The data for 197 mother-infant pairs from two longitudinal studies were analyzed to assess relations between maternal attachment representations; atypical maternal behavior, coded with a new tool. Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification (AMBIANCE), and infant attachment. Both maternal and infant attachment were systematically related to atypical maternal behavior...

Infant attachment is a critical indicator of healthy infant social-emotional functioning, which typically measured using the gold-standard Strange Situation Procedure (SSP). However, expert-based classifications from SSP are time-intensive (with respect both to expert training and rating), do not provide an objective, continuous record behavior. To continuously quantify predictors key behaviors...

Love is one of the most desired experiences. The quest for understanding human bonds, especially love, was traditionally a domain of the humanities. Recent developments in biological sciences yield new insights into the mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of human relationships. Animal models of reproductive behaviors, mother-infant attachment and pair bonding complemented by hu...

Taylor and colleagues (2000) proposed that males tend to display fight or flight responses to threat while females are more likely to display affiliative "tend or befriend" responses. In light of this hypothesis, gender differences in infant attachment behaviors were examined in a sample of 65 low-income mother-infant dyads, half of whom were referred to a home-based intervention service becaus...

This study used a transactional model of development (Sameroff, 1975) to test whether methadone exposure, mother's expectation of her future infant's degree of bother during pregnancy, infant attachment behaviors assessed at 12 months, and mother and child communication assessed at 24 months reciprocally influence each other in a sample of 30 full-term, African American toddlers exposed in uter...

Over half a century of converging clinical and animal research indicates that early life experiences induce enduring neuroplasticity of the HPA-axis and the developing brain. This experience-induced neuroplasticity is due to alterations in the frequency and intensity of stimulation of pups' sensory systems (i.e., olfactory, somatosensory, gustatory) embedded in mother-infant interactions. This ...