Premium
Emotional Resilience in Early Childhood
Author(s) -
CONWAY ANNE M.,
McDONOUGH SUSAN C.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1376.033
Subject(s) - affect (linguistics) , psychology , maternal sensitivity , developmental psychology , anxiety , psychological resilience , early childhood , clinical psychology , psychiatry , social psychology , communication
To test whether the development of emotional resilience is a function of sensitive caregiving and child negative affect, we tested the joint contributions of 7‐month maternal sensitivity and infant negative affect to the prediction of 33‐month emotional resilience across the first 3 years of life. The aims of this study were to examine whether maternal sensitivity and infant negative affect predict long‐term emotional resilience and whether this was associated with preschool behavior problems. Using a sample of 181 mother–infant dyads, we found that ( a ) maternal sensitivity at 7 months, but not infant negative affect, longitudinally predicted emotional resilience during preschool and ( b ) emotional resilience was negatively associated with anxiety/depression in preschool.