Self-regulation and Beyond: Affect Regulation and the Infant-Caregiver Dyad

How and Why People Synchronize: An Integrated Perspective

Academic AbstractInterpersonal synchrony, the alignment of behavior and/or physiology during interactions, is a pervasive phenomenon observed in diverse social contexts. Here we synthesize across contexts and behaviors to classify the different forms and functions of synchrony. We provide a concise framework for classifying the manifold forms of synchrony along six dimensions: periodicity, discreteness, spatial similarity, directionality, leader-follower dynamics, and observability. We also distill the various proposed functions of interpersonal synchrony into four interconnected functions: reducing complexity and improving understanding, accomplishing joint tasks, strengthening social connection, and influencing partners' behavior. These functions derive from first principles, emerge from each other, and are accomplished by some forms of synchrony more than others. Effective synchrony flexibly adapts to social goals and more synchrony is not always better. Our synthesis offers a shared framework and language for the field, allowing for better cross-context and cross-behavior comparisons, generating new hypotheses, and highlighting future research directions.

From co-regulation to self-regulation: Maternal soothing strategies and self-efficacy in relation to maternal reports of infant regulation at 3 and 7 months

This study, conducted in Germany, examines the role of maternal soothing strategies to explain the association of maternal self-efficacy with infant regulation (crying and sleeping behavior). Questionnaire data of 150 mothers, living in Germany, with mixed ethnic and educational backgrounds were collected when infants were 3 and 7 months old. Two types of maternal soothing strategies were distinguished: close soothing, involving close physical and emotional contact, and distant soothing, involving physical and emotional distancing from the infant. A cross-sectional SEM at 3 months indicated that maternal self-efficacy is associated with reported infant regulation through distant soothing strategies. Low maternal self-efficacy was associated with frequent maternal use of distant soothing, which in turn was related to reported infant regulation problems, that is, non-soothability and greater crying frequency. Frequent use of close soothing was associated with reported infant sleeping behavior, that is, frequent night-time awakenings. A longitudinal SEM further indicated that the effects of close soothing persisted at least until the infants' age of 7 months. The study showed how low maternal self-efficacy, increased use of distant soothing, and reported early infant regulation problems are intertwined and that, due to their persisting positive effect on infant soothability, close soothing better supports infant development.

Developmental Precursors of Primary and Secondary Callous-Unemotional Traits in Youth

There is growing evidence of diverse etiological pathways to the development of callous-unemotional (CU) traits, known as primary and secondary CU variants. The purpose of the present study was to extend previous cross-sectional research and examine theoretical predictors of CU variants prospectively from childhood to adolescence. Participants included high-risk control and normative samples from the Fast Track project (N = 754, male = 58%, Black = 46%). Using structural equation modelling, primary CU traits, identified in early adolescence, were associated with higher levels of childhood emotion regulation and lower levels of prosocial behavior. Secondary CU traits were associated with lower levels of childhood emotion regulation and low parental warmth, but not prosocial behaviour. Neither CU variant was related to harsh parenting. Parental warmth moderated emotion regulation and prosocial behavior on secondary CU traits. Results were not moderated by sex. A greater understanding of theoretical developmental precursors of CU variants may better guide intervention efforts.

The Relationship Between Sensory Processing and Attachment Patterns: A Scoping Review

Background. Clinicians and researchers have observed that sensory processing and attachment difficulties frequently co-occur; however, little is known about which sensory processing and attachment patterns are interrelated across populations. Purpose. To review evidence of empirical relationships between sensory processing and attachment patterns across the life span. Method. Using the Arksey and O'Malley framework, four databases were searched up to June 2021 for studies that investigated relationships between sensory processing and attachment patterns. Findings. Twenty-two studies met inclusion criteria: nine considered sensory and attachment patterns in children/adolescents and thirteen in adults. In children, sensory modulation was positively associated with attachment security. In adults, more extreme patterns of sensory modulation (e.g., higher sensory sensitivity) were generally associated with attachment insecurity. Implications. Findings indicate empirical relationships between sensory processing and attachment constructs in children and adults that warrant further investigation. Occupational therapists should consider both sensory processing and attachment patterns when planning interventions.

Exploring the impact of COVID-19 on newborn neurodevelopment: a pilot study

The COVID-19 pandemic can seize the opportunity to explore the hypothesis of prenatal exposure to viral infections increases the risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. Advancing our knowledge in this regard would improve primary prevention of mental disorders in children. For this pilot study, six-week-old infants born to mothers exposed (n = 21) or unexposed (n = 21) to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were assessed in Santander-Cantabria (Spain) using the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). Groups comparisons were performed to explore the effects that infection and timing of exposure (in terms of the three trimesters of pregnancy). The infants' competencies and performances on the NBAS were generally similar in the exposed and unexposed to SARS-CoV-2 groups. The most significant difference found was a less optimally response to cuddliness (item on the state regulation domain) particularly in infants born to mothers exposed in the third trimester of pregnancy, and in pull-to-sit (item on the motor system domain). Although our interpretations must be careful, these preliminary results highlight the possible association between prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure and poorer development in motor skills and infant interactive behavior. Further longitudinal studies are needed to explore these relationships and disentangle the biological mechanisms implicated.

Psychedelic Psychotherapy: Building Wholeness Through Connection

Background

We are confronted with dire statistics that document our current mental health crisis. New treatment modalities are desperately needed to address escalating mental suffering and trauma. Psychedelic medicines are attracting increased attention in psychiatry as effective treatment for a range of conditions. The mechanisms of actions and context necessary to maximize their full healing potential represent a radical departure from current psychiatric frameworks and present an opportunity to reimagine psychiatry as a healing art.

Objective

Psychedelic psychotherapy leverages biological, psychological, and spiritual domains to harness innate healing potentials. A novel psychotherapeutic methodology utilizing psychedelic medicines as catalyzing agents is presented, one that provides a developmental model to promotes self-actualization. The paper outlines transformational psychotherapy, the therapeutic process and corresponding practice implications.

Conclusion

Psychedelic psychotherapy represents a paradigm shift in healing, one that promotes self-integration and whole health. These shifts in internal health are correspondingly reflected in enhanced empathy, improved relatedness, and increased capacity for social connection. Much of human suffering and disregard for the planet is a reflection of our own collective inner impoverishment, fundamental disconnects, and unaddressed trauma. Psychedelic psychotherapy offers a healing approach to restore beauty and health to both the inner and outer worlds we inhabit.

Negative Affect and Maladaptive Eating Behavior as a Regulation Strategy in Normal-Weight Individuals: A Narrative Review

Emotions have a powerful influence on eating behavior, and eating behavior can have a powerful effect on emotions. The objective of the present narrative review was to evaluate the relationship between negative affect and maladaptive eating behavior as a regulation strategy in normal-weight individuals. A search of the literature within PubMed®, MEDLINE® and PsycINFO was conducted using a combination of the following terms: “affect”, “negative affect”, “affect regulation” and “maladaptive eating behavior”. A total of 106 papers were identified for full text review and were included in the final set of literature. The manuscript presents an overview of the literature on negative affect and maladaptive eating behavior. It offers a brief overview of restrained, uncontrolled and emotional eating in normal-weight individuals and looks at maladaptive eating behavior used to regulate their affect. Based on the previous research findings, we argue that using more adaptive strategies for emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal) might result in downregulating integral negative affect to food and in improving eating behavior.

Music and mood regulation during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

Music listening can be an effective strategy for regulating affect, leading to positive well-being. However, it is unclear how differences in disposition and personality can impact music's affective benefits in response to acute and major real-world stressful events. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to study how music is used to cope with stress, loss, and unease across the world. During the first month of the spread of the COVID pandemic, we used an online survey to test if people from four different countries used music to manage their emotions during quarantine and if the functions of music depended on empathy, anxiety, depression, or country of residence. We found a positive relationship between the use of music listening for affect regulation and current well-being, particularly for participants from India. While people with stronger symptoms of depression and anxiety used music differently, the end result was still a positive change in affect. Our findings highlight the universality of music's affective potency and its ability to help people manage an unprecedented life stressor.

The Clinical Relevance of Interdisciplinary Research on Affect Regulation in the Analytic Relationship

After more than a century of existence, theoretical development, research, and clinical practice within the psychoanalytic movement have consistently demonstrated that psychoanalysis is not a unitary and autonomous discipline. This has been evidenced by the various ways in which psychoanalytic thought and practice have been informed by and have established a dialogue-more or less fruitful-with related disciplines (neurosciences, developmental psychology, psychotherapy research, attachment theory and research, feminism, philosophy). This dialogue has contributed to a better understanding of the functioning of the human psyche, and therefore of the analytic process, informing clinical interventions. In turn, it has enriched research on psychoanalytic practice and process, underlining the fact that research in psychoanalysis is fundamentally about clinical practice. Since its origins, psychoanalysis has made explicit the work on the patient-analyst relationship as the terrain in which the analytic process unfolds. For its part, research in psychotherapy has demonstrated the relevance of the therapeutic relationship for the good development and outcome of any psychotherapeutic process. This supports the argument that research in clinical psychoanalysis should be research on the impact of the analyst interventions on the analyst-patient relationship. In this context, a central element of what happens in the analytic relationship refers to affect communication and therefore, affect regulation, which is manifested in the transferential and counter-transferential processes, as well as in the therapeutic bond. On the other hand, affective regulation is found at the crossroads of etiopathogenesis, complex personality models and psychopathology, allowing the understanding of human functioning and the staging of these configurations in the patient-analyst relationship. In this way, research on affective regulation in the analytic process is proposed as a path that exemplifies interdisciplinary research and scientific pluralism from which psychoanalysis enriches and progresses as a discipline. The case of a line of research on affective regulation in psychoanalytic psychotherapy is illustrated. The need to resort to other disciplines, as well as the translational value of our research and its clinical usefulness, is discussed.

The Mediational Effect of Affect Dysregulation on the Association Between Attachment to Parents and Oppositional Defiant Disorder Symptoms in Adolescents

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is a childhood disorder, commonly occurring in early school aged children with some symptoms becoming normative in adolescence (e.g., irritability, disagreeing). Affect dysregulation is a risk factor in the development of ODD. Affect regulation is nurtured within parent-child relationships, thus disruptions to attachment may derail children's capacity to develop adaptive affect regulation, increasing the risk for ODD. Using a high-risk sample of adolescents, we investigated the association between attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance with ODD through affect dysregulation. Attachment anxiety, but not avoidance, was associated with affect dysregulation and ODD. Affect dysregulation was found to fully mediate the relationship between attachment anxiety and ODD concurrently and prospectively. Similar findings have been demonstrated among children; results show that attachment anxiety, and its effects on affect dysregulation, are associated with ODD symptoms well into adolescence.

Cardiac physiological regulation across early infancy: The roles of infant surgency and parental involvement with mothers and fathers

High baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and infant temperament are associated with a child's ability to self-regulate, but moderators of this association have not been thoroughly examined in the literature. Parents who are more involved might have more opportunities to interact with and soothe their children. The current study examined whether parental involvement moderated the association between infant temperament and baseline RSA with mothers and fathers across early infancy. Participants included families (n = 91) assessed at 4 and 8 months of age. Infant temperamental surgency and parental involvement were measured via parent-report when infants were 4 months old, and infant baseline RSA was measured at 4 and 8 months of age. Results revealed differences in mother versus father predictors of infant baseline RSA. A significant Infant Surgency X Maternal Play interaction was revealed; infants of mothers who were low involvement increased in their baseline RSA as their surgency increased. A significant main effect of father care was found; infants with highly involved fathers had higher baseline RSA. In conclusion, mothers and fathers may differentially influence their infant's cardiac physiological regulation based on their specific type of involvement.

A method for measuring dynamic respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in infants and mothers

The measurement of respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA) in infants, children and adults is critical to the study of physiological regulation, and more recently, interpersonal physiological covariation, but it has been impeded by methods that limit its resolution to 30 s or longer. Recent analytical developments have suggested methods for studying dynamic RSA in adults, and we have extended this work to the study of infants and mothers. In the current paper, we describe a new analytical strategy for estimating RSA time series for infants and adults. Our new method provides a means for studying physiological synchrony in infant-mother dyads that offers some important advantages relative to existing methods that use inter-beat-intervals (e.g. Feldman, Magori-Cohen, Galili, Singer, & Louzoun, 2011). In the middle sections of this paper, we offer a brief tutorial on calculating RSA continuously with a sliding window and review the empirical evidence for determining the optimal window size. In order to confirm the reliability of our results, we briefly discuss testing synchrony by randomly shuffling the dyads to control for spurious correlations, and also by using a bootstrapping technique for calculating confidence intervals in the cross-correlation function. One important implication that emerges from applying this method is that it is possible to measure both positive and negative physiological synchrony and that these categorical measures are differentially predictive of future outcomes.

Taking Watsuji online: betweenness and expression in online spaces

In this paper, we introduce the Japanese philosopher Tetsurō Watsuji's phenomenology of aidagara ("betweenness") and use his analysis in the contemporary context of online space. We argue that Watsuji develops a prescient analysis anticipating modern technologically-mediated forms of expression and engagement. More precisely, we show that instead of adopting a traditional phenomenological focus on face-to-face interaction, Watsuji argues that communication technologies-which now include Internet-enabled technologies and spaces-are expressive vehicles enabling new forms of emotional expression, shared experiences, and modes of betweenness that would be otherwise inaccessible. Using Watsuji's phenomenological analysis, we argue that the Internet is not simply a sophisticated form of communication technology that expresses our subjective spatiality (although it is), but that it actually gives rise to new forms of subjective spatiality itself. We conclude with an exploration of how certain aspects of our online interconnections are hidden from lay users in ways that have significant political and ethical implications.

Infant Emotional Mimicry of Strangers: Associations with Parent Emotional Mimicry, Parent-Infant Mutual Attention, and Parent Dispositional Affective Empathy

Emotional mimicry, the tendency to automatically and spontaneously reproduce others’ facial expressions, characterizes human social interactions from infancy onwards. Yet, little is known about the factors modulating its development in the first year of life. This study investigated infant emotional mimicry and its association with parent emotional mimicry, parent-infant mutual attention, and parent dispositional affective empathy. One hundred and seventeen parent-infant dyads (51 six-month-olds, 66 twelve-month-olds) were observed during video presentation of strangers’ happy, sad, angry, and fearful faces. Infant and parent emotional mimicry (i.e., facial expressions valence-congruent to the video) and their mutual attention (i.e., simultaneous gaze at one another) were systematically coded second-by-second. Parent empathy was assessed via self-report. Path models indicated that infant mimicry of happy stimuli was positively and independently associated with parent mimicry and affective empathy, while infant mimicry of sad stimuli was related to longer parent-infant mutual attention. Findings provide new insights into infants’ and parents’ coordination of mimicry and attention during triadic contexts of interactions, endorsing the social-affiliative function of mimicry already present in infancy: emotional mimicry occurs as an automatic parent-infant shared behavior and early manifestation of empathy only when strangers’ emotional displays are positive, and thus perceived as affiliative.

Lost in Datafication? - A Typology of (Emotion) Data Contextualization

This article elaborates on the meaning of "context" for data created in interdisciplinary research on emotions. Particularly with regard to the potential reuse of scientific data, the elicitation of contexts can contribute to a better assessment of emotion data. Beyond a discussion of social scientific conceptualizations of "context" focusing on the situational and cultural contexts and their respective interrelations, this article presents the findings of an empirical study on datafication processes in interdisciplinary emotion research. Based on 123 survey responses and 15 in-depth interviews, a multitude of contextual dimensions will be reviewed. The typology of contexts, ranging from method-specific aspects and researchers' subjectivities to the contextual embeddedness of the research objects, provides a schema suitable for various epistemological approaches. The proposed typology can serve as a framework for emotion researchers to reflect on their research practice and interactions with research participants. The empirical findings also show the limitations of contextualization pertaining to tacit knowledge, implicit knowledge, embodied emotions and ethical considerations. The article concludes with suggestions for further research, pointing to intercultural settings, the integration of contexts and particular scenarios for data reuse.

Mothers' and fathers' mind-mindedness influences physiological emotion regulation of infants across the first year of life

The main aim of this study was to test whether mothers' (n = 116) and fathers' (n = 116) mind-mindedness predicts infants' physiological emotion regulation (heart rate variability; HRV) across the first year of life. Three hypotheses were examined: (a) parents' mind-mindedness at 4 and 12 months predicts infants' HRV at 12 months over and above infants' initial HRV levels at 4 months, (b) mothers' and fathers' mind-mindedness independently predict infant HRV, and (c) the effects of mind-mindedness on infant HRV (partially) operate via parenting behaviour. Infants' HRV was assessed during rest and a stranger approach. Mind-mindedness was assessed by calculating the proportions of appropriate and non-attuned mind-related comments during free-play interactions, and parenting quality was observed at 4 and 12 months in the same interactions. Path analyses showed that mothers' appropriate mind-related comments at 4 and 12 months predicted higher baseline HRV at 12 months, whereas mothers' non-attuned comments predicted lower baseline HRV at 12 months. Similar, but concurrent, relations were found for fathers' appropriate and non-attuned mind-related comments and infant baseline HRV at 12 months. In addition, fathers' appropriate mind-related comments showed an indirect association with infant baseline HRV at 12 months via fathers' parenting quality. With regard to infant HRV reactivity during the stranger approach, mothers' appropriate mind-related comments at 4 months and fathers' non-attuned mind-related comments at 12 months predicted a larger HRV decline during the stranger approach at 12 months. Infants' HRV at 4 months did not predict parents' later mind-mindedness. The results indicate that mothers' and fathers' appropriate and non-attuned mind-related speech uniquely impacts the development of infants' physiological emotion regulation.

Collaborative Irrationality, Akrasia, and Groupthink: Social Disruptions of Emotion Regulation

The present paper proposes an integrative account of social forms of practical irrationality and corresponding disruptions of individual and group-level emotion regulation (ER). I will especially focus on disruptions in ER by means of collaborative agential and doxastic akrasia. I begin by distinguishing mutual, communal and collaborative forms of akrasia. Such a taxonomy seems all the more needed as, rather surprisingly, in the face of huge philosophical interest in analysing the possibility, structure, and mechanisms of individual practical irrationality, with very little exception, there are no comparable accounts of social and collaborative cases. However, I believe that, if it is true that individual akrasia is, in the long run, harmful for those who entertain it, this is even more so in social contexts. I will illustrate this point by drawing on various small group settings, and explore a number of socio-psychological mechanisms underlying collaborative irrationality, in particular groupthink. Specifically, I suggest that in collaborative cases there is what I call a spiraling of practical irrationality at play. I will argue that this is typically correlated and indeed partly due to biases in individual members’ affect control and eventually the group’s with whom the members identify.