Maternal Sensitivity

Klaus Grossmann, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of Regensburg, Germany. Inge Bretherton, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Everett Waters, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA.. Karin Grossmann, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist (retired) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Regensburg, Germany.

1. Introduction: Maternal sensitivity: observational studies honoring Mary Ainsworth’s 100th year Klaus E. Grossmann, Inge Bretherton, Everett Waters and Karin Grossmann 2. Mary D. Salter Ainsworth: an autobiographical sketch Mary D. Salter Ainsworth 3. Revisiting Mary Ainsworth’s conceptualization and assessments of maternal sensitivity insensitivity Inge Bretherton 4. Mary Ainsworth’s legacy: a systematic review of observational instruments measuring parental sensitivity Judi Mesman and Rosanneke A.G. Emmen 5. Parental synchrony and nurturance as targets in an attachment based intervention: building upon Mary Ainsworth’s insights about mother–infant interaction Kristin Bernard, EB Meade and Mary Dozier 6. Sensitive attunement to infants’ internal states: operationalizing the construct of mind-mindedness Elizabeth Meins 7. The insightfulness assessment: measuring the internal processes underlying maternal sensitivity David Oppenheim and Nina Koren-Karie 8. Parsing the construct of maternal insensitivity: distinct longitudinal pathways associated with early maternal withdrawal Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Jean-Francois Bureau, M. Ann Easterbrooks, Ingrid Obsuth, Kate Hennighausen and Lauriane Vulliez-Coady 9. How does microanalysis of mother–infant communication inform maternal sensitivity and infant attachment? Beatrice Beebe and Miriam Steele 10. One doll fits all: validation of the Leiden Infant Simulator Sensitivity Assessment (LISSA) Alexandra Voorthuis, Dorothée Out, Rixt van der Veen, Ritu Bhandari, Marinus H. van IJzendoorn and Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg 11. Maternal anxiety, maternal sensitivity, and attachment Joan Stevenson-Hinde, Rebecca Chicot, Anne Shouldice and Camilla A. Hinde 12. Piecing together the sensitivity construct: ethology and cross-cultural research Germán Posada 13. Individual dispositions as precursors of differences in attachment quality: why maternal sensitivity is nevertheless important Gottfried Spangler 14. Epilogue: reflections on a Special Issue of Attachment & Human Development in Mary Ainsworth’s 100th year Everett Waters, Dean Petters and Christopher Facompre