Manczak Erika M, Mangelsdorf Sarah C, McAdams Dan P, Wong Maria S, Schoppe-Sullivan Sarah, Brown Geoffrey L
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, United States.
Office of the Provost, University of Wisconsin, United States.
Infant Behav Dev. 2016 Aug;44:77-85. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2016.06.001. Epub 2016 Jun 17.
The current study examined whether autobiographical memories from parents' own childhoods, prebirth expectations, and personality traits contributed to their perceptions of their infants' temperament. It also investigated whether mothers and fathers differed in the extent to which these three sources of subjectivity predicted their perceptions. During the third trimester of pregnancy, expectant mothers and fathers in 96 families completed assessments of their personality traits and expectations for their children's temperament, as well as provided characteristic memories of their relationships with their own caregivers as children. Memories were then coded for themes of growth versus safety and compared to parents' ratings of perceived child temperament 15 months later. Analyses revealed that, for both parents, prebirth expectations predicted perceptions of positive temperament behaviors. Moreover, fathers who described childhoods characterized by exploration and opportunities for growth also perceived their children as displaying more positive temperamental behaviors, whereas those who described greater safety focus in memories and who had higher levels of negative affectivity reported more negative temperamental behaviors. These findings suggest that mothers' and fathers' perceptions of their children are differently related to psychological variables, including autobiographical memories. In turn, it is possible that these subjective perceptions may affect the parenting environment.
本研究考察了父母自身童年的自传体记忆、产前期望和人格特质是否影响他们对婴儿气质的认知。研究还探讨了父母在这三种主观性来源对其认知的预测程度上是否存在差异。在孕期的第三个阶段，96个家庭中的准父母完成了对其人格特质、对孩子气质的期望的评估，并提供了他们童年时期与自己照顾者关系的典型记忆。然后对这些记忆进行成长与安全主题的编码，并与15个月后父母对孩子气质的感知评分进行比较。分析表明，对父母双方而言，产前期望都能预测对积极气质行为的认知。此外，那些描述童年以探索和成长机会为特征的父亲，也认为自己的孩子表现出更多积极的气质行为，而那些在记忆中描述更关注安全且消极情感水平较高的父亲，则报告孩子有更多消极的气质行为。这些发现表明，父母对孩子的认知与心理变量（包括自传体记忆）的关系有所不同。反过来，这些主观认知可能会影响养育环境。
