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Interaction behavior of infants and their dual-career parents
INFANT
BEHAVIOR
AND
DEVELOPMENT
10,
371-377
(1987)
BRIEF REPORT
Interaction Behavior of Infants and their Dual-Career Parents TIFFANY
FIELD, NITZA
SHERI GOLDSTEIN,
VEGA-LAHR,
AND FRANK SCAFIDI University
of Miami
Medical
School
The behaviors of dual-career parents were compared in face-to-face interactions with their g-month-old infants who attended an all-day infant nursery. Mothers, as compared to fathers, exhibited more frequent smiling, vocalizing, and touching with their infants. In turn, the infants spent a greater proportion of the interaction time smiling and being motorically active when they were interacting with their mothers versus their fathers.
parent-infant
interactions
dual-career
parents
fathers
The literature on early infant-parent interactions suggests that interaction behaviors of fathers and mothers are characteristically different (see Lamb, 1981; Parke, 1979; and Yogman, 1982, for reviews). Fathers were noted, for example, to engage in less talking (Rebelsky & Hanks, 1971), more physically playful behaviors (Lamb, 1977; Yogman et al., 1976), or more physical games (Power & Parke, 1979; Yogman, 1977), and in more poking and mimicry of prespeech grimaces than mothers (Trevarthen, 1974). Because these findings were based on observations of employed fathers whose infants were cared for primarily by their mothers, it is not clear whether the father-mother differences were derived from being a father versus a mother, being male versus female, or being employed versus remaining at home with the infant. A comparison between the face-to-face interaction behaviors of primary caregiver fathers and mothers, for example, suggested that in nontraditional families in which fathers remained at home with their infants, their behavior more closely matched the behavior of mothers who remained at home with their infants (Field, 1978). These findings were attributed to the primary caregiver mothers’ and fathers’ greater familiarity with their infants. Another type of nontraditional family is that of dual-career parents. Increasing numbers of mothers in the United States are employed (56070 as of 1983) and dual-career families are more prevalent (Waldman, 1983). A recent comparison of the interaction behaviors of dual-career parents (both parents emThis research was supported by NIMH Research Scientist Development Award #MHCO331 to the first author. We wish to thank the mothers and infants who participated in this study, and Kerry Collins, Marcia Soto, and Wendy Tuttle for their research assistance. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Tiffany Field, Mailman Center for Child Development, University of Miami Medical School, P.O. Box 016820, Miami, FL 33101. 371
372
FIELD,
VEGA-LAHR.
GOLDSTEIN,
AND
SCAFIDI
ployed full-time) yielded parent differences (Zaslow, Pedersen, Suwalsky, Cain, & Fivel, 1985). In this home observation study of employed mothers and fathers interacting as a triad with their infants, the fathers interacted less often than the mothers. The authors suggested that the employed mothers needed to renew contact with the infant and the fathers yielded to the priority of the mother-infant dyad. It is possible, however, that greater similarities would have been noted between the interaction behaviors of the employed mothers and fathers had their interactions been observed in separate dyadic interactions with the infants rather than in a triadic context. The purpose of the present study was to examine similarities and differences in mothers’ and fathers’ face-to-face interaction behaviors when they are both employed but when they are observed in separate dyadic interactions with their infants. The sample was comprised of 18 sequentially enrolled, g-month-old infants (8 females) who attended an all-day university laboratory nursery school. The infants were selected from a larger pool of 32 nursery school infants on the basis of two criteria: (a) that they were firstborn; and (b) that they had attended the same nursery class from the age of 1 to 8 months. Their parents were middle-income (level 2 as assessed by the Hollingshead, 1978, four-factor index), college-educated, full-time (g-hour work days) medical faculty and staff at the same university. To roughly determine the parenting roles of the mothers and fathers, the parents were asked a series of questions including the average amount of time they were employed per day, the amount of time they spent in the presence of their infants per day, the amount of time they spent actively interacting/playing with their infant per day, and the amount of time they spent in caregiving activities (feeding, bathing, rocking, and dressing). These questions were embedded in a questionnaire on infant television-viewing behavior distributed to the entire group of infant nursery parents prior to the observation sessions. Thus the parents were assumed to be less biased in their responses than they might have been if they were asked these questions in the context of knowing their interactions were being compared. The face-to-face infant-parent interactions were subsequently videotaped in a small laboratory in the nursery school (typically following the infants’ lunch period). Although 2 to 5 months was once considered the optimal period for face-to-face interactions based on anecdotal observations (Trevarthen, 1974), recent data suggest that en face play is also an appropriate context for g-monthold infants (Field, Vega-Lahr, Goldstein, & Scafidi, 1987; Fogel, 1982). For the face-to-face interactions, the infant was in a high chair opposite the parent, who was seated on a chair, with approximately 45.72 cm separating their faces. TWO video cameras were 1.83 m from the dyad, and a split screen generator provided a view of the parent’s face and torso and the entire body of the infant. A 5-min interaction was videotaped for each dyad. The order of the motherand father-infant interactions was counterbalanced to control for changing states effects, and a 3-min interval separated the two interaction sessions. The
DUAL-CAREER
PARENTS
373
parents were simply asked to pretend they were at home playing with their infant . The videotapes were coded by research assistants who were naive to the purpose of the study. Using an event recorder, the research assistants coded the absolute duration of the following behaviors: infant smiling, vocalizing, motor activity (limb or trunk movements), distress brow (knitted brow), gaze aversion, and crying; and for the parent, smiling, exaggerated facial expressions, vocalizing, touching (or containing behaviors), and moving the infant’s limbs. In addition, the interaction behaviors of the infants and parents were rated on the Interaction Rating Scale (Field, 1980b). This is a 3-point Likert-type scale that yields a summary score based on an average of the ratings on the following items: (a) infant state, physical activity, head orientation, gaze behavior, facial expressions, vocalizations, imitative behaviors, contingent responsivity, and game playing; and (b) parent state, physical activity, head orientation, gaze behavior, facial expressions, vocalizations, silence during infant gaze aversion, imitative behavior, contingent responsivity, and game playing. Based on Cohen’s Kappa (Bartko & Carpenter, 1976), a chance-corrected statistic, reliabilities ranged between .81 and .90 for infant behaviors (M= .86) and between .81 and .95 for the parent behaviors (M= .90). Since no order of parent interaction effects or sex-of-infant effects were found, repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted with sex-ofparent as the single repeated measure. For the parent-caregiving-role questions, no significant differences, p > .lO, were noted for the amount of time spent in the following activities: (a) parent employment time per day (mother M= 8.1 hours, father M= 8.4 hours); (b) amount of time in presence of infant (mother M=4.8 hours; father M=4.3 hours); (c) amount of time spent actively interacting/playing with their infant per day (mother M= 1.3 hours; father M= 1.1 hours); and (d) amount of time spent in caregiving activities (mother M=2.7 hours; father M = 2.4 hours). Parents reported that they frequently participated jointly in these activities with their infants. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were also performed on the interaction behaviors. Because of the limited sample size, a MANOVA was not possible. Thus, Bonferroni criteria were used to establish acceptable levels of statistical significance. Because only four variables within the parent and infant sets were analyzed (due to low frequencies of some behaviors), and an experiment-wise error rate of .05 was desirable, the acceptable level of significance was set at .Ol (Ew/K = .05/4 = .Ol). These analyses yielded the following differences between parents (see Table 1): (a) The mothers smiled approximately twice the amount of time as the fathers; (b) the mothers tended to vocalize a greater percentage of the time than the fathers; and (c) the mothers touched their infants approximately three times as often as the fathers. Although, mothers also exhibited exaggerated facial expressions and moved their infants’ limbs more often than the fathers, these measures were not submitted to analysis because of their very low occurrence. The infants, in turn, tended to smile
FIELD,
374
Meon
Proportion
VEGA-LAHR,
Time that Parents’ (Intercoder Reliobility
GOLDSTEIN,
TABLE 1 ond Infonts’ Coefficients
AND
SCAFIDI
Interaction Behaviors in Parentheses) Interaction
Porent Behaviors Smiling (.93) Exaggerated Vocalizing Touching
faces
(.95) (.90)
Moving limbs (.93) IRS rating (.Bl) Infant Behoviors Smiling (.90) Vocalizing (.87) Motor
activity
Distress brow Goze aversion Crying (.91) IRS rating (.86)
(.81)
Occurred
Partner
Mother
Father
F
32 05
15 02
9.31 -
48 20
31 09
4.86’ 13.18”’
02 2.75
01 2.83
19 09
12 08
4.92’ 11.27”
l
*
-
(.81)
39
18
(.83) (.82)
05 60
03 51
-
04 2.81
01 2.86
-
* pc.05. * p<.oo5. *** p<.OOl. l
more often and they were motorically more active when they were interacting with their mothers versus their fathers. No differences were noted on the IRS subjective ratings of the parents’ or infants’ affect. Despite the differences in interaction contexts (dyadic vs. triadic and laboratory vs. home observations) of this study and the Zaslow et al. (1985) study, these data are consistent with those of Zaslow et al. who also reported more frequent interaction behavior by employed mothers versus employed fathers. The mothers in this study showed more smiling, vocalizing, and touching with their infants than the fathers did. And, in turn, the infants spent a greater proportion of time smiling and being motorically active when they were interacting with their mothers as opposed to their fathers. Unfortunately, comparisons cannot be made between the infants’ behavior in these two studies since Zaslow et al. did not report the differential behavior of infants toward their mothers and fathers. Although direction of effects cannot be determined from data of these kind, the infants may have shown more frequent arousal behaviors (smiling and motor activity) when they were interacting with their mothers versus their fathers because their mothers exhibited more stimulating or arousing behaviors (smiling, vocalizing, and touching). In a study comparing the 4 and 8 month face-to-face interaction behaviors of infants, Field et al. (1987) noted positive correlations between mother smiling, vocalizing, and touching, and infant
DUAL-CAREER
PARENTS
375
motor activity. Greater infant smiling in interaction with a parent who smiles more frequently also might be a contagion effect, as has been noted in a study of the contingency of mother and infant behaviors (Field, Guy, & Umbel, 1985). It is, of course, equally feasible that a greater incidence of smiling and motor activity by the infants during interactions with their mothers elicited greater amounts of maternal smiling, vocalizing, and touching in response to the infant’s apparent stimulation and arousal-modulation needs. It would be desirable to conduct lag sequential analyses on a larger sample studied longitudinally to determine the direction of effects in these interactions, and their development. One of the most notable results was the high proportion of infant gaze aversion in the presence of each parent (60% with mother and 51% with father). Inasmuch as infant gaze aversion typically increases as parent activity increases (Field, 1980a), it is surprising that infant gaze aversion to parents was equal despite their fathers’ lower activity levels (i.e., lower proportions of touching). These results suggest a curvilinear relationship between parental activity and infant gaze aversion (Field, 1980a). Both the high proportion of infant gaze aversion and low proportion of paternal touching are inconsistent with data on families in which mothers remained at home with their infants (Trevarthen, 1974; Yogman, 1977). The discrepancies may, therefore, be related to changes in parental roles. Assuming the parents were leading these interactions, as has been observed in other studies at this age, it is difficult to understand why the mothers would be more active than the fathers. One possibility is suggested by a study of highrisk infants and their mothers and fathers (Field, 1980a). Mothers were more active with their infants, a finding that was interpreted as greater protectiveness and anxiety about their infants’ condition. Employed mothers of infants attending infant nurseries express more anxiety and show more reluctance to leave their infants at the nursery during daily leavetakings than fathers do (Field et al., 1983), a pattern that might relate to their greater guilt about relinquishing a primary caregiver role by being employed full-time and leaving their infants for long periods with other caregivers. Their greater activity during interactions with their infants may be an attempt to compensate for the loss of time and caregiving experiences with their infants. As Pedersen and his colleagues (Pedersen, Cain, Zaslow, & Anderson, 1982) suggested in a study that yielded similar differences in parental behavior, employed mothers may compensate for the lack of available time by intensifying their interaction. Zaslow et al. (1985) also provided a similar interpretation of their data, attributing greater maternal interactive behavior to the employed mothers’ need to renew contact and the fathers yielding to the priority of the mother-infant dyad. These resu!ts point to a clear role difference for dual-career mothers and fathers; even though they are both in the labor force and for an equal amount of time each day, they do not share or feel equally the responsibility of child care. Almost all time budget studies show that mothers, regardless of employment
FIELD,
376
VEGA-LAHR,
GOLDSTEIN,
AND
SCAFIDI
or role, still assume more caregiving tasks than fathers. The fathers’ self-report in this study may reflect an over-estimate of their involvement in caregiving. Another possibility is that there are parent differences in reactions to being observed/videotaped. Mothers who “feel more guilty” about being employed might perform more when videotaped. Fathers, on the other hand, might feel more inhibited than mothers and thus be less interactive. Although the fathers did not appear more reluctant to participate in this study than the mothers, the parents, unfortunately, were not asked about their reactions to being videotaped. The age of the infants and interaction context might also contribute to the difference. That is, by the time the infant is 8 months old, the high chair situation, which prevents the parent from picking up the child and engaging in more active physical play, may be more alien to fathers than to mothers. Finally, since the parents reported on the questionnaire that they frequently engaged in joint play/caregiving activities with their infants, the triadic home interaction context used by Zaslow et al. (1985) may have been more familiar to them. The dyadic, face-to-face laboratory situation may have seemed unnatural to the parents, thus distorting their interactive behavior. However, the similarities of the Zaslow et al. data and these data, despite the different observational contexts, suggest that parent roles may have an important influence on parental behavior. The possibility remains that different sampling, methodologies, and observational contexts may have contributed to the inconsistency between the data on unemployed parents (Field, 1978) and dual-career parents (this study). In addition, the generalizability of these findings is limited given that this sample of employed mothers was somewhat unusual (i.e., middle-class, highly educated mothers returning to work full-time when their infants were one month of age). A study on a more representative sample featuring all possible combinations of employment/unemployment and gender of parent might provide a clearer picture of how these phenomena are related to early interaction behaviors. REFERENCES Bartko.
J.J.,
& Carpenter,
and Mental Field,
T. (1978).
(1976).
163, 307-3
Interaction
Psychology, Field,
W.T.
Disease,
behaviors
On the methods
of reliability.
o/ Nervous
of primary
vs. secondary
caretaker
fathers.
Developmenral
14, 183-184.
T. (1980a). Interactions Sawin, R.C. Hawkins,
psychosocial
risks
of high-risk infants: Quantitative and qualitative differences. II, L.D. Walker, & J.H. Penticuff (Eds.), Currenr perspectives during pregnancy and earl-v infoncv. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Field,
T. (1980b). Interactions of preterm and term infants teenage and adult mothers. In T. Field, S. Goldberg,
Field,
.T..
risk infants
J.L..
and
reunions
ment. T.,
Guy,
Mental
and children:
Gewirtz,
taking Field,
The Journal
17.
Adulr
Cohen,
D.,
of infants,
In D.
on
with their lowerand middle-class D. Stern, & A. Sostek (Eds.), Highand peer inreraclions. New York: Academic. Garcia, R., Greenberg, R., & Collins, D. (1983). Leavetoddlers,
preschoolers,
and
their
parents.
Child
Develop-
55. 628-635. L.,
Healrh
& Umbel.
Journal,
V. (1985).
6. 40-44.
Infants’
responses
to mothers’
imitative
vchaviors.
Infanr
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PARENTS
Field,
T., Vega-Lahr. N.. Goldstein, S., & Scafidi, F. (1987). Face-to-face interaction behavior across early infancy. Infant Behavior and Development, IO, 111-I 16. Fogel, A. (1982). Affect dynamics in early infancy: Affective tolerance. In T. Field & A. Fogel (Eds.), Emorion and early inreracfion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Hollingshead, A.B. (1978). Fourfactor index of social sfatus. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University. Lamb, M.E. (1977). Fdther-iniant and mother-infant interaction in the first year of life. Child Development, 49, I67- 181. Lamb, M.E. (1981). The development of father-infant relationships. In M.E. Lamb (Ed.), The role of rhe farher in child developmenr. New York: Wiley. Parke, R.D. (1979). Perspectives on father-infant interactions. In J. Osofsky (Ed.), Handbook of infant developmen!. New York: Wiley. Pedersen. F.A., Cain, R.L., Zaslow, M., & Anderson, B.J. (1982). Variation in infant experience associated with alternative family roles. In L. Laosa & I. Sigel (Eds.), Families as leurning environmenls for children. New York: Plomin. Power, T.G., & Parke, R.D. (1979, March). Toward a raxonomy of father-infant und motherinfant play potterns. Paper presented at the Society for Research in Child Development, San Francisco, CA. Rebelsky, F.. & Hanks, C. (1971). Fathers’ verbal interaction with infants in the first three months of life. Child Developmenr, 42, 63-68. Trevarthen. C. (1974). Conversations with a 2-month-old. New Scienfist, 22, 230-235. Waldman, E. (1983). Labor force statistics from a family perspective. Monrhly Lubor Review, 106, 16-20. Yogman, M.W. (1977, March). The goals and siructure of face-lo-face interaction between infants andfathers. Paper presented at the Society for Research in Child Development, New Orleans, LA. Yogman, M.W. (1982). Development of the father-infant relationship. In H. Fitzgerald, B. Lester, & M.W. Yogman (Eds.), Theory ond research in behavioralpediatrics (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Plenum. Yogman, M.W., Dixon, S., Tronick, E., Adamson, L., Als, H., & Brazelton, T.B. (1976, April). Development of social inleracrion of infants with fathers. Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, NY. Zaslow, M.J., Pedersen, F.A., Suwalsky, J.T.D., Cain, R.L., & Five], M. (1985). The early resumption of employment by mothers: Implications for parent-infant interaction. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 6, 1-16. 19 August
1986;
Revised
11 May
1987
n
BEHAVIOR
AND
DEVELOPMENT
10,
371-377
(1987)
BRIEF REPORT
Interaction Behavior of Infants and their Dual-Career Parents TIFFANY
FIELD, NITZA
SHERI GOLDSTEIN,
VEGA-LAHR,
AND FRANK SCAFIDI University
of Miami
Medical
School
The behaviors of dual-career parents were compared in face-to-face interactions with their g-month-old infants who attended an all-day infant nursery. Mothers, as compared to fathers, exhibited more frequent smiling, vocalizing, and touching with their infants. In turn, the infants spent a greater proportion of the interaction time smiling and being motorically active when they were interacting with their mothers versus their fathers.
parent-infant
interactions
dual-career
parents
fathers
The literature on early infant-parent interactions suggests that interaction behaviors of fathers and mothers are characteristically different (see Lamb, 1981; Parke, 1979; and Yogman, 1982, for reviews). Fathers were noted, for example, to engage in less talking (Rebelsky & Hanks, 1971), more physically playful behaviors (Lamb, 1977; Yogman et al., 1976), or more physical games (Power & Parke, 1979; Yogman, 1977), and in more poking and mimicry of prespeech grimaces than mothers (Trevarthen, 1974). Because these findings were based on observations of employed fathers whose infants were cared for primarily by their mothers, it is not clear whether the father-mother differences were derived from being a father versus a mother, being male versus female, or being employed versus remaining at home with the infant. A comparison between the face-to-face interaction behaviors of primary caregiver fathers and mothers, for example, suggested that in nontraditional families in which fathers remained at home with their infants, their behavior more closely matched the behavior of mothers who remained at home with their infants (Field, 1978). These findings were attributed to the primary caregiver mothers’ and fathers’ greater familiarity with their infants. Another type of nontraditional family is that of dual-career parents. Increasing numbers of mothers in the United States are employed (56070 as of 1983) and dual-career families are more prevalent (Waldman, 1983). A recent comparison of the interaction behaviors of dual-career parents (both parents emThis research was supported by NIMH Research Scientist Development Award #MHCO331 to the first author. We wish to thank the mothers and infants who participated in this study, and Kerry Collins, Marcia Soto, and Wendy Tuttle for their research assistance. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Tiffany Field, Mailman Center for Child Development, University of Miami Medical School, P.O. Box 016820, Miami, FL 33101. 371
372
FIELD,
VEGA-LAHR.
GOLDSTEIN,
AND
SCAFIDI
ployed full-time) yielded parent differences (Zaslow, Pedersen, Suwalsky, Cain, & Fivel, 1985). In this home observation study of employed mothers and fathers interacting as a triad with their infants, the fathers interacted less often than the mothers. The authors suggested that the employed mothers needed to renew contact with the infant and the fathers yielded to the priority of the mother-infant dyad. It is possible, however, that greater similarities would have been noted between the interaction behaviors of the employed mothers and fathers had their interactions been observed in separate dyadic interactions with the infants rather than in a triadic context. The purpose of the present study was to examine similarities and differences in mothers’ and fathers’ face-to-face interaction behaviors when they are both employed but when they are observed in separate dyadic interactions with their infants. The sample was comprised of 18 sequentially enrolled, g-month-old infants (8 females) who attended an all-day university laboratory nursery school. The infants were selected from a larger pool of 32 nursery school infants on the basis of two criteria: (a) that they were firstborn; and (b) that they had attended the same nursery class from the age of 1 to 8 months. Their parents were middle-income (level 2 as assessed by the Hollingshead, 1978, four-factor index), college-educated, full-time (g-hour work days) medical faculty and staff at the same university. To roughly determine the parenting roles of the mothers and fathers, the parents were asked a series of questions including the average amount of time they were employed per day, the amount of time they spent in the presence of their infants per day, the amount of time they spent actively interacting/playing with their infant per day, and the amount of time they spent in caregiving activities (feeding, bathing, rocking, and dressing). These questions were embedded in a questionnaire on infant television-viewing behavior distributed to the entire group of infant nursery parents prior to the observation sessions. Thus the parents were assumed to be less biased in their responses than they might have been if they were asked these questions in the context of knowing their interactions were being compared. The face-to-face infant-parent interactions were subsequently videotaped in a small laboratory in the nursery school (typically following the infants’ lunch period). Although 2 to 5 months was once considered the optimal period for face-to-face interactions based on anecdotal observations (Trevarthen, 1974), recent data suggest that en face play is also an appropriate context for g-monthold infants (Field, Vega-Lahr, Goldstein, & Scafidi, 1987; Fogel, 1982). For the face-to-face interactions, the infant was in a high chair opposite the parent, who was seated on a chair, with approximately 45.72 cm separating their faces. TWO video cameras were 1.83 m from the dyad, and a split screen generator provided a view of the parent’s face and torso and the entire body of the infant. A 5-min interaction was videotaped for each dyad. The order of the motherand father-infant interactions was counterbalanced to control for changing states effects, and a 3-min interval separated the two interaction sessions. The
DUAL-CAREER
PARENTS
373
parents were simply asked to pretend they were at home playing with their infant . The videotapes were coded by research assistants who were naive to the purpose of the study. Using an event recorder, the research assistants coded the absolute duration of the following behaviors: infant smiling, vocalizing, motor activity (limb or trunk movements), distress brow (knitted brow), gaze aversion, and crying; and for the parent, smiling, exaggerated facial expressions, vocalizing, touching (or containing behaviors), and moving the infant’s limbs. In addition, the interaction behaviors of the infants and parents were rated on the Interaction Rating Scale (Field, 1980b). This is a 3-point Likert-type scale that yields a summary score based on an average of the ratings on the following items: (a) infant state, physical activity, head orientation, gaze behavior, facial expressions, vocalizations, imitative behaviors, contingent responsivity, and game playing; and (b) parent state, physical activity, head orientation, gaze behavior, facial expressions, vocalizations, silence during infant gaze aversion, imitative behavior, contingent responsivity, and game playing. Based on Cohen’s Kappa (Bartko & Carpenter, 1976), a chance-corrected statistic, reliabilities ranged between .81 and .90 for infant behaviors (M= .86) and between .81 and .95 for the parent behaviors (M= .90). Since no order of parent interaction effects or sex-of-infant effects were found, repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted with sex-ofparent as the single repeated measure. For the parent-caregiving-role questions, no significant differences, p > .lO, were noted for the amount of time spent in the following activities: (a) parent employment time per day (mother M= 8.1 hours, father M= 8.4 hours); (b) amount of time in presence of infant (mother M=4.8 hours; father M=4.3 hours); (c) amount of time spent actively interacting/playing with their infant per day (mother M= 1.3 hours; father M= 1.1 hours); and (d) amount of time spent in caregiving activities (mother M=2.7 hours; father M = 2.4 hours). Parents reported that they frequently participated jointly in these activities with their infants. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were also performed on the interaction behaviors. Because of the limited sample size, a MANOVA was not possible. Thus, Bonferroni criteria were used to establish acceptable levels of statistical significance. Because only four variables within the parent and infant sets were analyzed (due to low frequencies of some behaviors), and an experiment-wise error rate of .05 was desirable, the acceptable level of significance was set at .Ol (Ew/K = .05/4 = .Ol). These analyses yielded the following differences between parents (see Table 1): (a) The mothers smiled approximately twice the amount of time as the fathers; (b) the mothers tended to vocalize a greater percentage of the time than the fathers; and (c) the mothers touched their infants approximately three times as often as the fathers. Although, mothers also exhibited exaggerated facial expressions and moved their infants’ limbs more often than the fathers, these measures were not submitted to analysis because of their very low occurrence. The infants, in turn, tended to smile
FIELD,
374
Meon
Proportion
VEGA-LAHR,
Time that Parents’ (Intercoder Reliobility
GOLDSTEIN,
TABLE 1 ond Infonts’ Coefficients
AND
SCAFIDI
Interaction Behaviors in Parentheses) Interaction
Porent Behaviors Smiling (.93) Exaggerated Vocalizing Touching
faces
(.95) (.90)
Moving limbs (.93) IRS rating (.Bl) Infant Behoviors Smiling (.90) Vocalizing (.87) Motor
activity
Distress brow Goze aversion Crying (.91) IRS rating (.86)
(.81)
Occurred
Partner
Mother
Father
F
32 05
15 02
9.31 -
48 20
31 09
4.86’ 13.18”’
02 2.75
01 2.83
19 09
12 08
4.92’ 11.27”
l
*
-
(.81)
39
18
(.83) (.82)
05 60
03 51
-
04 2.81
01 2.86
-
* pc.05. * p<.oo5. *** p<.OOl. l
more often and they were motorically more active when they were interacting with their mothers versus their fathers. No differences were noted on the IRS subjective ratings of the parents’ or infants’ affect. Despite the differences in interaction contexts (dyadic vs. triadic and laboratory vs. home observations) of this study and the Zaslow et al. (1985) study, these data are consistent with those of Zaslow et al. who also reported more frequent interaction behavior by employed mothers versus employed fathers. The mothers in this study showed more smiling, vocalizing, and touching with their infants than the fathers did. And, in turn, the infants spent a greater proportion of time smiling and being motorically active when they were interacting with their mothers as opposed to their fathers. Unfortunately, comparisons cannot be made between the infants’ behavior in these two studies since Zaslow et al. did not report the differential behavior of infants toward their mothers and fathers. Although direction of effects cannot be determined from data of these kind, the infants may have shown more frequent arousal behaviors (smiling and motor activity) when they were interacting with their mothers versus their fathers because their mothers exhibited more stimulating or arousing behaviors (smiling, vocalizing, and touching). In a study comparing the 4 and 8 month face-to-face interaction behaviors of infants, Field et al. (1987) noted positive correlations between mother smiling, vocalizing, and touching, and infant
DUAL-CAREER
PARENTS
375
motor activity. Greater infant smiling in interaction with a parent who smiles more frequently also might be a contagion effect, as has been noted in a study of the contingency of mother and infant behaviors (Field, Guy, & Umbel, 1985). It is, of course, equally feasible that a greater incidence of smiling and motor activity by the infants during interactions with their mothers elicited greater amounts of maternal smiling, vocalizing, and touching in response to the infant’s apparent stimulation and arousal-modulation needs. It would be desirable to conduct lag sequential analyses on a larger sample studied longitudinally to determine the direction of effects in these interactions, and their development. One of the most notable results was the high proportion of infant gaze aversion in the presence of each parent (60% with mother and 51% with father). Inasmuch as infant gaze aversion typically increases as parent activity increases (Field, 1980a), it is surprising that infant gaze aversion to parents was equal despite their fathers’ lower activity levels (i.e., lower proportions of touching). These results suggest a curvilinear relationship between parental activity and infant gaze aversion (Field, 1980a). Both the high proportion of infant gaze aversion and low proportion of paternal touching are inconsistent with data on families in which mothers remained at home with their infants (Trevarthen, 1974; Yogman, 1977). The discrepancies may, therefore, be related to changes in parental roles. Assuming the parents were leading these interactions, as has been observed in other studies at this age, it is difficult to understand why the mothers would be more active than the fathers. One possibility is suggested by a study of highrisk infants and their mothers and fathers (Field, 1980a). Mothers were more active with their infants, a finding that was interpreted as greater protectiveness and anxiety about their infants’ condition. Employed mothers of infants attending infant nurseries express more anxiety and show more reluctance to leave their infants at the nursery during daily leavetakings than fathers do (Field et al., 1983), a pattern that might relate to their greater guilt about relinquishing a primary caregiver role by being employed full-time and leaving their infants for long periods with other caregivers. Their greater activity during interactions with their infants may be an attempt to compensate for the loss of time and caregiving experiences with their infants. As Pedersen and his colleagues (Pedersen, Cain, Zaslow, & Anderson, 1982) suggested in a study that yielded similar differences in parental behavior, employed mothers may compensate for the lack of available time by intensifying their interaction. Zaslow et al. (1985) also provided a similar interpretation of their data, attributing greater maternal interactive behavior to the employed mothers’ need to renew contact and the fathers yielding to the priority of the mother-infant dyad. These resu!ts point to a clear role difference for dual-career mothers and fathers; even though they are both in the labor force and for an equal amount of time each day, they do not share or feel equally the responsibility of child care. Almost all time budget studies show that mothers, regardless of employment
FIELD,
376
VEGA-LAHR,
GOLDSTEIN,
AND
SCAFIDI
or role, still assume more caregiving tasks than fathers. The fathers’ self-report in this study may reflect an over-estimate of their involvement in caregiving. Another possibility is that there are parent differences in reactions to being observed/videotaped. Mothers who “feel more guilty” about being employed might perform more when videotaped. Fathers, on the other hand, might feel more inhibited than mothers and thus be less interactive. Although the fathers did not appear more reluctant to participate in this study than the mothers, the parents, unfortunately, were not asked about their reactions to being videotaped. The age of the infants and interaction context might also contribute to the difference. That is, by the time the infant is 8 months old, the high chair situation, which prevents the parent from picking up the child and engaging in more active physical play, may be more alien to fathers than to mothers. Finally, since the parents reported on the questionnaire that they frequently engaged in joint play/caregiving activities with their infants, the triadic home interaction context used by Zaslow et al. (1985) may have been more familiar to them. The dyadic, face-to-face laboratory situation may have seemed unnatural to the parents, thus distorting their interactive behavior. However, the similarities of the Zaslow et al. data and these data, despite the different observational contexts, suggest that parent roles may have an important influence on parental behavior. The possibility remains that different sampling, methodologies, and observational contexts may have contributed to the inconsistency between the data on unemployed parents (Field, 1978) and dual-career parents (this study). In addition, the generalizability of these findings is limited given that this sample of employed mothers was somewhat unusual (i.e., middle-class, highly educated mothers returning to work full-time when their infants were one month of age). A study on a more representative sample featuring all possible combinations of employment/unemployment and gender of parent might provide a clearer picture of how these phenomena are related to early interaction behaviors. REFERENCES Bartko.
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