Institute of Education and Child Studies.
J Fam Psychol. 2019 Oct;33(7):851-856. doi: 10.1037/fam0000562. Epub 2019 Jul 18.
To date, results have been inconsistent in whether mothers show higher parental sensitivity to their infant than fathers do. The context in which sensitivity is measured may play a role in these inconsistent findings, but this has not been examined yet. The aim of the current study was to test context as a source of variability in parental sensitivity, comparing maternal and paternal sensitivity to infants in four different observational settings. Participants included 109 families with their 4-month-old infants. Parental sensitivity was observed during a routine caregiving session, free play episode, and the baseline and reunion of the Still Face Procedure. Results demonstrated that parental sensitivity showed weak to strong stability (correlations) across the four contexts. Furthermore, overall levels of parental sensitivity were higher in more naturalistic contexts (routine caregiving > free play > Still Face). Lastly, mothers and fathers were overall equally sensitive across contexts. Our findings highlight the importance of taking context into account when observing parental sensitivity in research as well as practice. Furthermore, future research should examine the emergence of possible differences in maternal and paternal sensitivity over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
迄今为止，关于母亲是否比父亲对婴儿表现出更高的育儿敏感性，研究结果并不一致。敏感性的测量情境可能在这些不一致的发现中发挥作用，但这尚未得到检验。本研究旨在测试情境作为育儿敏感性变异性的来源，比较了 4 种不同观察情境下母亲和父亲对婴儿的敏感性。参与者包括 109 个有 4 个月大婴儿的家庭。在常规护理、自由游戏、静止面孔程序的基线和重聚期间，观察了父母的敏感性。结果表明，敏感性在四个情境中具有弱到强的稳定性（相关性）。此外，在更自然的情境中，父母的敏感性总体水平更高（常规护理>自由游戏>静止面孔）。最后，母亲和父亲在各个情境中总体上同样敏感。我们的研究结果强调了在研究和实践中观察父母敏感性时考虑情境的重要性。此外，未来的研究应该考察母婴敏感性随时间的可能差异的出现。
