood and approach-oriented aspects of mother-infant interactions, including appropriate comments and responsiveness to distressed infants, but did not affect non-attuned comments. Clinical implications and future research are discussed. Keywords: emotion regulation, self-compassion, suppression, mother-infant interaction, maternal mind-mindedness
Doctoral Theses
Doctoral College
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