Assessing bidirectional relations between infant temperamental negative affect, maternal anxiety symptoms and infant affect-biased attention across the first 24-months of life

Abstract

Developmental theories suggest affect-biased attention, preferential attention to emotionally salient stimuli, emerges during infancy through coordinating individual differences. Here we examined bidirectional relations between infant affect-biased attention, temperamental negative affect, and maternal anxiety symptoms using a Random Intercepts Cross-Lagged Panel model (RI-CLPM). Infant-mother pairs from Central Pennsylvania and Northern New Jersey (N = 342; 52% White; 50% reported as assigned female at birth) participated when infants were 4, 8, 12, 18 and 24 months of age. Infants completed the overlap task while eye-tracking data were collected. Mothers reported their infant's negative affect and their own anxiety symptoms. In an RI-CLPM, after accounting for between-person variance (random intercepts representing the latent average of a construct), it is possible to assess within-person variance (individual deviations from the latent average of a construct). Positive relations represent stability in constructs (smaller within-person deviations). Negative relations represent fluctuation in constructs (larger within-person deviations). At the between-person level (random intercepts), mothers with greater anxiety symptoms had infants with greater affect-biased attention. However, at the within-person level (deviations), greater fluctuation in maternal anxiety symptoms at 12- and 18 months prospectively related to greater stability in attention to angry facial configurations. Additionally, greater fluctuation in maternal anxiety symptoms at 18 months prospectively related to greater stability in attention to happy facial configurations. Finally, greater fluctuation in maternal anxiety symptoms at 4- and 12 months prospectively related to greater stability in infant negative affect. These results suggest that environmental uncertainty, linked to fluctuating maternal anxiety, may shape early socioemotional development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Figure 1.

Overlap task. Images drawn from NimStim face set (Tottenham et al., 2009), approved for publication and not of the authors. Initial fixation presented for 1000ms. Central face present alone for 1000ms. Central face presented with peripheral checkerboard for 3000ms.

Figure 2.

Relations between dwell to angry (aba), happy (abh) and neutral (abn) facial configurations in the presence of the probe. At all assessments, attention to all facial configurations was highly correlated.

Figure 3.

RI-CLPM assessing bidirectional relations between infant negative affect (na), maternal anxiety symptoms (ma), infant affect-biased attention to angry facial configurations (aba) and infant affect-biased attention to happy facial configurations (abh). RI-CLPM models measure within-person deviation in relation to the latent average of a construct (random intercepts). For observed constructs, positive relations represent lower within-person deviations (stability) in one construct relating to lower within-person deviations (stability) in another construct and negative relations represent greater within-person deviations (fluctuation) in one construct relating to lower within-person deviations (stability) in another construct. Visualization created using tidySEM (Van Lissa, 2019).