10 documents found, page 1 of 1

Family matters: Growing up in family-based care makes a world of a difference

Worldwide millions of children and youth live in institutions that may not provide basic conditions for good-enough care, and these numbers are predicted to increase drastically because of the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and wars raging in several parts of the world. We show that three conditions are essential: safe, stable, and shared care (Triple S care). Safe care means a caregiving environment free from...

Couples’ empathy and sensitive responsiveness to a crying baby simulator

Emotional empathy has been linked to prosocial behaviors and is deemed crucial for parenting and caring for infants. This study examined whether emotional empathy (dispositional and in response to infant crying) is associated with sensitive responsiveness, as observed in 221 heterosexual couples (half of whom were expecting their first child) during a standardized caregiving situation. Simulators resembling rea...

Oxytocin and state attachment responses to secure base support after stress in ...

We tried to replicate the finding that receiving care increases children’s oxytocin and secure state attachment levels, and tested whether secure trait attachment moderates the oxytocin and state attachment response to care. 109 children (9-11 years old; M = 9.59; SD = 0.63; 34.9% boys) participated in a within-subject experiment. After stress induction (Trier Social Stress Test), children first remained alone ...

Neural processing of cry sounds in the transition to fatherhood: Effects of a p...

This study examined whether neural processing of infant cry sounds changes across the transition to fatherhood (i.e., from the prenatal to postnatal period), and examined whether an interaction-based prenatal intervention modulated these changes. Furthermore, we explored whether postnatal activation in brain regions showing transition or intervention effects was associated with sensitive care and involvement. I...

Innovations in attachment-based interventions in pandemic times: Feasibility of...

Facing ostracism: Micro-coding facial expressions in the Cyberball social exclu...

Background Social exclusion is often measured with the Cyberball paradigm, a computerized ball-tossing game. Most Cyberball studies, however, used self-report questionnaires, leaving the data vulnerable to reporter bias, and associations with individual characteristics have been inconsistent. Methods In this large-scale observational study, we video-recorded 4,813 10-year-old children during Cyberball and devel...

Development of the virtual-VIPP and a systematic review of online support for f...

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns made it impossible for parenting coaches to reach the families without digital means of communication. Several studies were initiated to transform existing parenting interventions into hybrid or fully online versions and to examine their feasibility, acceptability and efficacy. We present one such transformation in detail, the Virtual-VIPP which is based on Video-feedback ...

Sensitive responsiveness in expectant and new fathers

Fathers have an increasingly important role in the family and contribute through their sensitive responsiveness to positive child development. Research on parenting more often included fathers as caregivers in the past two decades. We present a neurobiological model of sensitive responsive parenting with a role for fathers’ hormonal levels and neural connectivity and processing of infant signals. We tested this...

Attachment goes to court: child protection and custody issues

Attachment theory and research are drawn upon in many applied settings, including family courts, but misunderstandings are widespread and sometimes result in misapplications. The aim of this consensus statement is, therefore, to enhance understanding, counter misinformation, and steer family-court utilisation of attachment theory in a supportive, evidence-based direction, especially with regard to child protect...

Is the ideal mother a sensitive mother? Beliefs about early childhood parenting...

In this paper we test the hypothesis that beliefs about the ideal mother are convergent across cultures and that these beliefs overlap considerably with attachment theory’s notion of the sensitive mother. In a sample including 26 cultural groups from 15 countries around the globe, 751 mothers sorted the Maternal Behavior Q-Set to reflect their ideas about the ideal mother. The results show strong convergence be...