After extensive observation of mother-infant dyads in two diverse contexts, Ainsworth developed the construct of maternal sensitivity to explain the nature of mother-infant interactions that lead to infant attachment security. She believed this construct to be universally applicable. Since Ainsworth’s publications, her theory has been adapted and extended, particularly by theorists working in North American and Western European countries. These developments have been largely uninterrogated in relation to their universal cultural relevance, despite the fact that parenting practices differ greatly across cultural groups. Those who have begun to interrogate the cultural universality of current conceptualisation of maternal sensitivity highlight important areas of cultural disagreement.
This article provides a critical theoretical argument regarding the cultural universality of maternal sensitivity, extending comment to the cultural and contextual relevance of developments in its operationalisation.
Particular aspects of current theoretical and operational use of the construct of maternal sensitivity that are potentially culturally specific (as opposed to culturally universal) are noted, namely the inclusion of positive affect, the centrality of parent-infant play, verbal responsiveness, the inclusion of learning in parent-infant interactions and the shift towards a more proactive (rather than reactive) role for the parent in parent-infant interactions.
This article suggests that the evolution of the concept of maternal sensitivity has failed to account for cultural differences.
Recent developments in the field of neuroscience have popularised attachment theory and clinicians across the globe are looking to attachment theory to help develop preventative mental health interventions and effective parenting strategies.
While the global spread of theory and research is considered largely positive, failure to interrogate the applicability of imported knowledge can have negative repercussions. Most pertinently in the realm of attachment and early childhood development, the application of theory from ‘Western, educated, industrialised, rich, developed’ (WEIRD) contexts, without sufficient consideration of cultural and contextual difference, has resulted in an increasingly homogenous image of how children are or should be and what their childhood is or should be like.
The Umdlezane Parent-Infant Programmes at the Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, include a number of early interventions that aim to promote caregiver-infant attachment and healthy developmental trajectories, through increasing maternal sensitivity and supporting the parent-infant dyad. Interrogating the efficacy of these interventions is a central part of the programme’s work. During a study into the efficacy of the Ububele Home Visiting Project,
The following excerpt is from the author’s coding notes, written while coding a video-recorded interaction between a 22-year-old South African mother, Thato,
After appearing initially unsure as to what is expected of her, mom has placed baby in front of her on the mat. Mom appears anxious, and is quiet and shy. Baby is vocalising. Mom watches, but does not respond physically or verbally. Mom notices the face on the top ring of the stacking toy. She picks it up and makes the stacking toy ‘walk’ over to baby. Baby takes stacking toy and mouths it. Mom prevents mouthing by removing it. Baby reaches for rattle and places it in his mouth. Mom prevents mouthing by removing rattle, but shakes it and gives it back. Baby drops rattle and it rolls out of baby’s reach. He signals that he wants it back. Mom picks up rattle and hands it back to baby, before looking anxiously back at the researcher behind the video camera. Baby reaches for ball, which is just out of reach. Mom notices this and taps ball closer to baby, who grasps it and bangs it on the floor with his left hand. Researcher hands book to mother. Mom turns pages for baby, allowing baby to touch and look. Still no verbalising from mother. Baby accidently knocks book closed. Baby takes closed book from mom and explores it … Baby is whining. After second whine mom puts baby on the breast. He drinks quietly.
Mom did not speak to baby once during this interaction, however she is responsive and baby appears regulated and content. Mom has lost points on MBQS-mini for failing to ‘facilitate learning’ in her interactions with the baby, for her lack of animation, her general lack of proactiveness and her use of objects and feeding to soothe. She has, however, allowed baby to explore the toys without intrusion and has let baby take the lead. She is certainly aware of her baby’s signals.
Mom discloses to the researcher at the end of the video that she felt shy during the video-recording. This ability to reflect on her own mental state in this anxiety-provoking situation is noteworthy, but I wonder about how scrutinised mom feels by the ‘white, professional researcher’. Regarding her use of the book and stacking toy, I wonder about mom’s level of literacy and her familiarity with such toys. Although mom scored in the moderate range, it doesn’t feel like the available items have captured her strengths.
Coding experiences like the one described above have been common amongst the coding team and have raised questions about the assumption of a ‘global mother’ alongside the ‘global child’, as represented in North American and Western European measures of sensitivity. Despite a great diversity in parenting practices across the globe,
Interrogation into the cultural and contextual universality of the concept of maternal (or parental) sensitivity has begun. However, the literature is fairly disparate. This article attempts to bring together existing interrogations of the universal applicability of maternal sensitivity, while also expanding on critiques of current conceptualisations, contrasting them with anthropological literature. Beginning with an overview of Ainsworth’s seminal work on the concept of maternal sensitivity, the paper will go on to outline subsequent adaptations and revisions to the construct. This involves looking at both theoretical papers and papers on the operationalisation of the construct, with the aim of providing a clearer understanding of what we know about the universality of maternal sensitivity and what we have yet to understand.
The concept of maternal sensitivity emerged from the early work of American-born, Canadian-raised developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth.
Ainsworth
Ainsworth
Since Ainsworth’s 1969 publication, the concept of maternal sensitivity has been significantly expanded upon and represented in a number of divergent ways in the literature.
Biringen
Meins et al.
Ainsworth
Since the development of Ainsworth’s
There has been great variation, divergence and deviation from Ainsworth’s understanding of maternal sensitivity in the development of these alternative measures.
The process of operationalisation has also often resulted in the explicit description of predefined ‘sensitive’ or ‘insensitive’ behaviours.
Permission was obtained from both the mother mentioned in the paper and the Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust, to make use of data obtained as part of a randomised control trial in this publication. The name of the mother and infant mentioned in this paper has been changed to protect their identity.
While the concept and operationalisation of maternal sensitivity has been revisited extensively over the last 50 years, the developments have occurred almost exclusively in WEIRD countries in Northern America and Western Europe.
As far back as 1981, references to ‘parental sensitivity’ (as opposed to maternal sensitivity) are observed.
Far more recently, an enquiry into the cultural universality of the construct of maternal sensitivity and its measurement has been emerging, predominantly from South Africa and the Netherlands.
Lastly, the relevance of the construct of maternal (and even parental) sensitivity for contexts where a network of multiple caregivers (alloparenting) is the norm (such as the northern Philippines) was also raised in 2016.
An interrogation of the psychological literature, when compared with anthropological literature on parenting, reveals a number of areas of possible cultural bias. This critical analysis of the literature revealed potential shifts away from cultural universality in five key areas.
As noted previously, various theoretical arguments as well as measures of maternal sensitivity have included expression of genuine positive affect, warmth and affection as a central factor in sensitive responsiveness.
Arguments questioning the universal cultural applicability of positive affect, warmth and affection as a central component of maternal sensitivity already exist in the literature. As noted above, Mesman and Emmen
Anthropological literature supports the idea that the importance of expressions of warmth and positive affect is culturally specific. The literature shows that there is great variation in the intensity with which emotions are expressed across cultural groups.
The second area where the development of the construct of maternal sensitivity may have moved us away from cultural universality is the area of play. Play has become central to much of the modern use of the construct of maternal sensitivity in a number of ways. Firstly, play-based interactions have become synonymous with measures of maternal sensitivity and sensitive responsiveness. In Mesman and Emmen’s
In addition to the use of play as an assumed naturalistic interaction, the ability to play with an infant and the skill of the adult as playmate has been incorporated into some definitions and measurements of maternal sensitivity, as noted above. Various measures of maternal sensitivity have added play as a key criterion for a high maternal sensitivity score.
Lastly, toys such as books and puzzles are often introduced as part of the standardised setting for observing interactions in the majority of measures of maternal sensitivity. Some test items also show interest in the mother’s use of toys. The 90-item MBQS has as one of its items ‘provides age appropriate toys’.
The reliance on play and toys, as described above, has clear implications for the universal applicability of measures of maternal sensitivity. The use of standardised toys or play-based situations across all cultural contexts is problematic. The majority of mothers from cultures where play between adults and children is not common, when asked to engage in play with their infant in order to measure their sensitivity, are disadvantaged, as they find themselves engaging in an unfamiliar activity, while under researcher scrutiny. Maternal sensitivity scores will be differently impacted across contexts by the mother’s familiarity with the toy and with play, calling the universality of such measures and understandings into question.
It is noted above that more recent measures of maternal sensitivity have moved away from abstract notions of responsiveness towards descriptions of specific behaviours that are considered sensitive.
This preference for verbal responsiveness has been identified as a third area of cultural-specific adaptations in the literature, with clear implications for silent yet responsive mothers like Thato. Although Thato does not speak to Tumi once throughout her interaction with him, and often responds to his signals physically or with objects (such as toys or the breast), these responses always seem to be not only sufficient but appropriate and contingent.
Linguistic anthropology has long concluded that some cultural groups are more verbally communicative than others.
The parent’s role in the facilitation of the infant’s learning has also become intimately linked with theoretical arguments about and measures of parental sensitivity and sensitive responsiveness. The parent’s ability to facilitate learning has come to be considered as a domain of sensitivity, either in a separate composite scale or as part of a global sensitivity scale. The MBQS-mini, for example, notes that the ‘facilitation of learning’ is a core domain of the measure and describes the sensitive mother as one who ‘creates and encourages an environment conducive to learning and exploration’ and ‘structures the environment and interactions to promote learning’.
A focus on learning during parent-child interactions clearly steps away from Ainsworth’s core understanding of maternal sensitivity – the prompt and appropriate response to an infant’s signals. A focus on learning is, at best, a separate issue, still relevant to child development. However, its universal relevance is highly questionable. Anthropological research demonstrates that across the majority of cultural groups parents have little active involvement in their child’s learning.
Such anthropological literature supports the argument that, through the increased inclusion of ‘facilitation of learning’ as a key component of parental sensitivity and sensitive responsiveness, understanding and measurement of maternal sensitivity has become more and more culturally specific. Applying this understanding and measurement in contextual settings where a focus on learning through parent-infant interaction is not the norm could strongly disadvantage parents like Thato, who makes no attempt to teach or facilitate learning. Although attachment security is known to have implications for learning,
Ainsworth’s original conceptualisation of maternal sensitivity is a reactive one. Sensitivity is conceptualised as a response to a signal that originates with the infant. In the absence of a signal from the infant, no action is necessary from the mother/parent. For Ainsworth, maternal sensitivity is concerned with whether the mother supports or interferes with the things that the infant initiates.
A close reading of the subsequent literature on maternal sensitivity reveals a shift in this position. Later conceptualisations and measures increasingly require the mother to be proactive and to act even in the absence of a signal. For example, the MBQS-mini describes how a mother must proactively ‘encourage … exploration’, ‘create … an environment’, ‘structure an environment’ and ‘promote and initiate interactions …’.
Maternal sensitivity appears to be a crucial concept for understanding attachment and promoting infant mental health and attachment security. However, this article has tracked how theoretical advancement and operationalisation of the construct of maternal sensitivity has taken place predominantly in developed countries, potentially opening the doors for cultural bias. This article suggests that the evolution of the concept of maternal sensitivity has failed to account for cultural differences, where parenting beliefs, social goals, parenting strategies, caregiving behaviours, intensity of emotional expression and relationships differ.
Whether Ainsworth’s original conceptualisation and model is more culturally universal remains debateable. Its broad and abstract nature does leave room for subjectivity. However, attempts to remedy this through the inclusion of more specific descriptions of ‘sensitive behaviour’ appear to have made the construct even more vulnerable to cultural and contextual bias, values and assumptions. Caution must be exercised in the development of sensitivity-promoting interventions, and the results generated by more specific measures of maternal sensitivity should not be assumed to be generalisable or universally relevant. With cultural and contextual variation in parenting practices, goals and modalities, as well as variation in ideas of optimal child development, the understanding and measurement of maternal sensitivity across diverse populations is a difficult and ethically challenging endeavour that requires contextual consideration.
The author thanks the Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust and Katherine Bain, University of the Witwatersrand, for their support.
The author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article.
Name has been changed.
Name has been changed.