1. Parental Affective Reactions to Prolonged Infant Crying: Does Risk Status or Parent Gender Matter? Kreila Cote, Christie Miksys, Sapir Sasson, Jennifer Milliken, Gabriela Lelakowska, America Davila, Julie L. Crouch, David J. Bridgett, and Joel S. Milner Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault, Northern Illinois University
Infants who exhibit high levels of distress are at increased risk of child physical abuse (CPA) . Indeed, frequent, high intensity crying may precipitate acts of physical abuse.1 2
Infants who experience CPA are at risk of serious physical injury, as well as poor social and emotional outcomes across the lifespan.
Thus, it is important to understand how parents react to high intensity infant negative affect.
The present study sought to understand how parents with varying degrees of CPA risk react to prolonged infant crying using a simulated crying infant.
Hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: All parents would report increased negative affect over time as they attempted to soothe a crying infant.
Hypothesis 2: Increases in negative affect over time would be greatest among high-risk parents.
In addition, we explored whether parent gender moderated the hypothesized effects.
Introduction
Figure 1: Negative Affect Ratings over Time among
Low-risk/High-risk Parents
Results
Results from the ANOVA analyses revealed the following:
The main effect of time was significant, F(1, 130) = 11.59, p = .001, such that negative affect increased from baseline to post-prolonged crying exposure.
The main effect of CPA risk was significant, F(1, 130) = 13.96, p < , such that high-risk parents reported more negative affect than low-risk parents.
The gender main effect was not significant, F(1, 130) = 0.00, ns; nor were any of the interactions involving gender (all p’s > .05).
The additive main effects of time and CAP risk are displayed in Figure 1.
Discussion
As expected, parents reported increases in negative affect following exposure to prolonged infant crying.
Also as expected, high CPA risk parents reported higher levels of negative affect throughout the data collection session.
It is noteworthy that the highest levels of negative affect were observed among high CPA risk parents after exposure to prolonged infant crying.
Given that negative affect is thought to be a precursor for parent-to- child aggression, the present findings are consistent with the notion that high-risk parents may be prone to behaving aggressively following bouts of prolonged infant crying due to elevated negative affect.
Interestingly, mothers and fathers did not differ in their affective reactions to prolonged infant crying; and the association between CPA risk status and changes in negative affect did not vary by gender.
It should be noted that the levels of negative affect reported in the present study were generally low, and it is unknown whether parents tended to minimize their reports of negative feelings.
Nonetheless, high-risk parents may benefit from interventions designed to lower negative affect in response to prolonged infant crying.
Participants
134 general population parents participated
Gender: 36.3% fathers
Age: M = 37.3 years (SD = 11.9)
Race/ethnicity: 47.7% White, 45.5% Black, 6.8% other
Marital status: 57.8% single/separated/divorced
Education: 34.6% GED/high school diploma or less
Each parent was classified as low-risk (n = 67) or high-risk (n = 67) for CPA based on their scores on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory3
Measures
Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988)
20-item self-report survey that assesses positive and negative affective states
Respondents were asked to indicate how they were feeling “right now”
5-point Likert scale (1 “very slightly or not at all” to 5 “extremely”)
Composite negative affect ratings were computed by taking the mean of the responses on the following items: distressed, hostile, irritable, and upset
Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP; Milner, 1986)
160-item self-report questionnaire
Participants indicated agreement or disagreement with each statement
Scores range from 0 to 460, such that higher scores indicate greater potential for child physical abuse
Scores at or above 166 were classified as high CPA risk; whereas scores below 166 were classified as low CPA risk
Procedure
Simulated Infant Task
Participants were instructed to care for a simulated crying infant as if it was a real infant for 30 minutes; however, they were allowed to stop at any time.
The infant simulator was programmed to cry continuously regardless of participant behavior; however, participants were led to believe the simulator could be soothed.
Affect Ratings
Parents were asked to rate their positive/negative affective states at the beginning of the session (baseline) and after being exposed to prolonged infant crying.
1. Barr, R. G. (2012). Preventing abusive head trauma resulting from a failure of normal interaction between infants and their caregivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109, doi: /pnas
2. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administra­tion on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. (2012). Child Maltreatment Available from
3. Milner, J. S. (1986). Child Abuse Potential Inventory: Manual. Webster, NC: Psytec.
4. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, doi: G022-35l4/88/$00.75
References
Analytic Strategy
Data was analyzed using a 2 (Time: baseline, post-prolonged crying) x 2 (CPA risk status: low, high) x 2 (Gender: fathers, mothers) ANOVA with repeated measures on the first factor.