Waters, S. F., West, T., & Mendes, W. B. (in press). Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies. Psychological Science.

Wendy Berry Mendes, UCSF

Numeric/quantitative (rating scales, checkboxes, etc.)

SPSS

Multi-State Area, United States

January 1, 2012, throughFebruary 1, 2013

Laboratory experiment

Nonrandom sample

Approved by IRB or ethics board

• Psychology
• • Developmental psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Social psychology

Emotions, thoughts and intentions are not simply concepts that live privately in our minds, but rather affective states emanate from us and may influence those around us. We explored affect contagion in the context of one of the closest dyadic units, mother and infant. We initially separated mothers and infants and randomly assigned mothers to experience either a: 1) stressful positive-evaluation task; 2) stressful negative-evaluation task; or 3) non-stressful control task, and then reunited mothers and infants. Three notable findings were observed: 1) Infants’ physiological reactivity mirrored mothers’ reactivity engendered by the stress manipulation; 2) Infants whose mothers experienced social-evaluation compared to the control condition showed more avoidance towards strangers; 3) Following negative-evaluation, dyads exhibited greater physiological covariation, which increased over time. These findings suggest that mothers’ stressful experiences are contagious to their infants and that close pairs, like mothers and babies, can reciprocally influence each other’s dynamic physiological reactivity.

stress contagion; affect; developmental; mother-infant

Waters, S. F., West, T., & Mendes, W. B. (in press). Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies. Psychological Science.

Waters, S. F., West, T., & Mendes, W. B. (in press). Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies. Psychological Science.

Wendy Berry Mendes, UCSF

Numeric/quantitative (rating scales, checkboxes, etc.)

SPSS

Multi-State Area, United States

January 1, 2012, throughFebruary 1, 2013

Laboratory experiment

Nonrandom sample

Approved by IRB or ethics board

• Psychology
• • Developmental psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Social psychology

Emotions, thoughts and intentions are not simply concepts that live privately in our minds, but rather affective states emanate from us and may influence those around us. We explored affect contagion in the context of one of the closest dyadic units, mother and infant. We initially separated mothers and infants and randomly assigned mothers to experience either a: 1) stressful positive-evaluation task; 2) stressful negative-evaluation task; or 3) non-stressful control task, and then reunited mothers and infants. Three notable findings were observed: 1) Infants’ physiological reactivity mirrored mothers’ reactivity engendered by the stress manipulation; 2) Infants whose mothers experienced social-evaluation compared to the control condition showed more avoidance towards strangers; 3) Following negative-evaluation, dyads exhibited greater physiological covariation, which increased over time. These findings suggest that mothers’ stressful experiences are contagious to their infants and that close pairs, like mothers and babies, can reciprocally influence each other’s dynamic physiological reactivity.

stress contagion; affect; developmental; mother-infant

Waters, S. F., West, T., & Mendes, W. B. (in press). Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies. Psychological Science.

Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies

Wendy Berry Mendes, UC San Francisco

Numeric/quantitative (rating scales, checkboxes, etc.)

SPSS

Multi-State Area, United States

June 1, 2012, throughFebruary 1, 2013

Laboratory experiment

Nonrandom sample

Approved by IRB or ethics board

• Psychology
• • Developmental psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Social psychology

Emotions, thoughts and intentions are not simply concepts that live privately in our minds, but rather affective states emanate from us and may influence those around us. We explored affect contagion in the context of one of the closest dyadic units, mother and infant. We initially separated mothers and infants and randomly assigned mothers to experience either a: 1) stressful positive-evaluation task; 2) stressful negative-evaluation task; or 3) non-stressful control task, and then reunited mothers and infants. Three notable findings were observed: 1) Infants’ physiological reactivity mirrored mothers’ reactivity engendered by the stress manipulation; 2) Infants whose mothers experienced social-evaluation compared to the control condition showed more avoidance towards strangers; 3) Following negative-evaluation, dyads exhibited greater physiological covariation, which increased over time. These findings suggest that mothers’ stressful experiences are contagious to their infants and that close pairs, like mothers and babies, can reciprocally influence each other’s dynamic physiological reactivity.

stress contagion, reactivity, developmental

Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies

Wendy Berry Mendes, UC San Francisco

Numeric/quantitative (rating scales, checkboxes, etc.)

SPSS

Multi-State Area, United States

June 1, 2012, throughFebruary 1, 2013

Laboratory experiment

Nonrandom sample

Approved by IRB or ethics board

• Psychology
• • Developmental psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Social psychology

Emotions, thoughts and intentions are not simply concepts that live privately in our minds, but rather affective states emanate from us and may influence those around us. We explored affect contagion in the context of one of the closest dyadic units, mother and infant. We initially separated mothers and infants and randomly assigned mothers to experience either a: 1) stressful positive-evaluation task; 2) stressful negative-evaluation task; or 3) non-stressful control task, and then reunited mothers and infants. Three notable findings were observed: 1) Infants’ physiological reactivity mirrored mothers’ reactivity engendered by the stress manipulation; 2) Infants whose mothers experienced social-evaluation compared to the control condition showed more avoidance towards strangers; 3) Following negative-evaluation, dyads exhibited greater physiological covariation, which increased over time. These findings suggest that mothers’ stressful experiences are contagious to their infants and that close pairs, like mothers and babies, can reciprocally influence each other’s dynamic physiological reactivity.

stress contagion, reactivity, developmental

Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies

Wendy Berry Mendes, UC San Francisco

Numeric/quantitative (rating scales, checkboxes, etc.)

SPSS

Multi-State Area, United States

August 1, 2012, throughFebruary 1, 2013

Laboratory experiment

Nonrandom sample

Approved by IRB or ethics board

• Psychology
• • Developmental psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Social psychology

Emotions, thoughts and intentions are not simply concepts that live privately in our minds, but rather affective states emanate from us and may influence those around us. We explored affect contagion in the context of one of the closest dyadic units, mother and infant. We initially separated mothers and infants and randomly assigned mothers to experience either a: 1) stressful positive-evaluation task; 2) stressful negative-evaluation task; or 3) non-stressful control task, and then reunited mothers and infants. Three notable findings were observed: 1) Infants’ physiological reactivity mirrored mothers’ reactivity engendered by the stress manipulation; 2) Infants whose mothers experienced social-evaluation compared to the control condition showed more avoidance towards strangers; 3) Following negative-evaluation, dyads exhibited greater physiological covariation, which increased over time. These findings suggest that mothers’ stressful experiences are contagious to their infants and that close pairs, like mothers and babies, can reciprocally influence each other’s dynamic physiological reactivity.

Stress, developmental, affective, contagion, physiological reactivity

Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and babies

Wendy Berry Mendes, UC San Francisco

Numeric/quantitative (rating scales, checkboxes, etc.)

SPSS

Multi-State Area, United States

August 1, 2012, throughFebruary 1, 2013

Laboratory experiment

Nonrandom sample

Approved by IRB or ethics board

• Psychology
• • Developmental psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Social psychology

Emotions, thoughts and intentions are not simply concepts that live privately in our minds, but rather affective states emanate from us and may influence those around us. We explored affect contagion in the context of one of the closest dyadic units, mother and infant. We initially separated mothers and infants and randomly assigned mothers to experience either a: 1) stressful positive-evaluation task; 2) stressful negative-evaluation task; or 3) non-stressful control task, and then reunited mothers and infants. Three notable findings were observed: 1) Infants’ physiological reactivity mirrored mothers’ reactivity engendered by the stress manipulation; 2) Infants whose mothers experienced social-evaluation compared to the control condition showed more avoidance towards strangers; 3) Following negative-evaluation, dyads exhibited greater physiological covariation, which increased over time. These findings suggest that mothers’ stressful experiences are contagious to their infants and that close pairs, like mothers and babies, can reciprocally influence each other’s dynamic physiological reactivity.

Stress, developmental, affective, contagion, physiological reactivity

Affect contagion between mothers and babies: Exploring the role of touch and valence.

Mendes

Numeric/quantitative (rating scales, checkboxes, etc.)

SPSS

Multi-State Area, United States

September 1, 2011, throughAugust 1, 2014

Laboratory experiment

Nonrandom sample

Approved by IRB or ethics board

• Psychology
• • Developmental psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Social psychology

Mothers and their babies represent one of the closest dyadic units and thus provide a powerful paradigm to examine how affective states are shared, and result in, synchronized physiological responses between two people. We recruited mothers and their 12- to 14-month-old infants (Ndyads = 98) to complete a lab study in which mothers were initially separated from their infants and assigned to either a low-arousal positive/relaxation condition, intended to elicit parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) reactivity, or a high-arousal negative/stress task, intended to elicit sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reactivity. Upon reunion, infants were placed either on their mothers’ laps (touch condition) or in a high chair next to the mother (no-touch condition). We then examined if the babies SNS and/or PNS responses changed from their baseline levels and how the dyads’ aal responses – both PNS and SNS responses – synchronized over time as a function of mothers’ affect manipulation and touch condition. Three noteworthy findings were observed. Firstly, infants of mothers assigned to the relaxation task showed greater PNS increases and PNS covariation. Secondly, infants of mothers assigned to the stress task showed stronger SNS covariation with their mothers over time. Finally, infants who sat on their mothers’ laps (i.e., touch condition) showed stronger SNS covariation than those in the no-touch condition. Taken together, these results suggest that mothers’ affective states – low-arousal positive states as well as high-arousal negative states – can be “caught” by their infants, and that touch can play a critical role in stress contagion.

Physiological covariation; emotional synchrony; mother-infant dyads; affect transmission

Waters, S. F., West, T. V., **Karnilowicz, H. K. & Mendes, W. B. (in press). Affect contagion between mothers and babies: Exploring the role of touch and valence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.