Maternal Behavior

This research area examines the longitudinal impact of maternal behaviors related to autonomy support starting from toddlerhood on children's emotional positivity or negativity toward their mothers in later childhood. It matters because early maternal control or respect for autonomy can have lasting effects on child development and the quality of the mother-child relationship across ethnoracial groups.

This theme investigates the transactional relations between child temperament factors—particularly negative affect and effortful control—and maternal parenting behaviors in shaping children's aggressive behavior. It is crucial because child temperament not only predisposes to behavioral problems but also influences, and is influenced by, parenting practices, thereby jointly determining aggression trajectories in early childhood.

This thematic focus explores the neurobiology and ethology of maternal behaviors including acceptance, social recognition, motivational drives, and rejection/fear responses towards offspring in nonhuman mammals. Understanding this is vital for grasping the fundamental brain circuits and hormonal systems, such as oxytocin and dopamine pathways, that regulate caregiving behavior and attachment processes across species.

This emerging research theme analyzes the social and psychological impact of maternal workforce participation on adolescent daughters' emotional and personality development. It addresses practical concerns about maternal employment's effects on adolescent empathy, positivity, and the Big Five personality traits, thereby informing family dynamics and developmental psychology.

This research investigates maternal bonding quality during early infancy—mental representations and affective ties—and how it prospectively predicts children's behavioral and emotional outcomes, taking into account confounding maternal psychopathology. Understanding early bonding enriches knowledge of foundational attachment mechanisms and their developmental trajectories.

This theme scrutinizes whether behavioral parent training (BPT), grounded in social learning and attachment theories, can improve parental sensitivity, warmth, and reduce intrusiveness, thereby enhancing the parent-infant relationship quality during critical developmental windows. It is pivotal for optimizing early interventions targeting socioemotional outcomes.

To understand parenting's multidimensionality, this research focuses on evolving instruments that integrate distinct parenting systems (e.g., body contact, stimulation) with varying parenting styles (proximal vs. distal), providing comprehensive, culturally sensitive assessments to better predict and support child development outcomes.

This theme investigates whether mind-mindedness—a mother's tendency to perceive her child as a mental agent—is a trait-like characteristic or a relational construct that varies with time and relationship, with implications for attachment and socioemotional development assessments.