Abstract
Several studies have investigated the factors responsible for infant caregiving, showing that adults respond differently to different infants and infant cues and that caregiving is regulated at different levels. However, no studies have systematically investigated how different infant cues are processed at the different levels and to what extent these responses are associated with caregiving. The aim of the present work was to investigate how non-parent adults process different infant cues and to what extent these responses are associated with caregiving propensity. Fifty-five adults (37 females) between 19- and 35-year-olds (M = 23.4) were presented with positive (happy) and negative (sad) infant faces and their implicit and explicit responses were measured by means of implicit association tests and semantic differentials, respectively. In addition, participants were administered a self-report scale developed to measure caregiving propensity. The results confirmed that happy faces are associated with more positive responses than sad faces at both explicit and implicit levels; and that the association between these responses and caregiving is moderated by the sex of the participants, the cue and the level of processing considered. Indeed, caregiving propensity is associated with the explicit response to happy faces in males, whereas with the implicit response to sad faces in females. These results show that caregiving depend on both child and caregiver characteristics, but highlight that to fully understand parenting, it is necessary to take into consideration the interaction between the individual characteristics, the child characteristics and the subjective perception of infant cues.
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Nasti, C., Parisi, F., Senese, V.P. (2023). A Multilevel Approach on the Investigation of the Association Between Responses to Infant Cues and Caregiving Propensity. In: Esposito, A., Faundez-Zanuy, M., Morabito, F.C., Pasero, E. (eds) Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Neural Systems to Data Science. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 360. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3592-5_26
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