Infant Socioemotional Development Research Articles

Determinants of attachment and mastery motivation in infants born to adolescent mothers

Thirty mothers aged 14–19 and their approximately one-year-old babies participated in this study of the influence of the social support network and stress on infant-mother attachment and on mastery motivation. During the home visit the mothers completed a demographic questionnaire, the Psychosocial Kinship Inventory and the Life Events Stress Scale. In the laboratory the infants' mastery motivation and infant-mother attachment were assessed. A discriminant function analysis indicated that infant-mother attachment was predicted best by the social support network. Multiple regression analyses showed that infant persistence was significantly related to the social network, living with the infant's grandmother and financial aid. The results stress the importance of contextual influences on infant socio-emotional development.