Adults Responses to Infant Faces and Cries: Consistency Between Explicit and Implicit Measures

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the consistency of the adult’s responses to different infant cues (faces and cries) by taking into account different levels of processing (explicit and implicit). A sample of 94 non-parent adults (56 Females; Mage = 27.8 years) participated in a within-subject design. Each participant was administered two versions of the Single Category Implicit Association Test and two semantic differentials adapted to evaluate the implicit and explicit responses to infant faces and cries. Results showed that, regardless of the level of processing and the gender, responses to faces were more positive than responses to cries; a substantial independence between responses observed for the different cues or the levels of processing; and that only in males there was a consistency between explicit and implicit responses but to infant faces only. If replicated, these results indicate that theoretical models of caregiving response must take into account the specificity of the different infant cues and that future studies should clarify the incremental validity of responses to the different cues at the different levels of processing on the actual caregiving behaviour.