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THE ROLE OF PARENTAL AFFECT-MIRRORING INTHE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONREGULATION, ATTACHMENT SECURITY,

AND REPRESENTATIONAL THOUGHT (PRETENCEAND FANTASY)

George Gergely & Orsolya Kos

Summary

Aims1. To identify early individual differences among infants in using contingency detection, controlseeking, maternal contingent reactivity, and affect-mirroring in emotional self-regulation at 6 months;2. To test whether such differential patterns of affective self-regulation predict attachment security at12 months with the specific aim of identifying characteristic patterns predicting Disorganizedattachment;3. To test how a) patterns of affect-regulative interactions at 6 months, and b) quality of infantattachment at 12 month correlate with the quality of cognitive-representational and affect-regulativeuse of pretence, imagination, and empathic competence during the 2nd year.

MethodsThere were two studies with similar designs. In the first study (SEE COMPONENT 1), infants wereassessed in a mirror interaction task (see below) at 6 months and attachment security and attachmentdisorganization were tested in the strange situation at 12 months. In the second study (SEECOMPONENT 2)the strange situation and mirror interaction were both assessed at 12 months. Thepretence-empathy test battery was only done for the first study (see below). Data for this battery wasalso collected for the second study but has not yet been scored.

Results

1. Our most significant finding is that Disorganized attachment at 12 months is predicted by a specificpattern of seeking out and maximizing high contingent control in 6-month-olds. These infants showdifferential success in affect-regulation by generating high contingent control over (both social andnon-social) stimulus sources in the mirror following the stressful contingency deprivation still-faceperiod of the MIS.A) they spend more time exploring their perfectly contingent self-movements in the mirror followingthe stress invoked by the contingency deprivation of the 2nd period (Still-face) compared to infantswho will become securely attached at 12 months(click here to see a graph),B) they initiate more mirroring of their mother during episodes of high maternal contingent reactivity,and C) they show a higher proportion of successful affect-regulation both when exploring their self-movement and when engaging contingent maternal reactivity compared to infants who will becomesecurely attached at 12 months (click here to see a graph).
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2. A) We found that amount of maternal references to infant mental and affective states during theaffect-regulative Phase 3 of the MIS at 6 months showed strong correlations with measures ofadvanced cognitive-representational pretence and empathic competence in the 2-year-olds.B) Measures of maternal affect-attunement and mother-initiated mirroring interactions during the MISat 6 months showed strong positive correlations with cognitive-representational understanding ofpretence as well as negative correlations with measures of pretence-reality confusion during the 2ndyear.C) Amount of exploration of the perfectly contingent self-movements, especially during Phase 3 ofthe MIS at 6 months (that predicted Disorganized attachment at 12 months), showed intriguingnegative correlations with (i) measures of using pretence to cope with negative affect, (ii) measures ofempathy, and (iii) measures of cognitive-representational understanding of pretence.D) Amount of infant-initiated mirroring during maternal contingent reactivity in the MIS (a factoralso correlated with Disorganization at 12 months) showed negative correlations with (i) measures ofusing pretence to cope with negative affect, (ii) measures of empathy, and (iii) measures of cognitive-representational understanding of pretence.

Implications for psychoanalysis

This research has aimed at operationalizing and empirically testing within an attachment theoryframework some of the most central psychoanalytic developmental concepts such as maternal affect-mirroring, attunement and holding that psychoanalysts have for long suggested to play a central rolein early psychosocial development forming the core of functional self development, experiencing asense of self agency, the internalization of affective control structures, and the formation of symbolicthought, mentalization, and social reality testing. These central constructs that capture the mostimportant causal aspects of the quality of functional and adaptive affect-regulative attachmentenvironments, can also direct our attention to the nature of those dysfunctional attachment contexts

and their interaction with individual temperamental factors of vulnerability that may establishpathological developmental outcomes leading to developmental psychopathologies of the self such asborderline personality disorder, or dissociative or narcissistic personality disorders. One of the mostimportant results of the current developmental research project that has attempted to empiricallyidentify such psychoanalytic developmental mechanisms and their functional consequences forpsychic development, is the identification of a possibly innate temperamental feature of contingentcontrol seeking and maximizing that seems to lie at the basis of a dominant affect-regulative style ofimposing perfect contingent control on the social and non-social environment in the face ofexperiencing the trauma of unpredictable loss of contingent control over the attachment environment.Such a control-dependent affect-regulative trait may function as a serious factor of vulnerability fordysfunctional attachment contexts characterized by repeated experiences of unpredictable loss ofcontingent control such as those experienced in parental abuse, neglect, maltreatment, and unresolved

loss. The interaction of these environmental and temperamental factors together may provide thedevelopmental background for the establishment of dissociative styles of defensive mentatalizationstrategies, involving inhibition of mentalizing about the other's intentional mind states in a defensiveattempt to impose perfect control over the other's mind and actions through projection and projectiveidentification. Our results also provide evidence that early dependency on high contingent control isdetrimental to the development of representational abilities (as evidenced by a deficient ability forunderstanding pretend play and for affect-regulative use of fantasy and imagination) that arenecessary both for the development of a functional ability to mentalize about other minds, and toavoid teleological concretistic thinking that leads to acting out, lack of emotional self-awareness, anddeficits in reflective self function. Our research has also provided evidence that maternal affectmirroring, contingent maternal reactivity, and maternal attention and references to the infant's internalaffective, intentional, and attentional states promote later representational functioning, mentalization

and self-reflective capacities, and emotional self-awareness and control in the young child. In sum,our research has provided an important example of how empirical infancy research and clinically-

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based psychoanalytic developmental theory can mutually and beneficially influence each otherleading to a much needed scientific grounding of often metaphoric clinical insights.

Keywords

Affect-mirroring, Control seeking, Attachment security, Attachment disorganization, Representationalfunctioning, Pretence, Imagination, Fantasy, Borderline Personality Disorder, ProjectiveIdentification, Psychosocial origins of developmental psychopathologies of the self

Bibliography

Gergely, G., & Watson, J. S.(1996). The social biofeedback theory of parental-affect-mirroring: Thedevelopment of emotional self-awareness and self-control in infancy. The International Journal ofPsycho-Analysis, 77, 1-31.2.Gergely, G.(1998). Naissance de la capacit de rgulation des affects. In: J. Sacrispeyre (Ed.),Prendre soin d'un jeune enfant, (pp. 59-70), Toulouse: Societ d'Editions "Recherches et Syntheses"

rs.3.Gergely, G. & Watson, J. S.(1999). Early social-emotional development: Contingency biofeedbackmodel. In P. Rochat (Ed.), Early Social Cognition (pp. 101-137). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.4.Gergely, G.(2000). Mahler reapproached: New perspectives on normal autism, symbiosis, splittingand libidinal object constancy from cognitive developmental theory. Journal of the AmericanPsychoanalytic Association, 48(4), 1197-1228.5.Gergely, G.(2002). The development of understanding self and agency. In U. Goshwami (Ed.),Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development. Oxford: Blackwell.6.Gergely, G.(2002). Some confusion about pretence-reality confusions. Developmental Science,5(4).7.Gergely, G., Kos, O., & Watson, J. S.(2002). Perception causale et role des comportementsimitatifs des parents dans le dveloppement socio-motionnel prcoce. In J. Nadel & J. Decety (Eds.),

Imiter pour dcouvrir l'human: Psychologie, neurobiology, robotique et philosophie de l'esprit. Paris:Press Universitaires de France.8.Kos, O., & Gergely, G. (2001). The 'flickering switch' hypothesis: A contingency-based approach tothe etiology of disorganized attachment in infancy. Cognitive and interactional foundations ofattachment. Special Issue of the Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 65(3), 397-410.9.Gergely, G. (2000) The development of the representation of self and others. Journal of Infant, Childand Adolescent Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, Vol. 1., No. 3., 25-32. 10.Fonagy, P. Target, M. & Gergely, G.(2000). Attachment and borderline Personality Disorder: Atheory and some evidence. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Vol. 23, No. 1. pp. 103-123.11.Nichols, K., Gergely, G., & Fonagy, P.(2001). Experimental protocols forInvestigating relationshipsamong mother-infant interaction, affect regulation, physiological markers of stress responsiveness,

and attachment. In J. Allen, (Ed.) Cognitive and interactional foundations of attachment, Special Issueof the Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 65(3), 371-379.12.Gergely, G., Fonagy, P., & Target, M.(2002). Attachment, mentalization, and the etiology ofborderline personality disorder. Self Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 1, 61-72.

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COMPONENT STUDY 1

Aims1. To identify early individual differences among infants in using contingency detection, controlseeking, maternal contingent reactivity, and affect-mirroring in emotional self-regulation;2. To test whether such differential patterns of affective self-regulation predict attachment securitywith the specific aim of identifying characteristic patterns predicting Disorganized attachment;3. To test how a) patterns of affect-regulative interactions at 6 months, and b) quality of infantattachment at 12 month correlate with the quality of cognitive-representational and affect-regulativeuse of pretence, imagination, and empathic competence during the 2nd year.

Methods

Infants were assessed in a mirror interaction task (see below) at 6 months and attachment security andattachment disorganization were tested in the strange situation at 12 months. The pretence-empathytest battery was also done for this study.

A) The 'Mirror Interaction Situation' (MIS) (a modified Still-face procedure in front of a one-waymirror) at 6.5 months. Mother and infant are seated 2 ms next to each other facing a one-way mirror.They are separated by an occlusion screen so that they cannot touch each other, but can interact byfacial and vocal gestures through the mirror (click here to see a diagram of the setup). Two camerasplaced facing (but invisible to) them on the other side of the one-way mirror records their facial andvocal behaviours. These records are fed into a mixer that creates a synchronised time-coded split-screen record for off-line analysis. The situation consists of 3 1-min episodes: Phase 1.: 'Free

interaction' in which mother can freely interact with the baby through the mirror; Phase 2.:'Contingency deprivation' during which Mother puts on a neutral, motionless 'still-face'; and Phase 3.:'Recovery period' in which Mother interacts freely again. (FOR DETAILS SEE: coding categories forthe mirror interaction situation).

B) Infant attachment security at 12 months: The Strange Situation Test (SST)The SST is astandardized procedure for assessing quality of infant attachment at 12 months (Ainsworth et al.,1978). It involves two brief separations and two reunions with the parent and/or a stranger in anunfamiliar laboratory setting. Infant reactions to separation and reunion are coded by a standardizedcoding system that measures individual differences in the strategies to cope with separation-inducedstress. It identifies four types of attachment patterns: Secure (B-type), Avoidant (A-type), Resistant(C-type), and Disorganised/Disoriented (D-type).

C) The 'Pretence-Empathy' test battery: it measures a) the level of cognitive-representationalunderstanding of pretence, b) the quality of empathic competence and c) the quality of affect-regulative use of imaginative play.This battery of pretend play and empathy induction tasks developedby us is administered and videotaped in the family home. Different aspects of representational andaffect-regulative functioning have been operationalized in these tasks (production and comprehensionof pretend object-substitution, stipulation and extrapolation of make-belief identity, inferring make-belief actions and their causal consequences, differentiating reality from pretence, ease of 'switching'between these two representational modes, spontaneous empathic reactions, and elaboration,enrichment and modification of pretend scenarios for affective self-regulative purposes).FORDETAILS SEE: the 'pretence-empathy' test battery
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CODING CATEGORIES FOR THE MIRRORINTERACTION SITUATION (MIS)

The response categories included the number, duration and quality of emotion expressions (positive,negative, neutral) of both mother and infant, the frequency and duration of looking at self vs. other forboth mother and infant, the amount of imitative vs. nonimitative contingent facial and vocalinteractions, the relative frequency of mother- vs. infant-initiated contingent and imitative (attuned)facial and/or vocal interactive episodes, etc. Below is the full list of behavioural categories used:

Maternal behavioral categories:

Gaze direction (duration, frequency);o Infant's mirror image

o Other Affect state (duration, frequency);

o Positiveo Negativeo Neutral

Maternal verbalisations (duration) Content of maternal verbalisation (frequency)

o Reference to infant's behavioural, affective or mental state,o Reference to mother's own presence, behavioural, affective or mental state,o Reference to object of infant's attentiono Attention seeking, greeting verbal gestures

Mother initiated Interactive Episodes (frequency) Mother initiated matching during Interactive Episodes (frequency) Affect attunement that take place outside the Interactive Episodes (frequency)

o Verbal non-imitative but contingent acknowledgement of the baby's state,o Mother imitates the infant

Non-attuned gestures (frequency);o Bodyo Vocalo Facial

Attuned-gestures (frequency) during matching or affect attunemento Bodyo Vocalo Facial

Infant's behavioral categories:

Gaze direction (duration, frequency);o Mother's mirror imageo Own mirror imageo Own bodyo Looking away

Contingency testing in the mirror (frequency) Affect state (duration, frequency);

o Positive

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o Negativeo Neutralo Infant initiated Interactive Episodes (frequency)

Infant initiated matching during Interactive Episodes (frequency) Affect attunement that takes place outside the Interactive Episodes (frequency):

o Infant imitates the motherThe MIS data were analyzed by the Observer (Noldus) Program. The statistical analyses of the MISdata in relation to maternal and infant attachment groups were carried out using SPSS for Windows.Parametric (Multivariate ANOVA; planned pair-wise comparisons by t-tests) and non-parametricstatistics (Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, binominal sign test, Chi-Square); Reggression and Corelationanalyses.

Return to Component 1

Return to Main Study

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THE 'PRETENCE-EMPATHY' TEST BATTERY

This battery of pretend play and empathy induction tasks has been administered and videotaped in thefamily home by a trained experimenter (with the (passive) presence of the mother). We havedeveloped the series of tasks have with consideration of comparability to previously used measures ofrepresentational functioning in pretend play available in the literature (such as Harris and Kavanaugh's(1993) representative study of the youngest age groups, Harris et al's (1991) procedure as modified byGolomb and Galasso (1995) testing emotionally charged pretence, or Golomb and Kuersten's (1996)paradigm to test 'switching' between reality vs. pretence modes of thinking). Different aspects ofrepresentational functioning have been operationalized in these tasks (such as ability to engage in andto interpret pretend object substitution, stipulation and extrapolation of make-belief identity, inferringmake-belief actions and their causal consequences, ability to differentiate between reality andpretence, capacity to 'switch' between these two representational mode, and spontaneous elaboration,enrichment and modification of stipulated pretend scenarios to adaptively deal with emotionallycharged pretence topics). In particular, the following five categories were tested by using severalpretend tasks or scenarios for each:

Task 1: Stipulation of make-belief identity(2 tasks);

Task 2: Extrapolation of make-belief identity(2 situations with 3 different episodes in each);

Task 3: Inferring make-belief actions and their imagined causal consequences(2 episodes);

Task 4: Elaborative spontaneous use of pretend play for affect-regulative purposes: the abilityto use make-belief to cope with negative affect induced in imagination(2 open-ended pretencescenarios (evoking separation and physical injury, respectively) to be completed by the child);

Task 5: Evocation of empathic reactions towards the mother vs. towards a stranger(2 enactedepisodes in which either the mother or the experimenter (stranger) acts as if being in pain due to anaccidental injury).

The children's reactions were independently coded by two trained coders using an objective scoringsystem developed by the Principal Investigator and the Co-investigator. Interrater reliability was high(kappa= .96). Each child received a combined numerical score along the following responsecategories:

Categories measuring high metarepresentational functioning:

1. A combined index of pretence comprehension:This overall score of metarepresentational

functioning was made up by the combination of three subscales measuring different representationalaspects of understanding make-belief:

1.1. Understanding stipulated pretend identity(Task 1) 1.2. Ability to transform pretend identity based on contextual cues(Task 2) 1.3. Understanding make-belief actions and inferring imagined causal consequences in a

pretend world(Task 3)

2. Spontaneous make-belief actions(This category measured the frequency of engaging inspontaneous pretence actions that were additional to the requested make-belief responses tested for bythe different tasks)

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3. Spontaneous use of imaginary objects (This category measured the frequency of using gestures(instead of actual objects with stipulated pretend identity) to indicate the presence of imaginaryobjects)

Categories measuring low metarepresentational functioning:

Reality-based interpretation(This measure consisted of the combined frequency score of thefollowing two subcategories of reality-based interpretations: a) Real person substitution; and b) Realobject use)

Real person substitution(Instead of the stipulated pretend figure (doll) the child performsthe pretend action on him/herself, on the experimenter, or on the mother)

Real object use(instead of the stipulated pretend object (e.g., straw as toothbrush) the childuses a realistic object to perform the pretend action (e.g., brings his/her real toothbrush frombathroom to wash teddy's teeth with)

Categories measuring the quality of coping with negative affect induced in imagination:

(a) Primitive coping reactions (This category included the following types of responses to the open-ended scenarios depicting separation and physical injury: Refusal of continuing ('escape to reality');freezing; denial; attempt to involve mother to resolve the situation)

(b) Advanced coping reactions(This category included the following types of responses to the open-ended scenarios depicting separation and physical injury: the child him/herself acts as an active agentto resolve the source of negative affect (e.g., active soothing); the child uses dolls to act to resolve thesource of negative affect)

Categories measuring the quality of empathic reactions induced:

(a) Nonempathic reactions(0) (This category included the following types of responses to apparentinjury and expressions of pain by mother or stranger: Doesn't orient toward or react to inducing event;attends to inducing event, but shows no reaction; attends to event with expressing fearfulness)

(b) Slightly empathic reactions(1) (This category included the following types of responses toapparent injury and expressions of pain by mother or stranger: Attention to event with empathic facialexpression; asks about injury; acts to soothe but only upon being instructed)

(c) Highly empathic reactions(2) (This category included the following types of responses toapparent injury and expressions of pain by mother or stranger: Attention to event with empathic facialexpression accompanied by spontaneous and adequate act(s) to soothe the sufferer). (This new

procedure has been devised by Gyorgy Gergely and Orsolya Koos. The detailed coding procedure canbe obtained by contacting them.)

Questionnaire:A set of 17 open ended questions on transitional object use, imaginary companion,play activities in the home, temperamental characteristics, emotional stability/instability of infant,emotion-regulative practices in the family, etc. (This new questionnaire has been devised by GyorgyGergely and Orsolya Koos. The detailed coding procedure can be obtained by contacting them)

Return to Component 1


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COMPONENT STUDY 2

AimsThe aim of this study was to replicate the results of the previous study with a larger sample and also tolook at the significance of attachment security as a moderator for the self-contingent responsesinduced by the still-face procedure in the mirror interaction situation. The design of this study was thesame as study 1 except that infants were tested at 12 months both in the Strange Situation test and themirror interaction situation (SEE COMPONENT 1)

Methods

See component study 1 for details of methods (SEE COMPONENT 1). The sample were 150 infants

and mothers from whom we have valid data for x infant-mother pairs. Mothers were recruited fromthe community by advertisement.

Results

The results broadly replicated the findings of the previous study.

1. There were 92 secure and 47 insecure mother-infant pairs. There was a highly significantinteraction between attachment security and the proportion of time that the infant spent exploringperfectly contingent self movements in the mirror during the stress invoked by contingencydeprivation in the still-face period (SEE FIGURE 1). There was no difference between groups in the

proportion of time spent in self-exploration in phase 1 of the procedure. There was a highly significantincrease (p=.0001) in the time spent exploring perfectly contingent self movements in the mirror inthe insecure group. Most of the insecurely attached infants returned to pre-stressor levels of selfexploration in the third phase of the procedure so that the difference between secure and insecureinfants in this phase was no longer statistically significant (p=.08)

2. There were 32 avoidant and 15 resistant infant-mother pairs in the insecure group. On the wholethere were no important differences between the two insecure groups although both clearly differed

from the secure infants (SEE FIGURE 2). Quite clearly there were differences between the 3 groupsin terms of the quadratic effect (the size of the elevation in self exploration in phase 2) (p=.001).

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Avoidant infants were not quite so quick to return to baseline levels as resistant infants. Avoidantinfants spent somewhat more time in the final phase exploring self-contingent behaviour than secureinfants (p=.09). Both avoidant and resistant infants were highly significantly different from secureinfants in the second phase.

3. There were few disorganized infants in the sample. Only 11 infants had disorganization ratings of 5or more and 20 infants 4 or more. When we contrasted these 20 infants with the remaining 119, wefound that the 2 groups differed substantially in terms of the amount of contingent mirror self-exploration they engaged in (SEE FIGURE 3). Unlike the impact of attachment security, attachmentdisorganization had particularly marked effects in the 3rd phase of the procedure. Both disorganizedand non-disorganized infants increased their self exploration in the second phase relative to the firstphase, but whereas non-disorganized infants returned to baseline levels, infants rated as disorganized

during separation & reunion continued self-exploration even after the mother started reactingspontaneously to her infant. While for the disorganized infants there was a significant elevation (.03)of this behaviour in the 3rd phase relative to the 2nd, for non-disorganized infants there was a highlysignificant reduction (.0001)

4. Exploring the secure and insecure groups separately (SEE FIGURE 4), an interesting marginallysignificant pattern emerges. (p

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procedure. Thus in the third phase disorganized infants respond with self-exploration whether they aresecure or insecure, but only insecure disorganized infants appear to do so in the still-face procedure.
