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Relations of Early Goal‐Blockage Response and Gender to Subsequent Tantrum Behavior
Author(s) -
Sullivan Margaret W.,
Lewis Michael
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2011.00077.x
Subject(s) - psychology , sadness , anger , developmental psychology , facial expression , clinical psychology , communication
Infants and their mothers participated in a longitudinal study of the sequelae of infant goal‐blockage responses. Four‐month‐old infants participated in a standard contingency learning and goal‐blockage procedure during which anger and sad facial expressions to the blockage were coded. When infants were 12 and 20 months old, mothers completed a questionnaire about their children’s tantrums. Tantrum scores increased with age and boys tended to show more tantrum behavior than girls. Anger expressed to goal blockage at 4 months was unrelated to tantrum behavior. There was a gender by sad expression interaction. Girls who expressed sadness in response to the goal blockage had lower total tantrum scores than boys; otherwise there was no difference. These results suggest that tantrums of infants who display sad, not anger expression, in response to goal blockage, are differentially influenced by children’s gender.