Pacifiers may hinder males' emotional growth

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(CBS News) New research suggests pacifier use may have long-lasting behavioral effects on a boy's emotional growth.

Three separate experiments - two with college-aged students and one with 6 to 7-year-old boys - revealed that those who reported using pacifiers found it harder to mimic emotional expressions or scored lower on emotional intelligence tests. The study is the first to connect pacifiers with psychological effects.

"That work got us thinking about critical periods of emotional development, like infancy," lead author Dr. Paula Niedenthal, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisc., said in the press release. "What if you always had something in your mouth that prevented you from mimicking and resonating with the facial expression of somebody?"

According to the researchers, people mimic expressions and body language either consciously or unconsciously. Mimicking can teach them what certain words mean through facial expressions and voice intonations, which is specially in babies.

"By reflecting what another person is doing, you create some part of the feeling yourself," Niedenthal said. "That's one of the ways we understand what someone is feeling - especially if they seem angry, but they're saying they're not; or they're smiling, but the context isn't right for happiness."

But, the researchers believe when a baby has a pacifier in his or her mouth, they can't copy the expressions or emotions they are feeling. Similar experiences have been displayed in people who use Botox. Those who use the treatment report a smaller range of emotions and have a harder time labeling emotions on other people's faces.

The Mayo Clinic adds that pacifiers, while they can soothe babies and help them fall asleep, can also cause problems with breast-feeding, increase the risk of middle ear infections and lead to dental problems. In addition, children who use pacifiers to sleep may become dependent on them.

The study, published on Sept. 19 in Basic and Applied Social Psychology, consisted of three experiments. First researchers found that 6 and 7-year-old boys who spent more time with pacifiers were less likely to be able to mimic facial expressions shown on a video. In another experiment, college students took a test measuring emotional intelligence that analyzed how they made decisions based on other people's emotions. Men who reported using pacifiers more had lower scores. Finally, out of a group college-aged men, those who used pacifiers more often during childhood scored lower on a perspective-taking test, which researchers use to measure empathy.

However, pacifier use did not seem to affect the girl's emotional results.

"What's impressive about this is the incredible consistency across those three studies in the pattern of data," Niedenthal said. "There's no effect of pacifier use on these outcomes for girls, and there's a detriment for boys with length of pacifier use even outside of any anxiety or attachment issues that may affect emotional development."

The researchers believe that because emotional sensitivity is a valued trait for girls and not for boys, parents might go out of their way to teach girls how to interpret and express emotions. Girls may also develop emotionally faster than boys, or boys may just be more reliant on learning facial mimicry so any disruption causes more damage.

The Los Angeles Times pointed out the study methodology is a little shaky, especially because pacifier use was self-reported. But, the researchers argued that because the results are the same for all three studies, people should pay closer attention to how much they are giving their boys their pacifiers.

Researchers want look into why girls are less affected by pacifier use and learn exactly how much pacifier use is bad for emotional health.

"Parents hate to have this discussion," Niedenthal says. "They take the results very personally. Now, these are suggestive results, and they should be taken seriously. But more work needs to be done."

[memepoppop]

That doctor is a dink......I had 2 children a boy and a girl and both of them had pacifiers from infants till about 2 1/2...and they were both well adjusted children and now well adjusted adults (and were great in college). Where do they come up with this stuff.....It's crazy! All that does is make parents worry and get upset.

[memepoppop]

That doctor is a dink......I had 2 children a boy and a girl and both of them had pacifiers from infants till about 2 1/2...and they were both well adjusted children and now well adjusted adults (and were great in college). Where do they come up with this stuff.....It's crazy! All that does is make parents worry and get upset.

[alphaa10000]

Applause for Michelle Castillo-- a well written article, very clear, and even nuanced enough to make room for some difficult questions and definitions. You might have been a researcher or psychology major.

[alphaa10000]

PACIFIER ENVY ?

credibility2 said, "Blame it on the pacifier...if that's true and it doesn't have the same effect on females, perhaps that just means that the male is inferior on all levels, including developmental."
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In view of the evidence, that is not a reasonable statement. As an advocate for sexual equality once observed, there are more similarities than differences between men and women, and the two gender populations are comfortable neighbors on most traits. (Venn diagram / overlapping sets reasoning)

So, even if we do not "blame it on the pacifier", fluency in facial cues-- ie. making them and reading them-- does not automatically become a gender-based trait if other variables are in play.

By the same token, you misinterpret the analysis. If the study authors note a developmental lag tendency among study males who used a pacifier, they also mention that girls are likely to have more pressure to learn facial cues.

By design, the study does not take into account all factors on developing girls and boys, including the amount of social cues training. The study focuses on pacifiers, only, in a fairly homogenous population. What about other cultures?

In other words, in our country, girls with pacifiers initially might have the same difficulty with reading faces as toddlers, but are already well on their way around two-plus to greater fluency in facial cues because of different conditioning-- more frequent reinforcement given for "correct" social interactions.

On a similar plane, we already know what parents and teachers sense intuitively-- what is called "IQ" or "social IQ" is significantly plastic, ie. responsive to training and other environmental factors.

There is a multitude of studies recognizing developmental differences, early and late, between the genders. What is fascinating about these studies-- and Niedenthal would agree-- is the difficulty of teasing apart influences on development. Unfortunately, no study is completely definitive on its question(s). Fortunately, as science demands replication of study findings, this effort frequently leads to even better research.

Speaking of progress in grounding our beliefs in fact, there was a belief system more than a century ago that assigned different values to the races, based on culture-based behaviors and physical appearance. As we have discovered since then, particularly around World War 2, that kind of "armchair science" is not only extremely faulty in its labels of superiority and inferiority, but very close to social Darwinism, and a fertile bed for totalitarian thought.

[wewin2gether]

A similar research should be conducted on smokers who tend to always have something in there mouth. May be that is one of the reason they seem to have I dont give a damn attitudes.May be we also need to explore pacifer use and development of smoking habits.