Do infants expect caregivers to comfort crying babies?
When a baby begins to cry, do you expect its caregiver to soothe it? Most infants do, according to a new study published in Developmental Psychology by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study also found an association between mothers' mental health and infants' expectations about comforting behavior.
A new study published in Developmental Psychology explores whether infants anticipate caregivers to comfort crying babies. Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that even before infants can speak, they form expectations about positive caregiving experiences. To investigate this, the study showed infants videos of a woman performing household chores, followed by two test videos: one where the woman continued with chores after the baby cried, and another where she comforted the baby.
By measuring the duration of the infants' gaze on each event, the researchers determined whether the "ignore event" surprised the infants. Infants looked longer at the unexpected "ignore event," suggesting they expected the caregiver to comfort the crying baby. This expectation held across different periods in the first year of life, with longer looking times at 6, 9, and 12 months.
Moreover, the study discovered an association between mothers' mental health and infants' expectations about comforting behavior. Mothers reporting higher depressive symptoms showed their infants weaker expectations for caregivers to comfort distress. This suggests that infants' positive expectations for caregiving may shift over time, possibly due to less sensitive caregiving from mothers with depressive symptoms or difficulties regulating themselves in novel environments.
While the exact mechanism remains unclear, the research sheds light on how infants process social interactions and could inform parents about how infants interpret the behavior of unfamiliar caregivers.
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