Gender as a determinant of emotional expressions in spontaneous infant-father interactions:
an exploratory study
T. Kokkinakia and V.G.S. Vasdekisb
a
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Crete, Rethymnon, Crete,
Greece
b
Department of Statistics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece
1
Abstract
The aim of the present longitudinal and naturalistic study was to investigate systematically the facial
expressions of emotions in the course of dyadic infant-father “proto-conversations” and pauses across
infant gender. Six infant girls and five infant boys were observed in the course of spontaneous
interactions with their fathers at home from the 2nd to the 6th month of infants’ life. Microanalysis of
paternal and infant facial expressions of emotion provided evidence of similarities and differences in
certain variables of emotional coordination summarized as follows: a) emotional matching and
attunement accompanied early girl- and boy-father “proto-conversations”. In the course of pauses,
paternal expressions of positive emotions did not affect girls’ and boys’ expression of the same emotions.
Though girls attuned to paternal emotional intensity, the way fathers changed their emotional states did
not affect significantly boys’ emotional intensity, b) girls, boys and their fathers remain consistent in their
emotional expressions in the beginning and at the end of the “proto-conversation” and pauses, c)
descriptive data provided evidence of temporal differences in the structure of father-infant “protoconversation” and pauses across infant gender , e) Descriptive data of dyadic emotional states provided
evidence that infant girls match and “complete” paternal emotions more than vice versa in the course of
“proto-conversation” and pauses, while infant boys match and “complete” paternal emotions more than
vice versa during “proto-conversations”, but during pauses infant boys “complete” paternal emotions
more than vice versa, and fathers match their emotions to infant boys’ slightly more than vice versa, g)
non-significant changes were evidenced for girls’, boys’ and paternal pleasure and interest neither in the
course of “proto-conversations” nor during pauses. These results will be discussed in the frame of the
theory of innate intersubjectivity.
2
Introduction
The aim of the present longitudinal and naturalistic study was to investigate systematically the facial
expressions of emotions of fathers in the course of the dyadic interactions with their infant-girls and –
boys during early infancy.
Since the times of the Greek philosophers, and probably before, humankind has been fascinated
by perceived differences between men and women (Wager & Ochsner, 2004). Psychologists have
acknowledged the importance of sex differences in emotional expressiveness for nearly a century (Tucker
& Friedman, 1993). F.H. Allport (1924, cited by Tucker & Friedman, 1993) asserted that the only
significant psychological difference between men and women was their expressiveness, with women
being more “personal and emotional” than men. Though a long, rich and inconclusive tradition of gender
differences in nonverbal abilities do not as yet provide a comprehensive and coherent picture of the
development of emotions in males and females (Kafetsios, 2004; Cossette, Pomerleau, Malcuit &
Kaczorowski, 1996), the majority of studies has confirmed Allport’s early theory, and has identified a
number of ways in which men and women differ in their processing of emotional events, including
differences in feeling, attention to, and expression of emotions (Wager & Ochsner, 2004). In particular,
they suggest that women better convey emotions than men (Tucker & Friedman, 1993), they are superior
to men in the perception of emotion (Kafetsios, 2004), they are more emphathic than males, that is, they
show more vicarious affective responses to others’ emotions (Hoffman, 1977), they are believed to smile
more, to express more warmth, affection and negative emotions than men (Briton & Hall, 1995), they are
significantly faster and more accurate than males in discriminating infant facial expressions (Badchuk,
Hames & Thompson (1985), while males inhibit their affective reactions to emotional stimuli (Burton &
Levy, 1989).
These gender related differences have been attributed to several factors such as dissimilar gender
roles, status and power imbalances, individual differences and differing socialization history of males and
females (Brody, 1997; Kuebli & Fivush, 1992), an interaction of biological and cultural factors
3
(Proverbio, Matarazzo, Brignone, Del Zotto & Zani, 2007), evolved mechanisms and the possibility of
hormonal modulation expressed through the primary caretaker hypothesis (Babchuk, Hames &
Thompson, 1985; Hampson, van Anders & Mullin, 2006), differences in hemispheric asymmetry for face
processing (Proverbio, Brignone, Matarazzo, del Zotto & Zani, 2006), the degree of lateralization of
cognitive and affective processes or, a certain degree of diversity between men and women in the
neurobiological basis and processing of emotional face recognition (Guntekin & Basar, 2007; Proverbio
et al, 2006; Proverbio et al, 2007), a biological cause, most likely neurogenetic and / or neuroendocrine in
nature (Connellan, Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Batki & Ahluwalia, 2000), different brain regions
activation and gender-related brain plasticity (Hyde, 2007). Stereotypes about gender and emotional
expression fail to acknowledge situational, individual and cultural variations in males’ and females’
emotional expressiveness and generalize across emotional intensity, frequency as well as across different
modalities of emotional expressions (Brody, 1997). Despite that, people’s beliefs are consistent with these
stereotypes (Plant, Hyde, Keltner & Devine, 2000).
Studies on gender-related differences with newborns to 3-month-old infants – despite their
methodological variations - have yielded some degree of consistency in their results through which
newborn girls are favored in attentiveness, in relation to duration and face preference, which may be
related to their fast response during imitation. In particular, Hittelman and Dickes (1979) found that
newborn girls engaged in eye-contact with their caretaker for a significantly longer duration than newborn
boys, newborn girls (aged 36.7 hours) spent more time looking at faces while boys were found to look
longer at a mobile (Connellan, Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Batki & Ahluwalia, 2001), increased eye
contact has been measured in girls aged 13-18 weeks in relation to boys (Leeb & Rejskind, 2004) and
Lavelli and Fogel (2002) found that during the 3rd-month postpartum girls spent significantly more time
actively engaged in face-to-face communication with their mothers than did boys. This superiority in
female in comparison to male attentiveness may be related to the finding that newborn girls (3-96 hours
old) showed more fine motor movements, a higher number of specific imitative gestures, responded faster
4
during the imitation and showed a higher baseline heart rate during the experiment (Nagy, Kompagne,
Orvos & Pal, 2007).
The majority of data on gender differences in 2- to 6-month-old infants - in experimental,
naturalistic or semi-naturalistic studies with mothers or unfamiliar experimenters - have yielded so
inconsistent results, especially when contrasted with the extensive documentation of gender differences
later in development, that it is not possible to trace the course of emotional development in males and
females and to determine at what age gender differences in emotionality emerge (Cossette et al, 1996;
Weinberg, Tronick, Cohn & Olson, 1999). In particular: a) two studies have reported that boys aged 2-3
months have been found to smile more than girls while interacting with their mothers (Lasky & Klein,
1979; Roe & Beckwith, 1992) while others showed that infant boys fuss more than girls, smile less
(Moss, 1974), are more irritable, less attentive, less stable emotionally (Call, 1978; Feldman, Brody &
Miller, 1980; Moss, 1974) and less able to regulate their arousal (Brazelton, Koslowski & Main, 1974)
and are less able to calm themselves. Other studies reported that at 2 ½ months, girls smile more than
boys while interacting with their mothers (Cossette et al, 1996), and react more negatively with
expressions of anger at 2 ½ , 3-4, 5 and 7 ½ months (Malatesta, Grigoryev, Lamb, Albin & Culver, 1986;
Mayes, Carter, 1990), b) Malatesta and Haviland (1982) observed more expressions of interest in 3- and
6-month-old girls while Toda & Fogel (1993) found that girls gazed away more often than boys at 3 and 6
months and Mayes & Carter (1990) found that 3-month-old girls were more likely to evidence intense
negative affect and to be more “disorganized” than boys during the still face.
On the other hand, several authors reported no differences in the emotional expressions of male
and female infants, aged 2-8 months, during face –to-face interaction with their mother (Cossette et al,
1996; Field, Vega-Lahr, Goldstein & Scafidi, 1987; Fogel, Tota & Kawai, 1988). Toda and Fogel (1993),
using the still-face paradigm, found no gender differences in facial expressions of boys and girls at 3 and
6 months. Similarly, Gusella, Muir and Tronick (1988) and Ellsworth, Muir and Hains (1993) reported no
gender differences in the smiling, gazing and grimacing behaviours of 3- and 6-month-olds. Cossette et al
5
(1996) reported that at 2 ½ and 5 months male and female infants’ reactions were quite similar in a social
and a nonsocial context. Both genders showed more expressions of interest toward a toy than at their
mother. They also smile more while interacting with their mother and displayed more negative
expressions when facing their still-faced mother.
When evaluating gender differences in infant behavior, it is necessary to take into account
gender-related differences in parental behavior (Weinberg et al, 1999) since boys and girls may receive
different messages about what types of emotional expressions are acceptable in social interaction
(Underwood, 1997). Sex-related behavioral differences in newborns may be the consequence of
differential treatment by the mother or the caregiver starting as early as immediately after birth (Nagy et
al, 2007), or these types of early sex stereotypes are predictive of parental behavior (Parke, 1979).
According to some studies interaction with mothers “favours” boys in comparison to girls (Brown, 1975;
(De-Chateau & Wiberg, 1977; Malatesta and Haviland (1982), others provided evidence for the reverse
(Robin, 1982), others suggest a complementary contribution to both infant genders’ expressive
behaviours (Thoman, Leiderman & Olson, 1972) while, others suggest no differences in interactions with
boys and girls (Biringen, Emde, Brown, Lowe, Myers and Nelson, 1999).
Evidence of differential paternal reactions to male and female infants shows a general consistency
in that fathers favor boys in comparison to girls. This is indicated even before the infant is born since a
number of studies have revealed a pronounced preference among expectant fathers for sons (Hoffman,
1977). At birth, fathers showed more signs of involvement with their newborn sons than daughters
(Woolett, White and Lyon, 1982, cited by White & Woollett, 1987). In the first 24 hours after birth, sons
were rated as better coordinated and more alert and daughters as more inattentive by their fathers than by
their mothers (Rubin, Provenzano and Luria, 1974). Between 6 and 48 hours after birth, fathers touch and
talked to more to first-born sons than to firstborn daughters and second-born sons and daughters (Parke &
O’Leary, 1976, cited by Parke, 1979). Between 12 and 72 hours paternal attachment behaviors did not
vary as the children’s state moved through drowsy, quite, alert, active alert and crying (Bowen & Miller,
6
1980). At 3 weeks and 3 months, parents stimulate their same-sex infant more than the opposite-sex infant
and they play complementary roles with their male and female infants. In particular, in the play context,
fathers held their daughters close, more frequently and for longer periods than did their sons. Mothers, in
contrast, held their son more close than their daughters. In contrast, for visual attending and stimulation
behavior, fathers consistently favored their sons and mothers more often favored their daughters (Parke &
Sawin, 1977). Across the first 3 months, fathers decreased their vocalizations to female infants more than
to male infants and spend more time attending to male than female infants (Rebelsky and Hanks, 1971).
This suggests that sons retain their salience for fathers more than do daughters (White and Woolett, 1987)
and may explain the significant suppression of 4-month-old female infants’ vocalization in the presence
of the father’s voice (Brown, 1979). Lamb (1977) found no-sex-of-parent-sex-of-infant relationships at 8
and 13 months despite the differences in father and mother treatment of their sons and daughters at 15 and
24 months. Fathers vocalized to their sons more than did mothers and fathers were twice as active in
interaction with their sons than with daughters. At 1 year, fathers and mothers were equally sensitive to
sons, but fathers were less sensitive than mothers to daughters (Schoppe, Diener, Mangelsdorf, Brown,
McHale and Frosch, 2006). Inconsistent to the above evidence is the finding that at 1 month of age, girls
were spoken to more by their fathers than were boys (Jones, 1981), while at 3 months fathers engaged
more in face-to-face interactions with their daughters than with their sons (Keller & Zach, 2002). The
above consistency may be due to the fact that fathers are generally more concerned than mothers with
sex-typing their children, particularly their boys, although they may in fact be more effective in enhancing
their daughter’s femininity (Lynn, 1976). Alternatively, Feldman (2003) proposed that mothers and
fathers may be more sensitive to children of the same gender because same-gender dyads share similar
innate modes of emotion regulation.
The difference of non-consistency versus consistency of evidence in differential maternal and
paternal expressions to male and female infants may be due either to restricted studies in fathermale/female –interaction, given that the nature of father-daughter interaction has been inadequately
7
defined (Lamb, 1975), or to “hidden” differences, that favor girls, in aspects not systematically
investigated [e.g. moment-by-moment analysis considering simultaneously both partners’ facial changes
in emotional expressions (Tcherkassof, Bollon, Dubois, Pansu and Adam, 2007)] which may compensate
for the fact that fathers systematically favor boys in more obvious expressive behaviours.
Several studies have also evaluated gender differences in coordination in parent-infant
interactions. Despite the controversy on whether interactional synchrony is genuine or spurious
(Gatewood & Rosenwein, 1981) there is no single agreed-on definition of coordination. Different
conceptualizations on how infants express their understanding by engaging in mutual responses to the
adult’s emotional states entailed to a host of related mechanisms that explain observed or felt phenomena
when human beings interact (Beebe & Jaffe, 1992; Bråten, 2007; Brazelton, Tronick, Adamson, Als &
Wise, 1975; de Waal, 2007; Feldman, 2007; Fogel, 1993; Kugiumutzakis, Kokkinaki, Markodimitraki &
Vitalaki, 2005; Κουγιουμουτζάκης, 2007; Meltzoff & Brooks,2007; Stern, 2007; Trevarthen, 1979,
1993a, b, 1997, 1998, 2005, 2007; Tronick, 2005) (for a review see Kokkinaki, 2008 a, b and c).
Regardless of the label, the convergent point of these mechanisms is that infants express their ability of
direct perception of feelings and interests in another person and responsive attunement manifested
through delicate, emotionally regulated engagements (Bråten & Trevarthen, 2007).
Studies have generally found greater coordination of behavior between mothers and sons than
between mothers and daughters (Weinberg et al,, 1999). Malatesta and Haviland (1982) found that
mothers tend to match their sons’ facial expressions but respond with dissimilar expressions to their
daughters’ facial displays. Tronick and Cohn (1989) found that at 3, 6 and 9 months, mother-son dyads
spend more time in coordinated states than mothers-daughter pairs and had higher synchrony scores than
mother-daughter dyads at 6 and 9 months. Weinberg et al (1999) found that male infants had greater
difficulty than female infants in maintaining affective regulation and mother-son dyads had higher
synchrony scores than mother-daughter dyads but took longer in repairing interactive errors. This may be
due to the fact that the interaction of parent and child gender for parent-leading-child pause duration (the
8
extent to which the children attuned to their parents’ vocal patterns) indicated that boys diverged from
their mothers, possibly in an attempt to achieve independence from them and, while mothers had a
positive influence on their daughters’ pause durations, they influenced negatively their sons’ pause
durations (Welkowitz, Bond, Feldman & Tota, 1990).
Limited literature on emotional coordination in spontaneous interactions of fathers and mothers
with their infants provide evidence of differences and/or similarities. In particular, dyadic interactions of
infants with both mothers and fathers appears mutually regulated, and in both cases partners build to a
peak of attentional involvement and come down in an orderly and cyclical fashion (Yogman, 1982).
Similarly, mothers who showed greater sensitivity toward and mutual engagement with their 4-monthold infants had spouses who showed similarly greater levels of these behaviours – relative to other fathers
(Braungart-Rieker, Garwood, Powers & Notaro, 1998). Given that one might expect stylistic differences
between mothers and fathers with regard to their contributions to children’s emotion regulation behavior
(Miller, Volling & Elwain, 2000), infant-father and –mothers’ play differs in the intensity of affective
arousal and the number of peaks of high positive emotionality. The time-line of arousal during fatherinfant play contained quick peaks of high positive emotionality, including joint laughter and open
exuberance (Feldman, 2003, cited by Feldman, 2007).
Restricted studies provide evidence that emotional coordination does not seem to differ in
interactions of fathers with their boys and girls. In particular, Welkowitz et al. (1990) indicated that girls
attuned equally well to their mothers and fathers and boys and girls attuned equally well to their fathers.
Further, emotional coordination, either by direct matching of expressions or by attunement has been
found to be the same in the course of spontaneous parent - infant interactions for parents and infants of
both sexes (aged 2-6 months) (Kokkinaki, 1998, 2003).
No study, to our knowledge, has investigated systematically the facial expressions of emotions of
fathers, infant-daughters and infant-sons in the course of their dyadic spontaneous conversations and the
preceding/following pauses longitudinally from the 2nd to the 6th month of life. The aim of the current
9
study therefore is to fill this gap. For purposes of this study coordination was defined and analyzed in
three ways: (a) matching – the extent to which the father and the infant express the same type of facial
expression of emotion, (b) complementarity – the extent to which the father and the infant express the
same type of positive facial expression of emotion, and (c) attunement – the extent to which the father and
the infant change their emotional intensity with respect to one another. Further, given that: “…a
characterization of the interaction that emphasizes the movement of the interaction from coordinated to
miscoordinated states and back again …is more accurate than one emphasizing matching/synchrony as
the typical and critical feature of the interaction.” (Tronick & Cohn, 1989, p.90), in the present study
mismatching was defined as the case in the course of which one or either partner was not interested in
interacting with the other partner.
The hypothesis formulation for this study was difficult for two main reasons: a) studies conducted
with infants 2-6 months have yielded so inconsistent results that it is not possible to trace the course of
gender differences / similarities in emotional expressivity across early infancy, and b) the lack of attention
to the role of child gender in father-infant relationship (Schoppe-Sullivan, Diener, Mangelsdorf, Brown,
McHale & Frosch, 2006). Despite that, the hypotheses for this study were as follows: (1) There are no
differences in the quality of emotional coordination neither in the course of spontaneous father-daughter
and father-son proto-conversation nor during pauses preceding and following this proto-conversation.
This hypothesis was based on research that demonstrated that girls and boys attuned equally well to their
fathers (Welkowitz et al. ,1990) and emotional coordination, either by direct matching of expressions or
by attunement has been found to be the same in the course of spontaneous father - infant interactions for
infants of both sexes (Kokkinaki, 1998, 2003), (2) there are differences in the temporal patterns through
which father-daughter and father-son spontaneous proto-conversations and pauses are structured. It is
difficult to predict the direction of this difference because of the following inconsistent results: a)
mother-son pairs spend more time in coordinated states than mother-daughter pairs (Tronick & Cohn,
1989), they need to work harder than mother-daughter dyads in keeping the interaction affectively well10
organized possibly because it takes longer for them to move from matching to mismatching states and to
repair the interaction (Weinberg et al, 1999), b) newborn girls respond faster than boys during the
imitation (Nagy et al, 2007), c) boys diverged from the mothers at the extent at they attuned to her vocal
patterns (through parent-leading-child pause duration) and this confirms that parent influencing the child
or the child attuning to the parent occurs primarily with girls (Welkowitz et al, 1990), d) women identify
negative emotions – suggested to be more difficult to discriminate- at a much faster latency than did men
(Hampson et al, 2006), e) exposure time affected gender differences in emotional responses to pictures of
facial expressions (Sonnby-Borgstrom, Jonsson & Svensson, 2008) and, f) girls coordinate the duration of
pauses of vocal behavior significantly more than did boys (Feldstein & Field, 2002).
Studying
gender-related differences in the emotional matching and attunement
of facial
expressions taking place in early father-infant interaction in a Greek sample is important because: 1)
emotion recognition accuracy, that is, the ability to recognize others’ emotional states from facial
expressions and speech prosody, which is presupposed for emotional coordination, has been related to
social adjustment for the girls, but not for the boys (Leppanen & Hietanen, 2001), 2) given that genderrelated differences in emotional expression vary considerably depending on whether an emotion is
expressed via facial expressions or other modalities (Brody, 1997), some experiments have highlighted
that women are better at recognizing fundamental emotions through facial expressions but not through
other channels (Hall & Matsumoto, 2004; Graham, Ricci Bitti & Argyle, 1975, cited by Proverbio et al,
2007), 3) it may extend our understanding on the roots of facial expression intensity recognition and
attunement given that the most reliable gender differences in the verbal expression of emotion tend to be
in the intensity with which emotions are expressed (Brody, 1997), and greater intensity of emotion
expressed by females relative to males (both facially and verbally) may be more true of Western cultures
than of Eastern cultures (Brody, 1997), 4) it may extend our understanding of the role of the face-to-face
period in human development and the way in which the cultural context in interpersonal communicative
style may guide the development of infant affective expression (Fogel, Toda & Kawai, 1988), given that
11
gender differences in emotional expressiveness are culturally specific (Brody, 1997) and the importance
of considering both gender and ethnicity simultaneously in the study of emotions (Durik, Hyde, Marks,
Roy, Anaya & Schultz, 2006), 5) given that boys and girls receive different types and amounts of
information from adults regarding emotions and emotional expressions (McClure, 2000), differences in
the dyadic characteristics of mother-infant interactions across infant gender are likely to differentially
affect the socioemotional development of boys and girls and may have important consequences for the
infants’ responsiveness and formation of the self (Carter, Mayes & Pajer, 1990; Chodorow, 1978;
Robinson, Little & Biringen, 1993; Tronick & Cohn, 1989). This may be due to the fact that social
matching may serve a protective role that buffers the infant against stress, facilitates the infant’s coping
with stress and increases the infants’ sense of agency and effectance (Weinberg, Tronick, Cohn & Olson,
1999).
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of eleven infant-father dyads (N=22) from middle-class families born at a maternity
clinic in Rethymnon, Crete, Greece. There were six female and five male infants. Fathers of the infants
ranged in age from 27 to 47 years (mean age: 33.63 years). Fifty five percent of the fathers had a
university degree and the rest had Lyceum School Education. For both groups of infants (girls and boys),
there was an equal number (2) of fathers who attended their infant’s birth. All the 11 infants were fullterm and healthy. The infants’ mean birth weight was 3568 gr (SD = 487.479, range: 2800-4250gr), and
the mean birth height was 52.22 cm (SD = 2.160, range: 48-55 cm).
Procedure
Study participants were recruited through the obstetricians of the maternity clinic and the local
pediatricians who were approached by the first researcher and informed orally and in written form on the
aim and the procedure of the study. Parents who expressed interest in participating in the current study
were scheduled to be visited by the researcher and an introductory discussion took place at their home.
12
Video-recordings were made in the infants’ homes and were scheduled at the fathers’ and the
infants’ convenience, that is, a time when the fathers was available at home and the infants were likely to
be relaxed and alert. All video-recordings were made with a Panasonic NV-MS4 S-VHS HI-FI STEREO
camera. Video-recordings were made at 15-day intervals, starting when the infant was 2 months old until
the end of his/her sixth month of life. At each visit, the recording was made for 8 (for the younger infants
aged 2-4 months)-10 minutes (for the older infants aged 4.5-6 months). Across the age range of this
study, nine video-recordings were made for each infant. A total of 99 video-recordings (11 infants X 9
video-recordings for each) were made for the entire sample. The whole duration of micro-analyzed
interactions was 880 minutes [(8 minutes X 11 infants X 5 video-recordings) + (10 minutes X 11 infants
X 4 video-recordings)].
Fathers were asked to play as he normally did with his infant and ignore and observer (T.K.). The
video-recordings took place in a room and a position chosen by the fathers prohibiting any third-party
intervention. Details of the recording conditions (e.g. distance between the two partners and between the
father-infant dyad and the researcher, researcher’s position) are available by Kokkinaki (2008b). If the
infant was unwell or became distressed or either the father or the researcher considered that the visit
should be postponed for some reason, it was rescheduled as soon as possible thereafter. Written records or
regular discussions with the parents, concerning the infants’ development confirmed that all the infants
were progressing “normally”.
Coding
Paternal infant-directed speech and infant vocal and non-speech sounds were carefully
transcribed verbatim from the video-recordings of free infant-father interactions and then verified against
the original tapes.
There is evidence that as early as 2 months of infants’ age expressions of emotions are passed to
and fro and this interplay between the infant and the parent is organized as a coherent dual performance
which, because it periodically creates utterance or utterance-like messages that tend to alternate parent-to13
infant and infant-to-parent, it is called “protoconversation” (Bateson, 1979; Brazelton, Koslowski &
Main, 1974; Stern & Gibbon, 1980; Trevarthen, 1993, 2007). Based on these, in the current study the two
partners’ vocal, speech and non-speech sound behaviors were treated as clusters and classified into verbal
expression categories within certain focus categories [this scheme adopted and extended certain parts
from the coding system of Murray and Trevarthen (1986), Murray, Kempton, Woolgar & Hooper (1993)
and Butler, McMahon and Ungerer (2003)]. Then, the focus and the verbal expression categories were
structured, in accuracy of 1/25th of a second, into units and subunits of analysis with the aim to segment
temporally the free father-infant interaction in order to micro-analyze paternal and infant emotional facial
expressions in a reliable and well-defined way.
The description of the focus and verbal expression categories is presented in Table 1 (Kokkinaki,
2008a,b, c and d).
(Table 1)
In its simple form, a subunit of analysis was defined as the temporal period which began at the start of a
focus category which included a verbal expression category of paternal infant-directed speech and/or an
infant vocalization/non-speech sound expression to which the father responded to, and it ended at the
termination of the same paternal verbal, vocal or non-speech sound expression and/or infant vocal/nonspeech sound expression. In a more complex form, the subunit of analysis coincided temporally to a
combination of focus categories containing a combination of verbal expression categories. A unit of
analysis was defined as the temporal period which started at the beginning of the first subunit of analysis
and it ended at the termination of the last subunit. This implies that that the unit of analysis contained one
or more subunits of analysis. The number of subunits of analysis contained within one unit depended on
the pause duration between the end of one subunit and the beginning of the following subunit. If the pause
duration between two sequential subunits was shorter or equal to 2 seconds, then these constituted
subunits of the same unit of analysis. In the case that the pause duration between two subunits was longer
than 2 seconds, then another unit of analysis began. The 2-second pause duration has been judged
14
adequate for the change of content of paternal utterances (Herrera, Reissland & Shepherd, 2004). Though
Tronick and Cohn (1989) reported that the repair rate - the transition from a miscoordinated to a
coordinated state – ranges about once every 3 seconds to once every 5 seconds, the 3-second pause “feels
so long” (Stern & Gibbon, 1979, p. 412), while up to 3 seconds information can be treated as a unit
(Poppel, 1994).
Though rare, paternal verbal/vocal expressions and infant vocal/non-speech sound expressions
that were either inaudible or intelligible in meaning were excluded from the analysis. Paternal whispers
were classified into units and subunits of analysis since they constitute 14.6% of paternal utterances in
early infancy (Papousek, Papousek & Bornstein, 1985). Further, non-speech physiological sounds - such
as burps, coughs, hiccups, sneezes, yawnings, sighs, whimperings etc. – were included in the analysis
since fathers often imitate (Kokkinaki, 1998) and/or comment them verbally.
Within each subunit of analysis, we micro-analyzed three basic types of facial expressions (with
six subcategories) within three qualities of emotional valence and four categories for the direction of
change of emotional intensity (Table 2) (Kokkinaki, 1998, 2003, 2008a,b, c and d).
(Table 2)
The predominance of stability in the expression of pleasure and interest (see Results) led us to describe
qualitatively paternal and infant emotional expressions within each subunit of analysis in order to get a
more precise and adequate description of the cases in which infants and fathers either did not express
consistent emotions in the course of the subunit or expressed emotions other than pleasure and interest.
Dyadic emotional expressions were classified into emotional coordination and mismatching categories as
defined in Table 3 (Kokkinaki, 2008a, c and d).
(Table 3)
Two features of emotional matching and completement are clear from the above definitions: a) the quality
of emotional states that are matched or completed, and b) the direction of matching / completement,
15
which indicates the temporal organization of it, that is, which partner expressed first an emotion which
was then expressed by the other partner.
Inter-observer reliability assessments were made for the facial expressions of emotions and the
emotional intensity. To measure inter-observer reliability, a second observer who had been trained in use
of the coding scheme, but was not aware of the hypothesis under investigation, scored a random sample
of 33% of the video-files and the results were tested by Cohen’s Kappa. Inter-observer reliability for all
categories ranged from 0.76 to 0.86, the mean value for k for all categories being 0.80. Scores obtained
for the facial expressions of emotions ranged from 0.76 to 0.85, and those for emotional intensity ranged
from 0.76 to 0.86.
Statistical analysis
For the statistical analysis, Chi-square test of independence was used to determine possible relationships
between pairs of categorical variables. It is recognized that data within units or subunits are in general
correlated. As a safeguard for the effects of this correlation, against false rejections of the null hypothesis,
the significance level for chi-square test was set at 1%. Despite the interactional approach of this study, in
order to carry out the statistical analysis, for all cross-tabulations, the independent variable was
considered to be the paternal emotional expressions / intensity while the dependent variable was the infant
emotional expressions / intensity. In the case of a significant relationship between two variables, adjusted
residuals were calculated to indicate categories that deviate from the independence assumption. Adjusted
residuals follow approximately a standard normal distribution if the independence assumption is correct
(Dobson, 2002). Thus, conclusions of a significant result are reached only if a combination of categories
has an adjusted residual whose absolute value is greater than 2.0. Moreover, Friedman test (with sliding
windows) was used to investigate possible age-related changes of infant and paternal common
predominant emotional expressions across the nine (9) age points of this study. The significance level for
Friedman test was Bonferroni corrected and set at 5 / 4 (number of comparisons made) = 1.25%. All
analyses were performed using SPSS statistical package (Version 13, 2004).
16
Results
a.Temporal patterns of dyadic girl- and boy-father protoconversation and within-pauses
In the course of 880 minutes of free dyadic girl- and boy-father interactions a total of 942 units
and 4386 subunits were micro-analyzed. The distribution of units, subunits, in-between units and
subunits pauses as well as their duration across infant gender is presented in Table 1.
(Table 4)
The descriptive data presented in Table 1 provide the following evidence: a) units were more
frequent (597 vs 345) and lasted about half duration (37.15 vs 64.07) in girl-father than boyfather protoconversation, b) the pauses between units were more (543 vs 300) and lasted longer
in duration (7.06 vs 4.75) in protoconversations of fathers with girls than with boys, c) more
subunits were analyzed in boy-father than girl-father interaction (2291 vs 2095), while subunit
duration seem to be slightly longer (9.78 vs 9.03) in girl-father than boy-father interactions, and
d) more pauses between subunits were analyzed in father-boy than father-girl interaction (1946
vs 1498), while pause duration seem to be slightly longer in girl-father than boy-father
interaction (0.85 vs 0.71).
In sum, less units of longer duration with less pauses of shorter duration and more
subunits and more pauses, both of slightly shorter duration, occurred in boy-father than in girlfather protoconversations.
b. Relationship between infant and paternal emotions and emotional intensity and between predominant
paternal and infant emotions in the beginning and at the end of protoconversation
17
A significant relationship between paternal and girls’ facial expressions of emotions in the course of
protoconversation (Table 2, line 1a, infant-father protoconversation) provided evidence that when the
father expressed pleasure, the infant girl’s expression of pleasure was more frequent (19.4%) than when
the father was showing interest to the infant (5.1%) or interest and pleasure to the infant sequentially
(8.8%). When the father expressed interest to the infant girl, the latter was more likely to be interested to
the father (92.4%) than when the father was pleased (51.7%) or expressed pleasure and interest
sequentially (42.1%). In the cases in which the father expressed pleasure and interest sequentially, infant
girls were more likely to express the same sequence of emotions (49.1%) than pleasure (28.9%) or
interest (2.5%).
(Table 5)
Similarly, a significant relationship between paternal and boys’ facial expressions of emotions in
the course of protoconversation (line 1b) provided evidence that when the father expressed pleasure, the
infant boy was pleased (24.9%) more than when the father expressed interest (8.8%) or pleasure and
interest to the infant sequentially (2.5%). In the cases in which the father expressed interest to the infant
boys, the latter expressed the same emotional state to the father (86%) more frequently than when the
father expressed pleasure (52.4%) or interest and pleasure sequentially (45.4%). Further, when the father
showed interest and pleasure, or vice versa, sequentially, infant boys expressed the same emotions
(52.1%) more frequently than when the father expressed pleasure (22.7%) or interest to the infant (5.3%).
A significant relationship between paternal and infant girls’ emotional intensity (line 2a) showed
that when paternal emotions changed in an ascending way, girls’ emotional states changed in the same
way (34.3%) more than when paternal emotions were descending (17.4%), stable (17.8%) or fluctuating
(21.6%). Similarly, when paternal emotions changed in a descending way, infant girls’ emotional states
changed in the same way (25.6%) more than when paternal emotions changed in the ascending (12.1%),
stable (12.6%) or fluctuating way (17.2%). In the cases in which paternal emotions remained stable or
fluctuated, infant girls’ emotional states remained consistent (55.8%) or fluctuated (42.5%), respectively,
18
more than when the father’s emotional states changed in any of the rest ways. Similarly, a significant
relationship between paternal and infant boys’ emotional intensity (line 2b) showed than when paternal
emotions changed in the ascending, descending, fluctuated way or remained stable, infant boys’
emotional intensity changed more in the same way, that is, ascending (37.2 vs 17.7%, 18.2%, 23.3%),
descending (29.1% vs 13%, 14.5%, 22.3%) and fluctuating way (39.1% vs 26%, 29.1%, 11.7%) or
remained consistent (55.6% vs 23.8%, 24.1%, 15.3%), respectively, than when the paternal emotional
intensity changed in any of the rest ways.
Further, a significant relationship between girls’ and boys’ predominant emotions [pleasure,
interest and external pleasure/interest (condensed in one category)] in the beginning and at the end of
infant-father dialogue (lines 3a and 3b, respectively) provided evidence that when the girl/boy was
pleased in the beginning of the conversation, she/he was more highly probable to remain pleased at the
end of it than when she/he was interested or expressed external pleasure/interest in the beginning of it.
Similarly, when girls and boys were interested to the father in the beginning of the interaction, they were
more likely to remain interested at the end of it than when they were pleased or expressed external
pleasure/interest in the beginning of it. In the cases in which girls and boys expressed external
pleasure/interest in the beginning of the interaction, they were more likely to express the same sequence
of emotions at the end of it than when they expressed pleasure or interest alone in the beginning of it.
Similarly, a relationship between paternal predominant emotions to infant girls and boys (lines 4a
and 4b) in the beginning and at the end of protoconversation provided evidence that when the father was
pleased or interested to the girls or the boys in the beginning of their dyadic interaction, he was more
likely to remain in the respective emotional expressions than when he showed interest or pleasure to the
infant in the beginning of it.
c. Relationship between infant and paternal emotions and emotional intensity and between predominant
paternal and infant emotions in the beginning and at the end of within-unit pauses
19
In the course of 843 within-unit pauses, two non-significant relationships between paternal and
girls’ (line 1a, within-unit pauses) and boys’ emotional expressions (line 1b) provided evidence that
paternal expressions of pleasure or interest did not affect girls’ and boys’ expression of pleasure or
interest respectively.
Further, a significant relationship between paternal and girls’ emotional intensity in the course of
pauses within protoconversation (line 2a) provided evidence that when paternal emotions changed in a
descending way, girls’ emotions were more likely to change in the same way (27%) than when paternal
emotions were ascending (12.3%), stable (14.8%) or fluctuating (11.3%). When paternal emotions
changed in a fluctuating way, girls’ emotions were more likely to change in the fluctuating way (30.2%)
than when paternal emotions changed in the ascending (24.6%) or descending way (21.6%) or when they
remained stable 17.1%. It seems that only the ascending change in paternal emotional intensity did not
affect significantly the respective girls’ emotional change, since the adjusted residual for this cell (1.1<2)
did not differ to the respective one in the case that the independence hypothesis was true, that is, if we
assumed that there was no significant relationship between the paternal and the girls’ ascending emotional
intensity.
A non-significant relationship between paternal and boys’ emotional intensity in the course of
pauses within protoconversations (line 2b) provided evidence that the way fathers changed their
emotional states did not affect significantly boys’ emotional intensity.
Two significant relationships between girls’ and boys’ predominant emotional states in the
beginning and at the end of within-unit pauses (line 3a and 3b, respectively) provided evidence that when
infants of both genders expressed pleasure in the beginning of the pause, they were more likely to remain
pleased at the end of the pause (girls: 32.1%, boys: 35.3%) than when they expressed interest (girls: 10%,
boys: 4%) or external pleasure/interest (girls: 2.1%, boys: 2%) at the beginning of it. Similarly, when
infant girls and boys were interested to their father in the beginning of the pause they were more likely to
20
maintain this interest to the father at the end of the pause (girls: 67%, boys: 66%) than when they
expressed pleasure (girls: 28.6%, boys: 35.3%) or external pleasure/interest (girls: 21.9%, boys: 20.9%) at
the beginning of it.
Further, two significant relationships between paternal predominant emotional expressions in the
beginning and at the end of within-unit pauses provided evidence that when fathers expressed pleasure to
their girls and boys in the beginning of the pause (lines 4a and 4b, respectively), they were more likely to
remain pleased at the end of the pause (girls: 78.1%, boys: 87.2%) than when they expressed interest at
the beginning of it (girls: 20.4%, boys: 19.5%). Additionally, when fathers were interested to their infant
girls and boys in the beginning of the pause, they were more likely to maintain the same interest focus at
the end of it (girls: 79.6%, boys: 21.9%) than when they expressed pleasure at the beginning of it (girls:
21.9%, boys: 12.8%).
d. Description of dyadic emotional states in the course of girl- and boy-father protoconversation and
within-unit pauses
Descriptive data of dyadic emotional states in the course of girl- and boy-father protoconversation provide
the following evidence (Table 3, infant-father protoconversation): a) the occurrence of emotional
matching does not differ across infant gender, while emotional completement and combinations occur
more often in boy-father than girl –father protoconversation while the reverse occurs for emotional
irregularity, b) infant girls and fathers match a wider variety of emotions compared to infant boys and
fathers, c) infant girls and boys match and “complete” paternal emotions more than vice versa.
Descriptive data of dyadic emotional states in the course of within-unit pauses of girl- and boyfather protoconversation provide the following evidence (Table 3, within-unit pauses): a) emotional
matching, irregularity and combinations occur more often in girl-father than boy-father protoconversation
while the reverse occurs for emotional completement, b) infant girls match and “complete” paternal
21
emotions more than vice versa, while infant boys “complete” paternal emotions more than vice versa but
fathers match their emotions to infant boys’ slightly more than vice versa.
(Table 6)
e. Relationship between girls’, boys’ and paternal predominant emotions and age
The analysis of the relationship between infant – paternal emotions and age was carried out only for the
common infant and paternal prevailing emotions, that is pleasure and interest, both directed to the partner.
Tables 4 and 5 summarize the Friedman test analysis which compared paternal and infant pleasure and
interest every three (3) age points, through four (4) comparisons in the course of protoconversation and
within-unit pauses, respectively. The first comparison was carried out for possible differences between
the 2nd, 2.5 and the 3rd month, the second comparison was carried out for changes between the 3rd, 3.5 and
the 4th month, the third comparison was carried out for changes between the 4th, 4.5 and the 5th month and
the fourth comparison was carried out for age-related differences across the 5th, 5.5 and the 6th month. It
has to be mentioned that Friedman test analysis for the relationship between each emotion and age in the
course of infant-father protoconversation was carried out between the indexes that came from the
following division:
Total number of emotional expressions of one partner for each age point
Total number of subunits for each age point
Further, Friedman test analysis for the relationship between each emotion and age in the course of withinunit pauses was carried out between the indexes that came from the following division:
Total number of emotional expressions of one partner for each age point
Total number of pauses for each age point
22
The range of these indexes was between 0 and 1. This division was necessary because in the present
sample we had different number of subunits/pauses for each subject and for each age point. Through this
division this effect was taken into consideration.
Friedman test analysis provided evidence of non-significant changes of girls’ and boys’ pleasure
and interest and paternal pleasure and interest expressed to infant boys and girls at each and every
comparison, neither in the course of infant-father protoconversation (Table 7) nor during within-unit
pauses (Table 8).
(Table 7)
(Table 8)
Despite these non-significant changes, the developmental trajectories of girls’, boys’ and paternal
pleasure (Figures 1 and 2) show non-linear developmental trends. In particular, Figure 1 shows that girls’
and paternal facial expressions of pleasure follow non-linear but similar fluctuating trends.
(Figure 1)
Figure 2 indicates that boys’ and paternal pleasure follow similar trends from 2.5 to 3.5 months and after
the 5th month while they seem to differ from 2 to 2.5 and from 3.5 to 5 months.
(Figure 2)
Discussion
The present preliminary study aimed to investigate the facial expressions of emotions of fathers, infantdaughters’ and infant-sons’ in the course of their dyadic spontaneous interactions from the 2 nd to the 6th
month of life. The evidence it provided may be summarized as follows: a) emotional matching and
attunement accompanied girl- and boy-father proto-conversations. In the course of pauses, paternal
23
expressions of positive emotions did not affect girls’ and boys’ facial expressions of emotions. Though
girls attuned to paternal changes of emotional intensity, the way fathers changed their emotional
expressions did not affect significantly boys’ emotional intensity, b) girls, boys and their fathers remain
consistent in their emotional expressions in the beginning and at the end of the proto-conversation and
pauses, c) less units of longer duration with less within-unit pauses of shorter duration and more subunits
with more within-subunit pauses of slightly shorter duration occurred in the course of boy-father than in
girl-father proto-conversations, d) infant girls match and “complete” paternal positive emotions more than
vice versa in the course of proto-conversation and pauses. Infant boys match and “complete” paternal
positive emotions more than vice versa during proto-conversation, but in the course of pauses they
“complete” paternal emotions more than vice versa while fathers match their emotions to infant boys’
slightly more than vice versa, g) non-significant changes were found for girls’, boys’ and paternal
pleasure and interest neither in the course of proto-conversation nor during pauses.
The present study indicated that in the course of spontaneous infant-father protoconversations,
infants –girls and infant-boys matched their fathers’ facial expressions of pleasure and interest (that is,
one partner expressed the type of facial expression of emotion of the other partner) and attune their
emotional intensity change (one partner matched the shifts of emotional intensity of the other partner).
This finding may indicate that early father-infant protoconversation constitutes an example of
intersubjectivity (Kokkinaki , 2008a and b), which is infant gender-invariant. This extends Trevarthen’s
(1993b) suggestion that: “Both mother and infant adjust the timing, form and energy of their expressions
to obtain harmonious transitions and complementarity of feelings between them” (p. 57), and suggests not
only are mothers but also fathers and infants attune the timing, form and intensity of their emotional facial
expressions to obtain inter-synchrony (Kokkinaki, 2008 a, b and c).
Timing adjustment is revealed by the temporal organization of emotional matching and
“completement”, derived by their definitions (see Table 3), as well as by emotional attunement. Further,
24
the timing adjustment evidenced indirectly by emotional attunement presupposes adjustment to match the
rate of the incoming signal (Kokkinaki, 2008).
Form adjustment at two levels – the neural and the muscle level - is revealed indirectly by the
matching and attunement of facial expressions of emotions, though in the current study the coding of
facial expressions of emotions did not include brain imaging of networks measurements. At the neural
level, the evidence by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of overlapping brain
activation patterns when subjects feel their own emotions and observe the same emotions in others,
though the emotional cue is evaluated in the context of external and internal information (Vignemont &
Singer, 2006), along with the activation of the intention-detector brain centre and the adaptive oscillators
in one or the other partner (Stern, 2007) implies that emotional matching may constitute a case of
“…mutual coordination of two persons or…of two brains” (Koυγιουμουτζάκης, 2007, p. 248). At the
muscle level, given that the human facial communicative system is attached a bisymmetric set of muscle
units that are differentially excitable (Trevarthen, 1985), and these discrete facial muscle actions can be
not only identified but finely discriminated in newborns (Oster & Ekman, 1978, cited by Field, 1982),
matching of emotional facial expressions implies adjustment of the spatial forms of each partner’s facial
muscle activities (Kokkinaki, 2008a, b, c and d).
Further, the present study showed that in the course of protoconversation of fathers with their
daughters and sons, both infant genders matched their fathers’ shifts of emotional intensity, that is, they
exhibited elements of emotional attunement, which obviously presupposes intensity adjustment. In
particular, when the father’s emotional intensity was rising, descended, fluctuated or remained stable,
infant-girls and -boys consented, approved and followed the same change in the direction of emotional
intensity in order either to facilitate and maintain interaction (in instances of ascending or fluctuating
emotional change or stability) or to lead inter-synchrony to disruption (in the case of descending or
fluctuating emotional change). The evidence that when the father remained stable in emotional intensity,
infant-girls and -boys coordinated their emotional expressions in stability implies their intention to
25
maintain in communication. This adds to the evidence of the consistency emotionally expressed by
infants and fathers in the beginning and at the end of the protoconversations (Kokkinaki, 2008a, b and c).
Moreover, this investigation showed that neither infant-girls nor infant-boys matched paternal
expressions of positive emotions in the course of pauses preceding and/or following early infant-father
protoconversations. This may be due to restricted frequencies of the cases in the course of which the
limited number of daughter-father and son-father dyads of the current study, expressed exclusively
pleasure and interest during pauses. This is reinforced by the evidence that when paternal and infant
emotional expressions were analyzed for the course of pauses for the whole sample of 11 infants, the
same time period was featured by emotional “completement” of expressions – when the infant is
interested to the father while the latter expressed pleasure to the former - and expression of different
interests – when the infant expressed interest to the external world while the father is interested to the
infant (Kokkinaki, 2008 b). We suggest that the evidence that paternal expressions of pleasure or interest
did not affect girls’ and boys’ expression of pleasure or interest, respectively, is not due to infants-girls
and -boys’ inability to discriminate subtle cues in facial expressions of emotions. This suggestion is in
reinforced by the finding of this study that infant girls match and “complete” paternal emotions more than
vice versa in the course of protoconversation and pauses, while infant boys match and complete paternal
emotions more than vice versa during protoconversation, but during pauses infant-boys complete paternal
emotions more than vice versa. This implies that infants not only are able to understand, respond to,
interpret and regulate emotional expressions through perception of their partners’ facial expressions of
emotions (Trevarthen, 1985), but they participate actively and control to a great extent the interaction
(Kokkinaki, 2008a and b). Moreover, there is evidence that this predominance of infant over paternal
emotional matching does not occur only momentarily but all across the range of the 2nd to the 6th month of
infants’ life (Kokkinaki, 2008a).
26
The current study indicated that, in the course of within-unit pauses preceding and following
infant-father protoconversation, though girls attuned to paternal changes of emotional intensity, the way
fathers changed their emotional expressions did not affect significantly boys’ emotional intensity.
This may be due to the fact that in the course of longer duration of spontaneously-defined within-units
pauses in father-girl interactions (mean: 7.06 seconds) in comparison to father-boy interaction (mean:
4.75 seconds), girls had the chance to perceive, interpret, respond to and follow moment-by-moment all
the structure of changes of paternal emotional intensity. This temporal difference in pause duration may
be due to fathers’ and boys’ impatience to end the cycle of disengagement and re-start interaction in order
to share or match common emotional expressions. The above evidence seems to be compatible to the
suggestion of a female advantage for children’s facial expression processing from infancy through
adolescence (McClure, 2000). In particular, at the prolonged exposure time women showed more
involvement of emotion regulatory processes than men (Sonnby-Borgstrom, Jonsson & Svensson, 2008).
This may be due to differential attention to and memory for specific emotional cues between men and
women (Wager & Ochsner, 2005). Alternatively, the above finding may be related to sex differences in
reaction time, given that the differential reaction styles develop early in life (Leppanen & Hietanen,
2001). For instance, newborn girls showed more fine motor movements, a higher number of specific
imitative gestures and responded faster than boys during the imitation (Nagy et al, 2007). However, a
couple of factors argue against this interpretation. Given that a very short exposure time makes difficult
for the participants to control or modify their spontaneously evoked expressions, the above evidence
contradicts to the finding that, at limited exposure time, men had a tendency to show stronger facial
responses and to verbally report more emotional contagion than women (Sonnby-Borgstrom et al, 2008).
Moreover, men scored better than women in discrimination of duration of auditory stimuli in the range of
milliseconds (Rammsayer & Lustnauer, 1989). This may be related to the finding that on duration
judgements lasting seconds to minutes, women typically perceive time intervals as longer than men do
since women needed longer interstimulus intervals than men before they were able to indicate the correct
27
temporal order of two acoustic stimuli (Wittman & Szelag, 2003). Further, if males’ superiority in
temporal processing in auditory stimuli is true, it may compensate for the females’ predominance in
emotion recognition and acuity in temporal processing of visual stimuli, such as facial expressions of,
and this is manifested even in expressions which have been judged as difficult to discriminate. This
proposition may explain the evidence of the present study that in the limited spontaneously-defined time
of
within-unit pauses (4.75 seconds), infant-girls, but not infant–boys, matched paternal positive
emotions more than vice versa while fathers matched their emotions to infant boys’ slightly more than
vice versa. In this connection, there is evidence that: a) for girls the relation between emotion recognition
scores and social adjustment is stronger than for boys for emotional expressions which are difficult to
recognize such as surprise (Leppanen & Hietanen, 2001), or b) women identified negative emotions –
judged as difficult to discriminate- at a much faster latency than did men (Hampson et al, 2006). This
proposition is also reinforced by the suggestion that a girl who is not sensitive to the emotional states of
others fails to display expected social behavior and hence elicits negative reactions in her peers, whereas
similar deficits in boys may have a lesser impact on their social functioning (Leppanen & Hietanen, 2001;
McClure, 2000). Another interpretation we propose is related to the evidence that the expression of sex
differences seems to be influenced by the valence of the emotional signal per se, and not the timing of
processing of emotional information, since, women are faster than men at recognizing both positive and
negative emotions from facial cues, reported more intense positive and negative emotions than men, and
they showed a significantly higher level of decoding accuracy compared to men in the processing of
valence and intensity of infant expressions (Brody, 1997; Hampson, van Anders & Mullin, 2006;
Proverbio et al, 2007).
Further, the present study provided evidence that father-infant protoconversation, expressed
within the units of analysis, are followed and / or preceded by the absence of paternal infant-directed
speech and infant vocal / non-speech sound expression which were defined as pauses. Given that: (a)
emotional coordination (matching / attunement) has been found to accompany the father-infant
28
protoconversation (unit of analysis) and (b), emotional completement of expressions – when the infant is
interested in the father while the latter expresses pleasure to the former - as well as expression of different
interests – when the infant expresses interest to the external world while the father is interested in the
infant - accompany the pauses that precede and follow early infant-father protoconversation (Kokkinaki,
2008a, b and c), the above pattern of interaction seems to verify the finding that interactions are
characterized in terms of their movement from coordinated to miscoordinated states rather than only in
terms of their degree of coordination (Stern & Gibbon, 1978; Tronick & Cohn, 1989).
In addition, the present study provided evidence of less units of longer duration with less pauses
of shorter duration and more subunits with more pauses of slightly shorter duration occurred in the course
of boy-father than in girl-father proto-conversations. The longer duration of units and the more subunits in
father-boy in comparison to father-girl interaction is consistent with the finding that fathers talked more to
first-born boys than firstborn daughters and second-born sons and daughters as early as 6th hour after
birth (Parke & O’Leary, 1976). Across the first 3 months, fathers decreased their vocalizations to female
infants more than to male infants and spend more time attending to male than female infants (Rebelsky
and Hanks, 1971), which suggests that sons retain their salience for fathers more than do daughters
(White and Woolett, 1987) and may explain the significant suppression of 4-month-old female infants’
vocalization in the presence of the father’s voice (Brown, 1979).
Moreover, the evidence that longer-duration of less protoconversations in father-boy than fathergirl interaction, implies that father-son dyads spend more time, but less often, in coordinated states than
father-girl dyads. The shorter duration of within-unit and within-subunit pauses in father-son than fatherdaughter protoconversations imply that sons are quicker than daughters in repairing interactive errors
which does not accord to the finding that it took longer for mother-son than mother-daughter pairs to
move from matching to mismatching states and to repair the interaction (Weinberg, Tronick, Cohn &
Olson, 1999). This agrees with the finding that men are recovering more quickly than women from a
negative emotional event (Gard & Kring, 2007). Further, the longer duration of protoconversation in
29
father-boy than father-girl interactions implies that father-boy pairs spend more time in matching / attuned
states than father-daughter pairs, possibly due to sustained attention of both partners in order to satisfy
their curiosity and gain a source of pleasure (Rheingold, 1969). Given that mother-son pairs spend more
time in coordinated states than mother-daughter pairs (Tronick & Cohn, 1989), the above evidence may
be due the modeling process that may account for similarity in sensitivity between parents (BraungartRieker, Courtney, Garwood, 1999). Overall, it seems that the modeling and the compensatory processes
which may operate in specific aspects of expressive behaviours (e.g. timing of emotional expressions)
may account, to a certain degree, for the gender-related differences in parent-infant interaction across
infant and parental gender. Further, this male predominance in the timing of correction of interactive
errors may counterbalance for female advantage in acuity of temporal processing of facial expressions of
emotion even if these are judged difficult. Further research is needed given that little attention has been
paid to sex differences in the time course of emotional responses (Gard & Kring, 2007).
The present study provided evidence of non-significant changes in infants’ and fathers’ positive
emotions in the course of protoconversations and the following/preceding pauses across the age range of
the 2nd to the 6th month of infants’ life. Stability of infant and paternal emotional expressions may imply
that interest and pleasure motivate inter-subjective encounters as early as two months of infant’s life and
all across the age range of this study (Kokkinaki, 2008b). Despite that the developmental trajectories of
girls’, boys’ and paternal pleasure seem to be non-linear (Figures 1 and 2). The non-linear developmental
course of infant emotions implies periodic reorganizations in the infant’s motivational system guided by
perceptual experience that is sought to effectively complete each intended action (Kugiumutzakis, 1993,
1994; Trevarthen, 1997, 1998) possibly in combination to neurological changes in facial expression
processing (McClure, 2000). Further, similarities and differences in the developmental trajectories of
paternal and infant positive emotions may imply the constant competitive interaction between processes
of cognition, perception and individual action, on one hand, and the psychological mechanisms for social
cooperation, on the other hand (Kokkinaki, 1998, 2008b; Zeedyk, 1997, 1998). Moreover, similarity of
30
developmental curves imply the dyadic propelling of development by the interaction of motivational
changes both in infants and fathers (Kokkinaki, 1998a, 2008; Trad, 1990) while differences may imply
that sharing of meaning with other people is not always smooth and motive transitions are often preceded
by “difficult periods” (Rijt-Plooij & Plooij, 1993).
In sum, the present preliminary longitudinal and naturalistic study provided evidence of genderrelated similarities and differences in the quality and the temporal patterns of emotional coordination
within spontaneous infant-father interactions in the course of early infancy. The evidence of emotional
coordination, in the sense of emotional matching, attunement and “completement”, implies that early
infant-father interaction constitutes a case of intersubjectivity. This was evidenced through infant-genderinvariant adjustment to the timing, form and intensity of paternal emotional facial expressions to obtain
inter-synchrony The evidence of gender-related differences in the timing of emotional coordination may
be related to the early female predominance in acuity in temporal processing of visual stimuli, such as
facial expressions of emotions, manifested even in expressions which have been judged as difficult to
discriminate, which be counterbalanced either males’ superiority in temporal processing in auditory
stimuli later in life, and/or their predominance in the timing to correct interactive errors in the course of
silences.
Although the findings extend our understanding of gender-related similarities / differences of
certain aspects of emotional coordination in early infant-father interaction, we must acknowledge a few
limitations. One significant constraint of our study is certainly the relatively small number of participants.
This is due to the fact that it is difficult to assess enough comparable families with healthy infants with an
extensive observational programme (Keller & Zach, 2002). A second limitation of the current study is
related to the fact that observers vary in their ability to decode nonverbal cues and personal characteristics
such as cultural background, gender and age influence the process of perceiving and evaluating nonverbal
behavior (Rosenthal, 1979, cited by Woolfolk, 1981). A sophisticated software for the microanalysis of
facial expressions of emotions may satisfy this need. Another limitation of this study is its focus on a
31
single nonverbal channel in isolation. Examination of an individual channel, as index of emotion, alone
may actually obscure information about emotional coordination and sex differences in its developmental
course (McClure, 2000), and has to be completed by the investigation of other expressive systems that
convey affective information (Weinberg & Tronick, 1994). The importance of emotional whole-body
expressions in communications in combinations with facial expressions and emotional voice has been
noted (Van den Stock, Righart & de Gelder, 2007).
The importance of gender-related similarities and differences in the quality and the temporal
patterns of emotional coordination should not be downplayed on the basis of these findings. There is
evidence that mothers and fathers may contribute differently to the development of a child’s emotional
regulation behavior and fathers hold different emotion regulation expectations and experiences with
children of different ages. This possibly entails that parents may expect more mature self-regulation of
emotion and behavior on the part of older siblings, while younger siblings may not be expected to selfregulate as effectively (Kopp, 1989; Thompson, 1994). On the other hand, infants’ expectations about
paternal behavior may differ from their expectations about maternal behavior, possibly due to variations
in sensitivity and in history of interactions (Braungart-Rieker, Garwood, Powers & Notaro, 1998; Lewis,
1997). The naturalistic and longitudinal investigation of frame-by-frame analysis, considering
simultaneously both partners’ facial changes in emotional expressions, within free mother- and fatherinfant dyads and triads across infant gender and birth order may prove productive in the extension of our
understanding on the role and the developmental changes of interactional context in children’s emotion
regulation styles within salient family relationships.
32
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge Senior Lecturer Suzanne Zeedyk (School of Psychology, University of
Dundee) for her assistance and invaluable comments and advice on this article. We are also deeply
indebted to the infants and their families for “sharing” their time, cooperation and patience to participate
in this study.
Note
The data of the present study are derived from the Ph.D study of the researcher (Department of
Psychology, University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Professor Colwyn Trevarthen),
for which ethical approval has been granted by the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, NHS Trust
(8/95).
43
Table 1: Focus and main verbal expression categories according to which units and subunits of analysis were segmented.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Focus Category
Verbal Expression Categories
Examples
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Infant-focus
infant’s internal state
attention,
emotion,
autonomy,
communicative ability
character
knowledge/thought process/learning/memory
speaking from the infant’s perspective
infant’s external state
appearance,
admiration for the infant’s presence
Father-focus
Dyad-focus
Other-focus
father’s own behavior(s), emotions(s), belief(s) and presence
father’s attempt to: a) interact with the infant through vocal behavior
and/or verbal response (e.g. agreement, interpretation), b) describe the dyadic
emotional/behavioral exchange and c) express “sharing” (through the use of “we”)
of behaviors/emotions/physiological states/body parts/gaze direction with the infant
external situation (e.g. weather), an object/toy or refers to a third person,
“What are you looking at?” “What did you see?”,
“There is the smile! There is the smile!”,
“You are nice when you are standing upright!”,
“Will you speak? What will you say? Say it in your own words”,
“You silly boy!” “Are you a good boy?”,
“Why are you thoughtful? What are you thinking of?”,
“Do you want to learn to talk?”, “Now you saw melons and watermelons and you forgot everything else, didn’t you?”
“Where are you mummy? Did you see me walking? Did you see me
dancing?”
“Ah! Slobberer”,
“Oh! A daring man!”, “My Virgin Mary, what a child!”, “Oh, what a
dashing man. Look at this man here.”
“I am your father and I want you to look at me into the eyes…”
a) imitative/non-imitative response, “Yes, yes this is exactly what
you want to say”, “What is wrong with you? You have “a”, that
means, shall I pick you up?”, b) “Do you know that I adore you?”
c) “Shall we go for a walk?”, “We feel scared for technology?”,
“Shall we sleep?”, “Shall we eat our finger?”
“What are you looking at? Your little toy?”, “Where is your sister?
Where is Emily?”.
nursery songs, repeated vocalization(s), sentence(s) and non-speech sounds,
traditional Greek songs such as “Ah, Little bunny!” or improvised
non-responsive to infant cues.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
No-focus
44
Table 2: Description of the types of facial expressions of emotions for each quality of emotional valence and the categories of direction of
emotional intensity change.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Types of facial expression (with the correspondent valence in parenthesis)
Facial expressions of pleasure
Pleasure to the partner
Pleasure to the inanimate world
Interest to the partner
Neutral facial expressions
Neutral expression
open eyes, lips are closed or slightly open, corners of the mouth and cheeks are drawn back/upwards causing wrinkles on each side of the
mouth (+++)
signs of pleasure directed to the outside world (++)
eye contact or orientation to the partner’s face/torso (+)
serious unsmiling face, motionless body parts, no signs of vocalization or intent to vocalize (expressed by pre-speech mouth movements,
signs of self-absorption (looking passively own torso/body parts) or sleepiness (yawning, rubbing eyes) (0)
signs of interest directed to the outside world (0)
Interest to the inanimate world
Facial expressions of negative emotion
Negative expression (infant)
wrinkles around the eyes and nose, tight and protruded lips, open or closed mouth, corners of the mouth are downward (-)
Negative expression (father)
annoyance expressed rather verbally than by facial expression (-)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Categories for the direction of emotional intensity change
Ascending
the valence of the last emotional expression of one partner in the course of paternal-infant-directed speech is higher in the scale than the
valence of the first emotional expression of the same partner in the course of the same period
Descending
the valence of the last emotional expression of one partner is lower in the scale than the valence of the first emotional expression of the
same partner in the course of the same period
Stable
the valence of the emotional expression of one partner remains consistent in the whole course of the paternal infant-directed speech
Fluctuating
the valence of the first and the last facial expression of emotion is the same in position in the scale while the intermediate valence(s) differ
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
45
Table 3: Description of the emotional coordination (matching and “completement”) and mismatching categories micro-analyzed within each unit
of analysis.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Category
Description
Example
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Emotional matching
one partner (2) expressed the same facial expression of emotion
matching of pleasure was coded when the father smiles while the
of the other partner (1) before the first completes it, independently of
infant expressed grin or vice versa.
the intensity of it
Emotional “completement”*
Emotional mismatching
one partner (2) expressed a positive facial expression before the first partner (1)
in the course of paternal interest facial expression, the infant
terminated the facial expression of the complementary positive emotion
expresses pleasure, or vice versa.
one or either partner was not interested in interacting with the other partner.
In the first incidence, one partner expressed pleasure or interest
directed to the partner while the other partner was neutral or
negative in emotion. In the case that either partner was not
interested in communication, one partner was negative while the
other was neutral in emotion.
Combination
sequences of emotional matching or completement follow or precede
matching of pleasure was followed by emotional completement,
sequences of emotional mismatching within the same subunit of analysis
that is, the infant changes his/her expression from pleasure to
interest.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* The term “completement” has been selected mainly for two reasons: a) interest has been taken to be the most frequently experienced positive emotion (Izard & Buechler, 1980), and b) the expressed
states of feeling in either one of the interacting partners are evidently incomplete or open, anticipating a particular range of possible reactions of feeling in the expression of the partner (italics added,
Trevarthen,1993b).
46
Table 4: Frequency and duration of units and subunits analyzed in the course of infant girl- and boy-father protoconversations.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
N
Mean
Min.
Max.
Std.
Father-girl interaction
597
37.15
0.12
495.52
60.43
Father-boy interaction
345
64.07
0.24
514.84
81.49
Father-girl interaction
2095
9.78
0.04
186.60
15.48
Father-boy interaction
2291
9.03
0.12
160.04
13.51
Father-girl interaction
543
7.06
2.04
82.32
8.37
Father-boy interaction
300
4.75
2.00
66.64
4.97
Father-girl interaction
1498
0.85
0.04
28.00
0.88
Father-boy interaction
1946
0.71
0.04
2.84
0.48
Unit duration
Subunit duration
Pause duration between units
Pause duration between subunits
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
47
Table 5: Relationship between infant and paternal emotional states and intensity and between infant and paternal predominant emotional states in
the beginning and at the end of infant-father protoconversation and within pauses.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Infant-Father Protoconversation
Within-unit Pauses
Chi-square
df
p-value
Chi-square
df
p-value
(a) father-girl interaction
60.021
4
<0.001*
2.795
1
0.095
(b) father-boy interaction
82.166
4
<0.001*
3.404
1
0.065
(a) father-girl interaction
177.20
9
<0.001*
22.853
9
0.007*
(b) father-boy interaction
295.72
9
<0.001*
8.504
9
0.484
(a) father-girl interaction
856.20
4
p<.001*
113.747
4
P<0.001*
(b) father-boy interaction
741.62
4
P<.001*
93.566
4
P<0.001*
(a) father-girl interaction
1029.365
1
<0.001*
164.125
1
P<0.001*
(b) father-boy interaction
770.788
1
<0.001*
117.836
1
P<.001*
1.Relationship between emotional states
2.Relationship between emotional intensity
3.Relationship of infant emotions in the beg/end
4.Relationship of paternal emotions in the beg/end
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
48
Table 6: Descriptive data of dyadic emotional states of infant girls, boys and their fathers during protoconversations and within-unit pauses.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Infant-Father Protoconversation
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
Within-unit Pauses
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
Emotional matching
152 (7.3%)
164 (7.2%)
22 (4.1%)
7 (2.3%)
Emotional completement
187 (8.9%)
248 (10.8%)
24 (4.4%)
44 (14.7%)
Emotional irregularity
681 (32.5%)
595 (26%)
201 (37%)
88 (29.3%)
Combinations
1075 (51.3%)
1284 (56%)
296 (54.5%)
161 (53.7%)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Emotional matching
Emotional states
Pleasure
69 (45.4%)
116 (70.7%)
12 (54.5%)
1 (14.3%)
Interest
73 (48%)
48 (29.3%)
9 (40.9%)
3 (42.9%)
External interest
9 (5.9%)
3 (42.9%)
Neutral
1 (4.5%)
Negative
1 (0.7%)
Direction of emotional matching
Infant emot. matching
503 (83.3%)
597 (74.9%)
107 (60.1%)
40 (44.4%)
Paternal emot. matching
101 (16.7%)
200 (25.1%)
71 (39.9%)
50 (55.6%)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Emotional completement
Emotional states
F: pleased, I:interested
F:interested, I:pleased
Direction of emotional completement
Infant emot. Compl.
Paternal emot. Compl.
186 (99.5%)
1 (0.5%)
243 (98.4%)
4 (1.6%)
24 (100%)
-
42 (97.7%)
1 (2.3%)
525 (81.9%)
116 (18.1%)
609 (76.2%)
190 (23.8%)
97 (77%)
29 (23%)
51 (76.1%)
16 (23.9%)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Emotional irregularity
Emotional states
F:pleased, I:ext.interest
215 (36.2%)
243 (47%)
35 (24.8%)
45 (67.2%)
F:interest, I:ext.interest
95 (16%)
63 (12.2%)
38(27%)
20 (29.9%)
F:pleasure, I: neutral
156 (26.3%)
86 (16.6%)
26 (18.4%)
F:interest, I:neutral
83 (14%)
107 (20.7%)
37 (26.2%)
1 (1.5%)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
49
Table 7: Summary table of Friedman test analysis for the relationship between infant and paternal pleasure / interest and age in the course of dyadic girl- and boy-father
protoconversations.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paternal Pleasure
Paternal Interest
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
1.2-2.5-3 months
1.60
2
0,449
2.00
2
0.368
1.130
2
0.568
4.80
2
0.091
2.3-3.5-4 months
4.00
2
0.135
1.20
2
0,549
0.261
2
0.878
0.737
2
0.692
3. 4-4.5-5 months 4.00
2
0.135
0.316
2
0.854
7.000
2
0.030
0.400
2
0.819
4.5-5.5-6 months
2
0.738
5.44
2
0.066
1.652
2
0.438
2.00
2
0.368
0.60
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Infant Pleasure
Infant Interest
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
4.261
2
0.119
4.526
2
0.104
3.217
2
0.200
4.105
2
0.128
2. 3-3.5-4 months 2.333
2
0.311
0.737
2
0.692
7.00
2
0.030
5.200
2
0.074
3.4-4.5-5 months
0.000
2
1.000
6.00
2
0.050
0.333
2
0.846
0.444
2
0.801
4.5-5.5-6 months
0.636
2
0.727
1.60
2
0.449
0.333
2
0.846
1.200
2
0.549
1.2-2.5-3 months
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
50
Table 8: Summary table of Friedman test analysis for the relationship between infant and paternal pleasure / interest and age in the course of within-unit pauses in between dyadic
girl- and boy-father protoconversations.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paternal Pleasure
Paternal Interest
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
1.2-2.5-3 months
0.63
2
0.72
6.00
2
0.05
4.95
2
0.08
2.80
2
0.24
2.3-3.5-4 months
0.66
2
0.71
0.77
2
0.67
1.65
2
0.43
1.60
2
0.44
3. 4-4.5-5 months 1.60
2
0.44
1.27
2
0.52
0.08
2
0.95
3.11
2
0.21
4.5-5.5-6 months
2
0.04
2.00
2
0.36
1.20
2
0.54
0.82
2
0.66
6.40
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Infant Pleasure
Infant Interest
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
Girl-father interaction
Boy-father interaction
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
X2
df
p-value
0.20
2
0.90
3.84
2
0.14
0.40
2
0.81
1.36
2
0.50
2. 3-3.5-4 months 2.95
2
0.22
6.00
2
0.05
0.63
2
0.72
1.20
2
0.54
3.4-4.5-5 months
0.30
2
0.86
2.60
2
0.27
2.33
2
0.31
0.13
2
0.93
4.5-5.5-6 months
2.28
2
0.31
0.54
2
0.76
0.26
2
0.87
1.36
2
0.50
1.2-2.5-3 months
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
51
Figure 1: Developmental trajectories of girls’ and fathers’ facial expressions of pleasure across the age range of the 2 nd to the 6th month of infants’
life.
300
200
Frequency
100
Girls' pleasure
0
2,00 2,50 3,00 3,50 4,00 4,50 5,00 5,50 6,00
Paternal pleasure
Infant's age (in months)
52
Figure 2: Developmental trajectories of boys’ and fathers’ facial expressions of pleasure across the age range of the 2nd to the 6th month of infants’
life.
300
200
Frequency
100
Boys' pleasure
0
2,00 2,50 3,00 3,50 4,00 4,50 5,00 5,50 6,00
Paternal pleasure
Infant's age (in months)
53
54