Infant Behavior & Development 37 (2014) 33–43

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Infant Behavior and Development

Young adults’ reactions to infant crying C.C.C. Cohen-Bendahan a,∗ , L.J.P. van Doornen b , C. de Weerth a a Department of Developmental Psychology – Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands b Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 3 September 2013 Received in revised form 8 November 2013 Accepted 23 December 2013 Available online 22 January 2014 Keywords: Caregiving Sensitivity Distress Young adults Personality factors

a b s t r a c t An infant’s optimal development is determined to a great extent by the adequate and sensitive responses of the caregiver. The adequacy and sensitivity of a reaction to an infant in distress (i.e. crying) will partly depend on the causal attributions of the crying and on the individual’s sympathy for the infant. Being female, prior caring experiences, and multiparity have shown to be linked to more sympathetic, tolerant and less hostile emotional responses to crying. However, little is known about other factors explaining inexperienced future caregivers’ reactions to infant crying. The present paper’s goal is to shed more light on the subject by looking at how personality factors, caregiving interest, sex, promptness of the reaction, and gender identity are related to emotional reactions and causal attributions to crying in a population of young adults without children. One hundred and ninety-one childless university students participated (126 females; ages 18–35 years). The participants completed questionnaires on personality, gender identity and caregiving interest, and listened to an audio sample of an infant crying, reporting their emotions and their causal attributions to the crying. The results showed that experiencing anger was associated with more child-blaming attributions to the crying, while quickness of response and feelings of sympathy predicted more child-oriented attributions. The latter was stronger in males. Explicit care interest decreased child-blaming causal attributions more for men than for the women. Interestingly, solely in the females’ personality factors neuroticism and conscientiousness played a role in child blaming attributions together with anger. These findings suggest that the motives that young adults attribute to a crying infant depend in males on the emotions triggered by the crying, responsiveness and care interest. While in females, emotions, responsiveness and personality affect the causal attribution to the crying. Future research is needed in order to determine whether these attributions are also linked to young adults’ actual behaviour towards a crying infant. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction When young infants are in need of care or experience a stressful situation they depend mainly on crying as their means of communication. Crying is a very efficient signal as it will mostly provoke caregiving behaviour in adults. The promptness and quality of a caregiver’s response to the distress are very important for an infant’s development. Research has shown that an infant’s optimal cognitive, emotional and behavioural development is determined to a great extent by adequate and sensitive responses of the caregiver towards the infant’s emotional states (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Berlin

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 24 3612637; fax: +31 24 3612698. E-mail address: [email protected] (C.C.C. Cohen-Bendahan). 0163-6383/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2013.12.004

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& Cassidy, 2003). The adequacy and sensitivity of the adult’s reaction to a crying infant partly depend on the individual’s sympathy for the infant, on the emotions that crying produces, and on the causal attributions about the crying (i.e. attaching a meaning, an appraisal, to the infant’s behaviour; Wiesenfeld, Whitman, & Malatesta, 1984). For example, if a person has negative attributions about an infant’s crying, he or she may experience less sympathy and more anger, and show less sensitive behaviour towards an infant (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Dix, Gershoff, Meunier, & Miller, 2004; Leerkes & Siepak, 2006). In this study we were interested in how inexperienced future caregivers respond to infant crying. People differ greatly in their reactions to infant crying. While in some, low amounts of crying already provoke negative emotionality, feelings of helplessness, and high levels of stress, others can cope with much more crying with milder negative effects on their emotions and behaviour. Knowledge about what explains these differences between people is scanty. However, it is much needed as crying is often reported to be the direct trigger of abusive behaviour, such as in Shaken Baby Syndrome (Barr, Trent, & Cross, 2007). Therefore, in the present study we will examine how personality factors, caregiving interest, sex, responsiveness and gender identity are related to emotional reactions and causal attributions to crying in a population of young adults without children. The advantage of studying young childless adults is that because they have not yet cared for their own offspring, the influence of caregiving experiences in their reactions to crying is practically absent. In the present paper we will focus on two types of emotional reactions to crying: sympathy and anger. Sympathy is defined as a feeling of care and understanding for the suffering of an infant (Ainsworth, Bell & Stayton, 1974; Wispé, 1986). Research has shown that high levels of sympathy are associated with more child-oriented attitudes by caregivers towards a distressed infant (Zeifman, 2003). Also, individuals experiencing greater sympathy are more inclined to comfort a crying infant (Hoffman, 1977; Wiesenfeld et al., 1984). While smiles elicit pleasant emotions, cries typically evoke negative emotions, i.e. anger and displeasure. The levels of angry feelings that are elicited vary among caregivers. For example, Frodi and Lamb (1980) showed that child abusers react towards infant crying with more aversive feelings, and more displeasure, compared to non-abusers. However, as stated above, the response of a caregiver to a crying infant is also determined by the person’s causal attributions to the crying (Donovan & Leavitt, 1989). Causal attributions to crying can be roughly divided into two main categories: a child-understanding or child-oriented category, and a child-blaming or self-oriented category (Hastings & Grusec, 1998; Leerkes & Siepak, 2006). Adults that use child-oriented attributions believe more often that infants are not responsible for their (mis)behaviour or distress, understanding that they have few means to express themselves other than crying. These caregivers are considered to be more oriented towards the infant, wanting to serve, understand and help the infant by taking the infant’s perception into consideration. On the other hand, adults that use child-blaming attributions consider infants to be more often self-responsible for their behaviour. For example, they may believe that an infant that cries will do so because he or she is spoiled. These caregivers show less sympathy, less empathy and less warmth to an infant in distress; they are more self-oriented and react in a more child-blaming manner. The first group, the child-oriented caregivers, is known to show more sympathy, warmth and acceptance towards the infant (Leerkes & Siepak, 2006). Such emotions have been related to being more tolerant, and to less emotionally hostile reactions to crying (Boukydis & Burgess, 1982; Zeifman, 2003). In addition, sympathetic individuals tend to causally attribute crying more to a positive intention (e.g. a request for help), and less to a negative intention (e.g. being spoiled; Lounsbury & Bates, 1982). The emotional reactions that people experience while listening to an infant crying, as well as the causal attributions they give, can be influenced by personality characteristics. Previous research has shown that personality traits, i.e. Goldberg’s Big Five (1992), are associated with parenting (McBride, Schoppe & Rane, 2002; Vondra, Sysko, Belsky, Luster & Okagaki, 2005). The Big Five personality model divides personality into five factors: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (McCrae & Costa, 1987; Goldberg, 1992). These factors have been related to parenting qualities. For example, high Extraversion has been shown to promote sensitive care (Mangelsdorf, Gunnar, Kestenbaum, Lang & Andreas, 1990). On the other hand, high Neuroticism has been associated with insensitive and coercive parenting (Belsky & Barends, 2002; Dix, 1991). In addition, Kochanska, Clark, and Goldman (1997) found mothers with low Agreeableness to display more negative affect; these mothers showed themselves to be less child-oriented and less nurturing than mothers high in Agreeableness. Finally, highly Conscientious individuals seem to perceive crying as more spoiled and manipulative and respond more aversively, possibly because of interpreting the crying as an infant attempt to control the parent (Zeifman, 2003). In sum, although the Big Five personality traits have been related to parenting, there is still little research on how personality is related to reactions to crying in young adults without children. These personality traits will therefore be investigated in the present study. The level in which an adult is interested in infant or child caregiving may contribute to his or her knowledge and information gathering and awareness on the subject of infant caretaking. For example, a person that has low interest in infant care will notice and encompass less information regarding caregiving intentions, attitudes and behaviours as compared to a person that has higher interest in infant care. This may influence how a person reacts to infant crying. Therefore, in this present study we will also examine the influence of explicit caregiving interest. A person’s biological sex may also influence his or her reaction towards infant crying. Evolutionarily and culturally, women are generally expected to be more involved and in charge of the direct care of an infant more than men (Moon & Hoffman, 2008). Moreover, women have been found to be more adequate, sensitive, and sympathetic towards infants (Hoffman, 1977, 2008; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974). These sex differences may influence the reactions to crying that will be

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investigated in the present study. Hence, sex will be included as a predictor in this study. Because sex may also moderate the effects of the other predictors, interactions between sex and the remaining predictors will also be investigated. The final predictor that will be included in the study is gender identity, i.e. the degree of a person’s femininity and masculinity. Gender identity does not refer to the biological sex of a person but to the degree to which people regard themselves as masculine or feminine in the societal context (Bem, 1981; Willemsen & Fischer, 1996). Femininity is traditionally associated with traits on which caregiving behaviour greatly depends, such as “understanding of others”, “loves children” and “gentle” (Kelly & Worell, 1976; Twenge, 1997). Men with a more feminine identity are more often associated with childcare activities than men with a more masculine identity. For example, Russell (1978) showed that among males with an androgynous gender identity (high on both feminine and masculine traits), 25 per cent were directly involved in the care of their own children. In feminine males (high on feminine and low on masculine traits), this was 23 per cent. However, in masculine males (low on feminine and high on masculine traits), only 9 per cent were involved in childcare. Surprisingly, no association of this kind was found for the participating women in the study. To date, associations between gender identity and reactions to crying in young adults have not been investigated. Gender identity will therefore also be included as a predictor in this study. In sum, little is known about factors explaining inexperienced future caregivers’ reactions to infant crying. The present paper’s goal is to shed more light on the subject by looking at how personality factors, promptness to react to infant crying, caregiving interest, sex, emotional reactions, and gender identity are related to causal attributions to crying in a population of young adults without children. Based on the literature we hypothesized the following: (1) Child-oriented causal attributions will be positively predicted by female sex, femininity, feelings of sympathy, explicit caregiving interest, shorter latency to respond to crying, and by the personality factor Extraversion. (2) Child-blaming causal attributions will be positively predicted by male sex, masculinity, feelings of anger, less interest in caregiving, longer latency to respond to crying, and the personality factors Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and low Agreeableness. 2. Method 2.1. Participants The participants, recruited through a university website, consisted of 191 childless university students: 126 females and 65 males, with an average age of 21.3 years (SD = 2.9; range: 18–35 years). Before participation, all participants signed an informed consent form. Participation in the study was credited with either a gift voucher or research credits for a study requirement. 2.2. Procedure A research assistant welcomed the participant to the university lab. The participant was given a short introduction, after which the participant was left alone to complete the task. At the beginning of the task, participants listened to an audio sample of a crying baby, and were told to imagine it was their own child, who they had just put to bed. They were instructed to press a button on the computer during this crying sample to indicate at what point they would want to intervene. Pressing the button stopped the audio tape. The audio tape had a maximum duration of five minutes; participants were not aware of this. Subsequently, participants were presented with a series of questions concerning emotions they had experienced while listening to the crying infant and possible causes of the infant’s distress (i.e. causal attributions). After this, participants completed another questionnaire with questions on the following topics: demographics, personality traits, health, interests, and attitudes towards children and parenthood. 2.2.1. Audio tape stimulus A six-month-old baby girl was recorded in her home during various spontaneous crying bouts when put to bed. The recordings consisted of a range of levels of distress, from low to high distress. The audio tape was thereafter edited into one recording of five minutes including consecutive segments of crying of various levels of intensity using CoolEdit (Adobe, Inc. version 2.0). The cry was played to the participants through a headphone (Logitech type 89762) with mean amplitudes of approximately 73 dBA (intensity range: 46–98 dBA, as measured with a wide range measuring amplifier Bruel & Kjær Type 2610 using an artificial ear Type 4153). 2.3. Measures 2.3.1. Causal attributions to crying After listening to the crying tape, respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with 18 attribution statements about the possible reasons behind the infant’s crying. These statements originated from an article by Leerkes and Siepak (2006). We used a four-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. We performed a factor

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analysis using principal component analysis with varimax rotation to determine the factor structure of this questionnaire among our participants. Our factor analysis yielded two coherent factors that we named child-oriented attributions (CO) and child-blaming attributions (CB). The former included the following six items: baby having a bad day, no one attending to baby, baby hungry, baby not feeling well, baby upset by the situation, and baby trying to communicate needing help (˛ = .63). The latter, child-blaming attributions, included seven items: baby spoiled, baby has difficult temperament, baby trying to make parents’ lives difficult, baby unreasonable, baby selfish, baby in a bad mood, and baby crying on purpose in a manipulative manner (˛ = .80). A third factor contained the remaining five statements, but lacked coherence and was thus not considered any further. 2.3.2. Emotional reactions In response to listening to the crying tape, the participants rated how strongly they felt 13 different emotions on a four-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all” to “very strongly” (based on Leerkes & Siepak, 2006). A factor analysis was then performed on these items using principal component analysis with varimax rotation. The factor analysis yielded two factors, sympathy and anger. The first factor, sympathy, consisted of six items: concerned, sympathetic, anxious, happy (reversed item), neutral (reversed item) and nervous (˛ = .69). Anger, the second factor, consisted of five items: angry, irritated, frustrated, annoyed and disgusted (˛ = .78). The remaining two items (empathic and amused) did not load on either of the two factors, and were thus not considered any further. 2.3.3. Big Five personality factors Personality was assessed with a translated and adapted version of the original Big Five questionnaire (Gerris, Houtmans, Kwaaitaal-Roosen, De Schipper, Vermulst & Janssens, 1998; Goldberg, 1992). Respondents were asked to rate the extent to which certain qualities, such as “nervous” or “artistic”, applied to them. Answers were rated on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from “not true at all” to “completely true”. The Big Five model consists of five personality factors; in the questionnaire this amounts to six items per factor. The Big Five personality factors are: Neuroticism (emotional instability), Extraversion (sociable), Openness to Experience (imaginative, broadly interested), Agreeableness (cooperative, dependent) and Conscientiousness (persevering, need for self-control). 2.3.4. Femininity and masculinity Femininity and masculinity, or gender identity, were assessed by the Dutch Sex-Identity Questionnaire (NSIV; Willemsen & Fischer, 1996). The questionnaire consists of 30 traits (15 masculine and 15 feminine) and 28 behaviours (14 masculine and 14 feminine). All items have five-point Likert scales, with anchor points varying with the topic of the item. 2.3.5. Latency to respond (latency) The latency was the time (in s) that elapsed from the start of the crying sample till the moment the participant pressed the button on the computer to indicate the point at which he or she would want to intervene. 2.3.6. Explicit caregiving interest (explicit care) To identify care interest for infants and young children, a measure of explicit caregiving interest was constructed, in which participants indicated on a five- or six-point Likert scale their interest in different caregiving activities. This measure consists of 25 items in three different domains of explicit care, namely direct care (e.g. changing diaper, feeding baby), indirect care (e.g., shopping for child’s toys and clothes, preparing child’s bottle), and play (e.g., reading stories to child, playing a game with child). Z-scores were calculated for each item, and the mean of all 25 items represented the explicit caregiving interest (explicit care score). 2.4. Statistical analyses First, we compared the mean scores of the variables using ANOVA (General Linear Model; GLM) in order to find possible sex differences between the males and the females. Latency was not normally distributed, therefore we analyzed the possible sex difference in responding to the crying using nonparametric tests. Thereafter, we examined whether personality, emotional reactions, explicit caregiving interest, latency to stop crying, and gender identity uniquely predicted the CB or CO causal attributions, a standard multiple hierarchical regression model (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007) was computed to predict each causal attributions factor. To eliminate irrelevant predictors and to increase power in each regression we first entered all the predictors. Only the predictors that individually explained at least 1 per cent of the variance in this first model (calculated as (part correlation)2 × 100) were included in the model. These final models, with all maintained predictors, are presented in the results and in Tables 3 and 4. Because it is plausible that the predictors will be to some extent qualitatively different for men and women we ran the regression analyses for the sexes separately first. To check whether the prediction pattern indeed differed significantly between sexes we post hoc ran the regression analyses across sexes and introduced the interaction terms of the predictors with sex.

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Table 1 Descriptives of the study variables, divided by sex. Mean (SD)

CO attributions CB attributions Sympathy Anger Big five

Extraversion Neuroticism Openness to experience Agreeableness Conscientiousness

Femininity Masculinity Latency Explicit care

Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male

15.98 (3.10) 16.09 (3.01) 11.93 (3.78) 11.85 (3.94) 4.40 (2.78) 4.38 (3.10) 7.33 (2.49) 7.74 (2.65) 4.68 (.99) 4.61 (1.17) 1.92 (.97) 1.29 (1.19) 4.80 (.86) 4.84 (.96) 5.61 (.63) 5.67 (.68) 4.74 (1.05) 4.45 (1.23) 3.45 (.26) 2.94 (.38) 2.64 (.30) 2.99 (.36) 46.91 (30.23) 42.37(49.58) .19 (.42) −.32 (.59)

Sex difference F/Z

p-Value

F(1, 189) = .06

.815

F(1, 189) = .02

.889

F(1, 189) = .00

.964

F(1, 189) = 1.13

.290

F(1, 189) = .21

.648

F(1, 189) = 15.26

.000

F(1, 189) = .06

.803

F(1, 189) = .41

.524

F(1, 189) = 2.91

.090

F(1, 189) = 116.62

.000

F(1, 189) = 49.93

.000

Z = −2.63

.008

F(1, 189) = 48.63

.000

Notes: CO, child-oriented; CB, child-blaming; N, 65 males, 126 females.

3. Results 3.1. Preliminary analyses The means and standard deviations of our study variables per by sex can be found in Table 1. Statistically significant sex differences were found on: femininity, masculinity, explicit care interest, and latency to stop crying. The sex differences for the two gender identity scales were as expected, females were more feminine and males were more masculine, and explicit care interest was higher for the females compared to the males. Males showed a shorter latency (M = 42.37 s) to intervene when listening to the crying infant than the females (M = 46.91 s). The correlations between the study variables, presented separately for the sexes, varied between non-significant to moderate, see Table 2. Latency and CO were for both sexes moderately negatively intercorrelated, for females r = −.26 (p < .01) and for males r = −.49 (p < .01, respectively). Sympathy and CO correlated differently for the sexes, being non-significant for the females, r = .10 (p > .10), and quite substantially negative for the males, r = .59 (p < .01). Also explicit care scores and CB correlated differently for the sexes, non-significant for the females, r = −.07 (p > .10), and significantly negative for the males, r = −.37 (p < .01). 3.2. Main analyses The question whether emotional reactions, sex, latency, gender identity, and personality traits predicted the causal attributions to the infant crying tape was addressed using multiple regressions. Both causal attributions factors could be predicted by the independent variables (see Tables 3 and 4). 3.2.1. Child-oriented attributions The regression models for the sexes separately are summarized in Table 3. The results show that 46% of the variance in CO attributions could be explained by the predictors in the regression model for the males whereas the same predictors explained merely 7% of the variance in the females. For the males CO attributions were predicted by higher feelings of sympathy after listening to the crying tape and shorter latency to stop the crying. For the females only a shorter latency predicted more CO attributions. The results for the total group showed an interaction between sympathy and the sex of the participant, suggesting that in males CO attributions were more strongly predicted by the level of sympathy experienced than in females (see Table 4 and Fig. 1). The slope of the regression line was positive and significant for males (b = 1.67; se = .34; p < .001). The slope of the female regression line was also positive but not significant (b = .32; se = .27; p = .23).

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Mean 1. Extraversion 2. Agreeableness 3. Conscientiousness 4. Neuroticism 5. Openness to experience 6. Femininity 7. Masculinity 8. CO attributions 9. CB attributions 10. Anger 11. Sympathy 12. Explicit Care 13. Latency

4.66 5.63 4.65 1.71 4.82 3.27 2.76 16.02 11.90 7.47 4.40 0.00 45.36

Std. deviation 1.05 0.65 1.12 1.09 0.89 0.39 0.36 3.06 3.82 2.55 2.89 0.62 37.86

1 1 .27* .15 −.32** .17 .27* .47** −.03 −.17 −.09 −.06 .19 .03

Notes: CO, child-oriented; CB, child-blaming; Nmales = 65; Nfemales = 126. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

2 .21* 1 .23 −.10 .27* .32** .14 .05 −.24 −.14 .08 .35** .13

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

.16 .27** 1 .02 .12 .00 .00 −.04 −.07 −.15 −.12 −.01 .15

−.25** −.17 −.16 1 −.10 .46** −.26* .23 .21 .04 .30* .01 .06

.14 .17 .07 −.03 1 .22 .36** −.22 .07 −.08 −.16 .03 .21

.16 .25** .05 .29** .24** 1 .22 .14 .05 −.03 .27* .47** .10

.23** .02 −.01 .04 .45** .26** 1 −.18 −.12 −.09 −.16 .08 .19

−.11 −.01 −.10 .14 −.03 −.04 −.06 1 −.12 −.03 .59** .17 −.49**

−.13 −.16 −.20* .26** −.02 .07 .00 .13 1 .34** .07 −.37** .01

−.04 −.22* .14 .07 −.04 −.14 .01 .05 .21* 1 .20 −.25* .10

−.21* −.16 −.13 .20* −.03 .14 .04 .10 .10 .15 1 .14 −.28*

.00 .27** −.03 .12 −.01 .22* −.16 −.05 −.07 −.26** −.03 1 −.09

.05 .07 .12 −.01 .08 .09 .03 −.26** .02 .18* −.15 .01 1

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Table 2 Pearson correlations and total group descriptives for personality, causal attributions, emotional reaction, care interest and latency, top half (grey) represents the correlations for the females and lower half for the males.

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Table 3 Final multiple regression models predicting causal attributions to infant crying separately for males and females. Dependent variable CO attributions Males

Predictor variables

B

T

P

Sympathy Latency

1.394 −.807

5.138 −3.627

.000*** .001**

Sympathy Latency

.203 −.951

.721 −2.787

.472 .006**

R2 total = .466*** , F(2, 64) = 27.056 Females R2 total = .069* , F(2, 125) = 4.539 Variables excluded in the first model:

CB attributions Males

Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, femininity, masculinity, anger, explicit care

Anger Femininity Explicit care Conscientiousness Neuroticism

.890 1.986 −2.672 −0.138 .369

1.999 1.277 −2.954 −.382 .858

.050* .207 .004** .704 .394

Anger Femininity Explicit care Conscientiousness Neuroticism

.849 .893 −.528 −.748 .770

2.447 .676 −.661 −2.395 2.168

.016* .501 .510 .018* .032*

R2 total = .264** , F(5, 64) = 4.228 Females

R2 total = .148** , F(5,125) = 4.157 Variables excluded in the first model:

Extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, masculinity, sympathy, latency

Notes: CO, child-oriented; CB, child-blaming; Nmales = 65, Nfemales = 126. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

3.2.2. Child-blaming attributions The regression models for CB attributions show that 27% of the variance in CB attributions could be explained by the predictors in the regression model for the males, and about 15% of the variance in the females. For the males CB attributions were predicted by higher feelings of anger felt after listening to the crying tape, and with less explicit interest in caregiving.

Table 4 Final multiple regression models predicting causal attributions to infant crying for the group as a whole. Dependent variable

Predictor variables

B

T

P

CO attributions

Sex Sympathy Latency Sex × sympathy

.006 .793 −.869 .580

.030 3.748 −4.201 2.796

.789 .000*** .000*** .002**

R2 total = .198*** , F(4, 186) = 11.501 Variables excluded in the first model:

Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, femininity, masculinity, anger, explicit care, sex × conscientiousness, sex × neuroticism, sex × explicit care, sex × anger, sex × latency

CB attributions

Sex Anger Femininity Explicit care Sex × explicit care

−.070 .878 2.062 −1.545 −1.148

−.195 3.217 2.211 −2.594 −2.095

R2 total = .124*** , F(5, 185) = 5.242 Variables excluded in the first model:

Note: CO, child-oriented; CB, child-blaming; N = 191. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

Extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, masculinity, sympathy, latency, sex × conscientiousness, sex × neuroticism, sex × anger, sex × sympathy, sex × latency

.846 .002** .028* .010** .038*

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Fig. 1. Regression lines for the relationship between sympathy and child-oriented attributions (CO) as moderated by sex. SD: standard deviation.

Fig. 2. Regression lines for the relationship between caregiving interest and child-blaming attributions (CB) as moderated by sex. SD: standard deviation.

For the females also anger feelings predicted higher CB attributions but not explicit caregiving interest; furthermore low conscientiousness and high neuroticism were predictive for high CB attributions in women. The results of the total group showed an interaction between sex and explicit caregiving interest. The slope of the regression line was negative for males (b = −2.50; se = .77; p < .01; see Table 4 and Fig. 2), indicating that males have lower negative attributions when they are more interested in explicit caregiving. In women the slope was negative as well, but not significant (b = −.69; se = .78; p = .37). 4. Discussion The goal of the present study was to shed more light on how young adults without children respond to infant crying. To this end, we looked at how emotions, promptness to react to infant crying, sex, personality factors and gender identity were related to the causal attributions given to the crying. Our results showed that in line with our hypothesis feeling more sympathy during the crying, as well as reacting more quickly to the crying, were related to more positive child-oriented (CO) causal attributions about the crying, though this was only the case in males. However, and contrary to our expectations, gender, explicit caregiving interest and personality were unrelated to CO attributions. Across the sexes experiencing more anger during the crying as well as being less interested in caregiving, predicted more child-blaming (CB) causal attributions. These relations are in line with our hypothesis. The relation between explicit caregiving interest and CB attributions was only apparent in males. Moreover, solely in the females’ personality factors neuroticism and conscientiousness played a role in CB attributions. As mentioned before, an infant’s optimal development is influenced to a great extent by the adequate and sensitive responses of the caregiver. The adequacy and sensitivity of a reaction to an infant in distress (i.e. crying) depends on the causal attributions of the crying, and on the individual’s sympathy for the infant (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Berlin & Cassidy, 2003). Our study showed that in young childless adults, child-oriented attitudes seem to be associated with experiencing sympathetic feelings while listening to an infant crying. This is in accordance with earlier studies (Wiesenfeld et al., 1984; Zeifman, 2003). In the past it has been shown that highly sympathetic caregivers may be able to provide a more child-oriented environment for the developing infant (Wiesenfeld et al., 1984) which will lead to a more sensitive upbringing. Our results showed that child-blaming attributions in young childless adults seem to be predicted by feelings of anger while listening to the infant crying. The sound of crying brings forth to some degree displeasure. Past research has shown the likelihood of crying to elicit anger (Berkowitz, 1974). These anger feelings will in turn enhance the negative attribution

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about the crying as expected. Others have associated anger with more aversive feelings for the infant, for example mothers that experience more anger tend to respond more hostile towards the infants display of distress (Lorber & O’Leary, 2005). This relation was even stronger in child-abusers compared to non-abusers (Frodi & Lamb, 1980). Furthermore, research showed that negative emotions in combination with absence of sympathy induce the risk of child-abuse (Milner, Halsey, & Fultz, 1995). Moreover, Leerkes (2010) showed that a high degree of negative emotions experienced from infant distress measured prenatally in women, was negatively linked with later postnatal sensitivity (Leerkes, 2010). Her results suggest that in young adulthood, long before children play a role in a person’s life, it is perhaps already possible to predict by means of emotional reactions to infant crying, more specifically anger and sympathy, whether a person will be a more or less sensitive caregiver in the future. These emotions may be the mechanism underlying the type of attributions a person has towards infant crying. The results may also aid in adapting interventions designed at preparing expecting couples for parenting. This may decrease the likelihood of later negative and hostile behaviour by the caregiver towards the infant. And promote skills that will enhance adequacy and sensitivity in parenting. While sympathy did not play a role in female participants’ CO attributions, it was an important moderator of male CO attributions: males reporting high feelings of sympathy also reported more CO attributions than males low in sympathy. Similarly, explicit interest in caregiving did not play a role in females’ CB attributions, whereas it was an important moderator of male CB attributions: males reporting high interest in caregiving also reported lower levels of CB attributions than males with low caregiving interest. In sum, it appears that in females the appraisal of infant crying is not determined by emotions or interest in caregiving, while these factors greatly influence males’ appraisals of infant crying. We believe that the above-mentioned interactions with sex may be due to upbringing and societal expectations. Women learn from a young age on that they will have the largest role in caring for young infants. This may steadily shape their attributions or appraisals of infant crying, making them less malleable for influences of emotions and specific interest in caregiving when they reach adulthood. Young adult men, however, may be more open to their own emotions and personal interest in caregiving when attributing causes to infant crying, because their ideas on how to respond to infant crying have not been steadily formed throughout development. Future research should also include measures that tap into participants’ predefined general ideas about child upbringing, their more specific ideas about dealing with infant crying, and their tendency to respond in a social desirable manner, in order to further investigate the meaning of these interesting findings. In females personality seems to play a prominent role when it comes to CB attributions. As expected, high neuroticism was related to higher CB attributions. In the past it has been shown that neuroticism is associated with insensitive and coercive parenting (Belsky & Barends, 2002; Dix, 1991). In addition conscientiousness was negatively associated with CB attributions, meaning that higher conscientious females show lower CB attributions. This is contrary to the results found by Zeifman (2003). She showed that conscientious individuals seem to perceive crying as more spoiled and manipulative and respond more aversively, possibly because of interpreting the crying as an infant attempt to control the parent (Zeifman, 2003). The difference in findings could at least partly lie in the difference in the characteristics of the group sample. Zeifman studied parents while our subjects were childless students. In the past conscientiousness has shown to be subject to maturational changes. Namely, conscientiousness increases between college-age and middle-adulthood. The increase has been linked to the higher importance of conscientiousness during middle-adulthood wherein young parents need to raise a family (McCrae et al., 1999). This increase over time in conscientiousness seems to lead to opposite reactions to infant crying among young childless adults than in parents, who have already had ample experience with actual infant crying in their roles as caregivers. Participants that showed a shorter latency to respond to infant crying showed more child-oriented attributions. This is in line with Zeifman’s (2003) earlier finding that participants with CO attitudes indicated they would hypothetically intervene in response to infant crying quicker. In addition, these subjects also reported more sympathy. Sympathy and latency, however, showed to be independent predictors (in the males) in the regression analysis. Although this relation may suggest that the participants that responded more quickly did so with the idea of helping or comforting the infant, the results do not provide information on what the person’s planned response would be. Whether they would have removed themselves away from the crying or approached the crying infant for soothing purposes. Future research should encompass questions by which we would be able to grasp the possible successive action the subject would have taken. Herewith we would be able to clarify better the background reasons of the promptness to intervene. In an earlier study, feminine and androgynous males were found to be more involved in the caregiving of their own offspring, than more masculine males (Russell, 1978). We observed no role of gender identity in our study. Femininity in our males was associated with explicit care interest. Because explicit care was a significant predictor in the regression analyses and explicit care and femininity correlated .47, this eliminated the predictive value of femininity in the regression. This study has some limitations that may hamper the generalisability of the study outcome. First, although the study population was relatively large (N = 191), the participants were mostly college students, and therefore highly educated. Second, the participants had to react to an audio tape without any visual information. During a normal caregiving situation with a crying infant the caregiver will use all the information he has, i.e. visual and audio, to decide on a proper action. Moreover, the subjects sat in a soundless cubicle without any real-life influences, such as household demands. Third, the participants turned off the crying when they themselves decided that they would want to intervene. This resulted in differential listening durations by the participants, which may have influenced their emotions and causal attributions as well. Fourth, the study lacked physiological markers of the participants’ reactions to infant crying. These markers could provide a more complete picture of young adults’ reactions to infant crying and should be examined in future studies. And finally, reacting to an unfamiliar cry may be very different to reacting to one’s own baby. Future research should focus on whether the factors

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predicting causal attributions in the present study are also linked to young adults’ actual behaviour towards a crying infant. In other words, the following step in this area of research would be to study the reactions to crying in more ecologically valid settings. Studying the reactions of young adults to infant distress is important because many will become parents in the near future, and an infant’s behavioural, emotional and social development is largely influenced by the responses of the caregiver (Ainsworth et al., 1978). But also, infant crying may lead to child abuse (Barr et al., 2007), and research in the past has shown that abusive mothers more often incorrectly identify infant emotions than non-abusive mothers (Kropp & Haynes, 1987). 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