Infant Behavior Questionnaire–Revised Very Short Form: A New Factor Structure's Associations With Parenting Perceptions and Child Language Outcomes

ABSTRACT

The Infant Behavior Questionnaire Revised–Very Short Form (IBQ–R VSF; Putnam, Helbig, Gartstein, Rothbart, & Leerkes, 2014) is a new publicly available measure of infant temperament measuring positive affectivity/surgency (PAS), negative emotionality (NEG), and orienting and regulatory capacity (ORC). Although the initial psychometric properties of the 3-factor model appear promising, it has not been administered to a large and diverse sample and its predictive validity has not been established. This study administered the IBQ–R VSF to a diverse sample of 5,639 mothers of infants aged between 23 and 52 weeks. Confirmatory factor analysis found that the 3-factor solution did not meet the requirement for satisfactory model fit. Exploratory factor analysis found that a 5-factor solution (PAS, NEG, Orienting Capacity, Affiliation/Regulation, and Fear) was statistically and conceptually the most parsimonious. All 5 temperament dimensions were found to relate to both mother- and partner-reported infant closeness, parenting confidence, and parenting satisfaction, and four of the dimensions (PAS, Orienting Capacity, NEG, and Fear) related to the infants' communication development. Some parental differences were also found. Together these findings suggest that the 5-factor IBQ–R VSF is a promising measure of infant temperament and is related to parenting perceptions and child language development.

Acknowledgments

The study was designed and conducted by the Growing Up in New Zealand study team, led by the University of Auckland. The authors acknowledge the contributions of the original study investigators: Susan M. B. Morton, Polly E. Atatoa Carr, Cameron C. Grant, Arier C. Lee, Dinusha K. Bandara, Jatender Mohal, Jennifer M. Kinloch, Johanna M. Schmidt, Mary R. Hedges, Vivienne C. Ivory, Te Kani R. Kingi, Renee Liang, Lana M. Perese, Elizabeth Peterson, Jan E. Pryor, Elaine Reese, Elizabeth M. Robinson, Karen E. Waldie, and Clare R. Wall. The views reported in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Growing Up in New Zealand investigators.

Funding

Growing Up in New Zealand has been funded by the New Zealand Ministries of Social Development, Health, Education, Justice and Pacific Island Affairs; the former Ministry of Science Innovation and the former Department of Labour (now both part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment); the former Ministry of Women's Affairs (now the Ministry for Women); the Department of Corrections; the Families Commission (now known as the Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit); Te Puni Kokiri; New Zealand Police; Sport New Zealand; the Housing New Zealand Corporation; and the former Mental Health Commission, The University of Auckland and Auckland UniServices Limited. Other support for the study has been provided by the NZ Health Research Council, Statistics New Zealand, the Office of the Children's Commissioner and the Office of Ethnic Affairs.

Notes

¹ The sample of infants includes multiple births.

² Note these are unique mothers and partners for the 5,639 infants (i.e., parents who had multiple births are only included once).