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

Abstract

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). 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. 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. 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.