The Role of Prenatal Expectations in Parents' Reports of Infant Temperament

The associations were examined among parents' characteristics, their prenatal expectations for and postpartum perceptions of infant temperament, and observers' ratings of temperament. During pregnancy and at 3 months postpartum, 70 primiparous women and their husbands completed several moo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 1995-04, Vol.41 (2), p.172-190
Main Authors: Diener, Marissa L., Goldstein, Lauren Heim, Mangelsdorf, Sarah C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anxiety
Biological and medical sciences
Child development
Developmental psychology
Family Characteristics
Fathers
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Happiness
Infant Behavior
Infants
Mothers
Newborn. Infant
Parent Attitudes
Parent Background
Parent Child Relationship
Parental expectations
Parents
Personality
Predictor Variables
Pregnancy
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Questionnaires
RESEARCH REPORTS
Statistical variance
Temperament
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Summary:The associations were examined among parents' characteristics, their prenatal expectations for and postpartum perceptions of infant temperament, and observers' ratings of temperament. During pregnancy and at 3 months postpartum, 70 primiparous women and their husbands completed several mood and anxiety questionnaires. Women completed prenatally Tellegen's Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. Prenatal expectations for temperament were assessed with use of a modified version of Bates' Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ). At 3 months postpartum, parents and observers rated infant temperament on the ICQ. Results indicated that mothers and fathers shared expectations for the emotional expressivity of their infant, but differed in expectations for unpredictability and unadaptability. Parents' postpartum ratings of temperament were much more similar than their expectations. Observers' ratings of temperament were modestly correlated with parents' ratings. Regression analyses showed that the best predictors of parents' postpartum ICQ ratings were their prenatal expectations.
ISSN:0272-930X
1535-0266