Marital Harmony and Conflict: Links to Infants' Emotional Regulation and Cardiac Vagal Tone

Abstract

This study is an investigation of linkages between marital quality (conflict and harmony) and infants' emotional and physiological regulation: It was hypothesized that infants exposed to greater levels of marital conflict would demonstrate lower levels of emotional and physiological regulation. Fifty‐six low‐risk infants and their mothers attended a laboratory session when infants were 6 months of age. A baseline EKG was gathered to assess infants' cardiac vagal tone and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and Behavior Rating Scales were administered. Mothers also completed Braiker and Kelley's (1979) marital quality questionnaire. Consistent with past research with preschoolers, marital conflict was found to be linked to lower levels of emotion regulation in infants. However, unlike past research (Gottman & Katz, 1989), results indicated that marital conflict was associated with lower levels of cardiac vagal tone in infants as opposed to higher levels of vagal tone among preschoolers. These findings are explained in terms of a possible developmental alteration in the link between marital conflict and vagal tone from early infancy to later childhood. Findings also have important implications for understanding the potential impact of the early marital relational context for infants emerging regulatory abilities.