Dynamics of emotion regulation in infants of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Emotion regulation (ER) has been conceptualized as an ongoing process of the individual's emotion patterns in relation to moment-to-moment contextual demands. In contrast to traditional approaches of descriptively quantizing ER, we employed a dynamic approach to ER by examining key transitions in infants of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers in the context of maternal still-face (SF). METHODS: Mothers with (n = 48) and without a clinical diagnosis of depression (n = 68) were seen in a modified SF paradigm with their 5-month-olds. Infant states and self-soothing behaviors were coded in 1-sec time intervals. RESULTS: Infants of nondepressed mothers used attentional regulatory strategies, whereas infants of depressed mothers used internally directed strategies of self-soothing to reduce negativity and maintain engagement with mother. CONCLUSIONS: This study advances our understanding of processes underlying infant ER and points to possible mechanisms for the development of long-term maladaptive ER strategies in infants of depressed mothers.

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