Dunckel, L: Goodness-of-Fit in Infancy

This work explores the concept of goodness-of-fit, which holds that it is not just a child s temperament that contributes to the course of his or her development, but how that temperament fits with the child s environment, including the mother s temperament. This fit has been widely discussed but has lacked an operational definition. Within the immediate context of maternal-child interaction, fit is generally understood to be a compatible relationship between mother and child; however, the components of this compatibility are not fully understood. The book explores the relationship of maternal and infant temperaments to maternal sensitivity, conceptualized both as quality of interaction and as maternal reflective function. Hypothesized relationships between easy maternal and infant temperaments and high quality interaction are not supported by the author s findings, but intriguingly, mothers who rate themselves as much more difficult in temperament than their infants have higher quality interactions than other mothers. This work raises interesting questions about the intricacies of a good fit.