Emotional interactions in European American mother-infant firstborn and secondborn dyads: A within-family study.

ABSTRACT: The developmental science literature is riven with respect to (a) parental similar versus different treatment of siblings and (b) sibling similarities and differences. Most methodologies in the field are flawed or confounded. To address these issues, this study employed a within-family longitudinal design to examine developmental processes of continuity and stability in emotional interactions in mothers with their firstborn and secondborn 5-month-old infants (ns = 61 mothers and 122 infants). As independently rated by the Emotional Availability Scales, mothers' observed and coded behavioral expressions of sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, and nonhostility were consistent in group mean levels between firstborns and secondborns and (largely) between daughters and sons. Neither firs

SUBMITTER: Bornstein MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5827931 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature