Beyond the Words: Comparing Interpersonal Engagement Between Maternal and Paternal Infant-Directed Speech Acts

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Theano Kokkinaki¹  Vassilis G. S. Vasdekis² 

[1] Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Crete;Department of Statistics, Athens University of Economics and Business

关键词: questions;    direct requests;    facial expressions;    emotions;    interpersonal engagement;    innate intersubjectivity;    infancy;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.523551

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The present study investigates the way infants express their emotions in relation to parental feelings between maternal and paternal questions and direct requests. We therefore compared interpersonal engagement accompanying parental questions and direct requests between infant–mother and infant–father interactions. We video-recorded spontaneous communication between 11 infant–mother and 11 infant–father dyads—from the 2nd to the 6th month—in their home. The main results of this study are summarized as follows: (a) there are similarities in the way preverbal infants use their affections in spontaneous interactions with their mothers and fathers to express signs of sensitivity in sharing knowledge through questions and direct requests; and (b) the developmental trajectories of face-to-face emotional coordination in the course of parental questions descend in a similar way for both parents across the age range of this study. Regarding the developmental trajectories of emotional non-coordination, there is evidence of a linear trend in terms of age difference between the parents’ gender with fathers showing the steeper slope. The results are discussed in relation to the theory of intersubjectivity.

【 授权许可】

CC BY