DEPRESSED MOTHERS AND THEIR INFANTS INTERACTIONS WITH NONDEPRESSED PARTNERS

Twenty depressed adolescent mothers were videotaped interacting with t heir own infant and with the infant of a nondepressed mother. In addit ion, nondepressed mothers were videotaped with their own infant as wel l as with the infant of a depressed mother. Depressed mothers showed l ess facial expressivity than nondepressed mothers and received less op timal interaction rating scale scores (a summary score for state, phys ical activity, head orientation, gaze, silence during gaze aversion, f acial expressions, vocalizations, infantized behavior, contingent resp onsivity, and gameplaying). This occurred independent of whether they were interacting with their own infant versus an infant of a nondepres sed mother, suggesting that depressed mothers display less optimal beh aviors to infants in general. The infants of both depressed and nondep ressed mothers received better head orientation and summary ratings wh en they were interacting with another mother, perhaps because the othe r mother was more novel. Infants of nondepressed mothers in particular , had better summary ratings (state, physical activity, head orientati on, gaze, facial expressions, fussiness, and vocalizations) than the i nfants of depressed mothers when interacting with depressed mothers. T hus, it may be that infants of nondepressed mothers are generally bett er interaction partners than infants of depressed mothers. Another rel ated possibility is that they persist longer in trying to elicit a res ponse from mothers less responsive than their own, given that they hav e learned to expect a response to their behavior.