Sensitive infant caregiving among the rural Gusii in Kenya

Attachment theory's core hypotheses in rural Andean Peru

This is the first study aiming to test two universality claims of attachment theory within a rural Andean sample from Cusco, Peru. A total of 69 mothers and their children (6 to 36 months) participated. Child attachment security was assessed with the Attachment Q-set (AQS), maternal sensitivity was measured during three naturalistic episodes (free interaction, bathing, and feeding) with the Ainsworth sensitivity scale and the Maternal Behavior Q-sort (MBQS), and a cumulative maternal risk variable was calculated. Results revealed that most children displayed less characteristic secure base behaviors in the interactions with their mothers, compared to other reference samples. Furthermore, an association between maternal sensitivity and child attachment security was found, and a negative relation between maternal sensitivity and the cumulative risk variable. These results support some of the attachment theory's universality claims, and suggest new avenues for research on assessment issues in rural samples in the Global South.

Using video observation in the family context: The association between camera-related behaviors and parental sensitivity

Research on parental sensitivity often relies on video observation of parent-infant dyads. However, to date, no study has assessed both infants' and parents' interactions with the camera, and how this relates to parental sensitivity levels. This exploratory study micro-coded camera-related behaviors (CRB) by 4-month olds and their mothers and fathers on a 1-s time base, and examined the associations between those behaviors and parental sensitivity in 75 Dutch families. While parents' CRB made up only 0.8% of total interaction time, infants' made up 12%. Multi-level time-series analyses showed that infants' CRB predicted mothers'. Infants' CRB predicted fathers' CRB, and vice versa. Maternal sensitivity was significantly lower when children looked at the camera for over one-third of total interaction time (Cohen's d = 1.26). These findings indicate further research is required to better understand how video observation might threaten ecological validity.