What do mothers attune to during interactions with their infants?

There has been considerable theoretical interest in the developmental importance of affect mirroring and attunement, but little empirical attention has been directed toward the topic. The present study systematically explored the sorts of infant behaviour that elicit affect attunement in mothers. Written descriptions of video-recorded sequences of interaction in 27 mother–infant dyads were used to examine 141 instances of affect attunement in samples from Sweden and the former Yugoslavia. Infants were aged between 2 and 12 months. Behaviour that elicited affect attunement from mothers was rated in terms of 10 behavioural themes, which were used to cluster episodes of affect attunement. Cluster analysis suggested that mothers attuned to six distinct forms of infant behaviour: pleasurable motoric behaviour, effect initiation, focusing, loss of balance, uncontrolled behaviour and displeasure. Incidents of affect attunement elicited by categorical affects comprised only 20% of the instances examined. Most importantly, affect attunement was often elicited by infant exploration and play in relation to the non-social world. Affect attunement may function to reinforce and regulate on-going behaviour that is largely explorative in nature. How mothers respond to the infant's interaction with the external, non-social world may be more important for intrapsychic development than previously thought. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.