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The My Emotions Questionnaire: A self‐report of mothers’ emotional responses to infant crying
Author(s) -
Leerkes Esther M.,
Qu Jin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/imhj.21830
Subject(s) - crying , psychology , developmental psychology , confirmatory factor analysis , sympathy , amusement , anger , clinical psychology , anxiety , exploratory factor analysis , convergent validity , empathy , attribution , psychometrics , internal consistency , social psychology , psychiatry , structural equation modeling , statistics , mathematics
The purpose of this article was to examine the psychometrics of the My Emotions Questionnaire, a self‐report designed to assess mothers’ emotional reactions when their infants cry. Participants were 240 first‐time mothers. When infants were 6 months and 1 year old, mothers completed the new questionnaire and measures assessing beliefs and behavioral responses to infant crying, and interview‐based measures of mothers’ emotional reactions and causal attributions about crying were administered. Maternal sensitivity and negative behaviors were observed when infants were 6 months and 1 and 2 years old. Mothers reported on their discipline practices when children were 2 years old. Five emotion factors emerged based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the 6‐month data: Amusement, Anxiety, Frustration, Sympathy, and Protective. The five‐factor structure was supported via a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the 1‐year data. All scales demonstrated adequate internal consistency reliability and significant stability from 6 months to 1 year. Amusement, Frustration, and Protectiveness demonstrated the best convergent validity with cry cognitions and predictive validity to parenting measures, followed by Anxiety, although effects tended to be small to moderate. Evidence for the validity of Sympathy was less compelling. The potential utility of the questionnaire for basic and applied research is discussed.