THE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERAMENT AND MOTHERING ON ATTACHMENT AND EXPLORATION - AN EXPERIMENTAL MANIPULATION OF SENSITIVE RESPONSIVENESS AMONG LOWER-CLASS MOTHERS WITH IRRITABLE INFANTS

6-month-old infants selected on irritability shortly after birth and t heir mothers were randomly assigned to 2 intervention and 2 control gr oups to test the hypothesis that enhancing maternal sensitive responsi veness will improve quality of mother-infant interaction, infant explo ration, and attachment. The intervention lasted 3 months and ended whe n the child was 9 months of age. When infants were 9 months of age, in tervention group mothers were significantly more responsive, stimulati ng, visually attentive, and controlling of their infant's behavior tha n control group mothers. Intervention infants had higher scores than c ontrol infants on sociability, self-soothing, and exploration, and the y cried less. Quality of exploration also improved, with intervention infants engaged in cognitively sophisticated kinds of exploration more than control infants. At 12 months of age, significantly more interve ntion group dyads were securely attached than control group dyads.