Mothers’ Attachment to Infants: Relations with Infant Temperament, Stress, and Responsive Maternal Behavior

Abstract

According to attachment theory, mothers’ internal effective responses to their infant would predict their responsive behavior. Moreover, following the transactional model, maternal stress and infant temperament could affect both maternal feelings and behaviors. In this study, 38 mothers completed attachment, stress, and infant temperament questionnaires, and were observed interacting with their infants, when the infants were six weeks and nine months old. Maternal feelings of attachment were unrelated to their responsive behaviors. More severely stressed mothers felt less attached at six weeks, but stress did not affect maternal behaviors. Fussy babies had less attached mothers: the effect of temperatment on responsive behaviour was more complex. Mothers of fussier babies were less responsive. Mothers also reported feeling more attached to boys. Discussion centered on the buffering of maternal responsive behavior, development of maternal attachment, and the need to examine maternal attachment and responsiveness separately.