Low infant negative emotionality buffers infants from family economic stress.

Abstract

The present study examined the indirect association between family economic hardship and infant socioemotional competence and behavior problems via food insecurity, maternal depressive symptoms, and maternal sensitivity. The moderating role of infant temperament on these family stress processes was also examined. The sample included 299 mother-infant dyads followed at four time points from pregnancy until infants were 14 months old. Mothers reported demographics, household food insecurity, and depressive symptoms during the third trimester of pregnancy. At 2 months postpartum, mothers reported depressive symptoms and infant temperament, including negative emotionality, surgency, and effortful control. Maternal sensitivity was observed at 6 months, and mothers reported infant behavior problems and socioemotional competence and their own depressive symptoms at 14 months. Consistent with hypotheses, economic hardship was positively associated with concurrent household food insecurity, which predicted higher prenatal depressive symptoms and subsequent maternal depressive symptoms at 2 months. Maternal depressive symptoms predicted later lower maternal sensitivity, which in turn predicted lower infant socioemotional competence. There was a significant buffering effect of infant negative emotionality such that maternal sensitivity significantly predicted higher socioemotional competence when infant negative emotionality was high. Finally, the conditional indirect pathway from food insecurity to emotional competence through depressive symptoms and maternal sensitivity was significant only for infants high on negative emotionality. Results indicate that low infant negative emotionality is a unique resilience factor that protects infants from the adverse effects of economic hardship on their emotional competence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).