A Study of Mothers and Infants by Waters, West, and Mendes

Multiple Choice

A study of mothers and infants by Waters, West, and Mendes (2014) put a group of mothers through a stressful public speaking experience. What happened to their babies when they were reunited after the speech?

A) Physical contact with the baby increased the mother's stress even more because she caught her baby's anxiety
B) The baby was unwilling to be reunited with the mother until the mother's stress levels subsided
C) The baby's cardiac responding converged with the mother's, suggesting the baby caught the mother's stress
D) The baby did not appear to catch the mother's stress, leading the researchers to conclude that emotion contagion is a learned response