Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to assess maternal and infant contributions to mother-infant affective exchanges during the Still-Face Paradigm

Abstract This study describes maternaland infant contributions to dyadic affectiveexchanges during the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) in an understudied mostly low-income sample. One hundred eleven mothers and their 7-month-old infants were videotaped during the SFP to analyze how a social stressor affectsmother-infant positive and negative affectiveexchanges during interaction. The SFP includes 3 episodes: baseline, maternalstill-face, and reunion. Maternaland infant positive and negative affectwere scored by masked reliable coders. Data were analyzed using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to test the hypotheses that each partner’s affectivityduring the baselineepisode would predict their own affectivityduring the reunion episode (actor effects). We also expected that each partner’s affectivityduring the baselineepisode would influence the other partner’s affectivityduring the reunion episodes ( partner effects). After controlling for infant sex and maternaleducation, results provided evidence for actor effects for maternaland infant positive affect, and for partner effectsfor maternal baseline positive affectto infant positive affectduring the reunion. One significant partner effectwas observed for negative affect: Infant negativity during baselinepredicted greater maternalnegativity during reunion. Findings confirm that both mothers and infants contribute to dyadic affectiveprocesses during the SFP but specific findings vary depending on the affectivevalence in question. Clinical implications and future research are discussed.