The role of maternal affect mirroring on social expectancies in three-month-old infants

The role of maternal affect mirroring on the development of prosocial behav iors and social expectancies was assessed in forty-one 2- to 3-month-old in fants. Prosocial behavior was characterized as infants' positive behavior a nd increased attention toward their mothers. Social expectancies were defin ed as infants' expectancy for affective sharing. Mothers and infants were o bserved twice, approximately 1 week apart. During Visit 1, mothers and infa nts were videotaped while interacting over television monitors for 3 min. D uring Visit 2, infants engaged in a live, 3-min interaction with their moth ers over television monitors (live condition) and they also viewed a replay of their mothers' interaction from the preceding week (replay condition). The order of conditions was counterbalanced. Maternal affect mirroring was measured according to the level of attention maintenance, warm sensitivity, and social responsiveness displayed. A natural split was observed with 58% of the mothers ranking high and 42% ranking low on these affect mirroring measures (HAM and LAM, respectively). Infants in the HAM group ranked high on prosocial behaviors and social expectancy-they discriminated between liv e and replay, conditions with smiles, vocalizations, and gazes. Infants in the LAM group ranked low on these variables-they gazed longer during the li ve condition than during the replay condition, but only when the live condi tion was presented first; however, they did not smile or vocalize more. The se findings indicate that there is a relation between affect mirroring and social expectancies in infants.