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Atmospheric Infancy

By Tone Roald, Ida Egmose Pedersen, Kasper Levin and Simo Køppe

© 2017, American Psychological Association. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly

replicate the final, authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without authors

permission. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI: 10.1037/qup0000121

Abstract

In this article we establish intersubjective meaning-making in infancy as atmospheric. Through

qualitative descriptions of five mother-infant dyads in a video-recorded, experimental setting when

the infant is four, seven, ten and thirteen months, we discovered atmospheric appearances with a

developmental pattern of atmospheric variations. These appearances, we argue, are contextual and

intersubjective monologues. The monologues are similar to what Daniel Stern describes with his

concept of ‘vitality affects’, but they arise as a unified force that envelops the mother and child. As

such, we present a new way to address meaning-making in infancy.

Keywords: Affect, Atmosphere, Infancy, Phenomenology, Vitality affects

Introduction

“It is risky. To describe the characteristic affective qualities of a complex assemblage … risks

reification of the inexhaustible complexities of affective life. Yet it is worth exploring because it

enables us to think further about the intensive spatialities of atmospheres.” (Anderson, 2009). This

is one of the many points that Anderson makes in his article entitled Affective atmospheres. He

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connects the concept of atmosphere intimately with affect, and stresses both the dangers and

rewards in describing a phenomenon with both general and intricate features. In this article, we

describe moments of infancy, or, more precisely, moments of the complex mother-infant interaction

as atmospheric. To do so involves intricate descriptions of affective life, and, at the risk of

simplification, we attempt such descriptions as a means of arriving at a new way of studying

meaning-making in infancy.

Although references to atmospheres are commonly accepted in everyday language, it has hardly

been the concern of developmental psychology before. One obvious reason for the lack of

systematic studies could be that atmospheres, pertaining as they are to the subjective experience of

affective structures, are highly complex due to their relational nature and they are thus difficult to

reduce to fixed sets of compositional criteria and axiomatic conditions. Through our

phenomenological descriptions and analyses of atmospheres we show that atmospheres, while

imprecise or diffuse, nevertheless exert a powerful presence. By so doing, we also show that what is

vague and fleeting—and, as a consequence, often regarded as too arduous for methodological

investigations—is necessary, legitimate and central for qualitative research. Diffuse phenomena can

become qualitatively lucid; they can be powerful psychological phenomena that should be intrinsic

to the field of psychology. Additionally, there are not many empirical studies (in fact, we did not

find any) that have investigated atmosphere in relation to the mother and infant relationship. We

show that it is important to do so, however, as atmospheres can be used to describe interaction in

developmental psychology in general and in concrete mother-child relationships. We also

demonstrate an empirical basis for this phenomenon, and demonstrate that phenomenological

psychology provides a suitable framework for reaching empirical descriptions of atmosphere.

Exactly because atmosphere is a diffuse phenomenon, it is of methodological value to show that

phenomenological and qualitative descriptions can handle these types of phenomena. Thus, drawing

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on interdisciplinary work from scholars within literary studies, social sciences and architecture, as

well as the descriptive tradition of phenomenological methodology in psychology, we argue that

atmospheres are important to consider in the process of infant meaning-making. We have found that

the child, the mother, and the materiality of the particular context can together form an atmosphere

that not only characterizes the particular interaction, but that also has a distinct pattern of change

through the first year of life. The qualities of the atmospheres mirror developmental changes with

different atmospheric variations. To argue this, we begin with a general discussion of the concept,

where we look at closely-related concepts in psychology, particularly in developmental psychology,

before we present our empirical investigation of atmospheres in infancy.

Affective Atmospheres

Since it appears as if the concept of atmosphere almost always includes affect,1 “affective” as a

qualifier of atmosphere confuses rather than qualifies the term when used to describe psychological

phenomena. This aspect is not, however, evident in the origin of the word and when it is used to

describe weather features. The word ‘Atmosphere’ comes from the Greek where the first part of the

word means “vapor” and the second “sphere” – i.e., a sphere of vapor (Oxford English Dictionary,

OED, accessed 10.12.2015). Its use within English language began in the 1600’s to connote weather

phenomena. But investigating its psychological meaning, the concept refers to a sphere of affect –

affect that surrounds us like vapor. It can refer to the “prevailing psychological climate; pervading

tone or mood; characteristic mental or moral environment” (OED). In such a psychological

definition, affect is central in the form of mood. This meaning of atmosphere as distinct from its

association to weather gained grounds in the end of the 1700’s and became more commonplace in

the 1800’s. Similarly, its German translation, “Stimmung”, was immediately connected to feeling.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1776) used Stimmung to refer to a feeling of harmony experienced 1 Affect is here used as an umbrella term, which includes mood, emotion and feeling (see Roald, 2007).

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in relation to one’s physical surroundings. The same focus on harmony is evident in Immanuel

Kant’s work where he used it to connote appropriate affect and reason in the judgement of taste

(Wellbery, 2010; cited in Gumbrecht 2012, pp. 7-8). In literature Professor Hans Ulrich

Gumbrecht’s (2012) work Atmosphere, Mood, Stimmung, he mentions mood and climate as English

translations of “Stimmung”. Mood, he argues, “stands for an inner feeling so private it cannot be

precisely circumscribed. ’Climate’, on the other hand, refers to something objective that surrounds

people and exercises a physical influence” (pp. 3-4). Although one can see from his book title alone

that the concept of atmosphere has a similar meaning to mood and Stimmung, atmosphere

synthesizes both mood and climate as it entails both an inner feeling with a private aspect that

nevertheless is particularly context sensitive and at the same time is objective in its material origin.

As philosopher and sociologist Robert Seyfert (2012) points out, the concept of “affective

atmosphere” has been used to counter the dualism between emotions as innate in contrast to

environmentally given. In other words, the term “affective atmosphere”, or just “atmosphere”,

refers to an experience that has both aspects: an inner aspect that is influenced by a particular,

“objective” material context. In the experience Seyfert describes, the inner and outer are connected

through “no simple influence or impingement of an external force upon a human body, but rather

describe the different affective frequencies modulating the diverse ways in which various types of

bodies interact (through tactile, olfactory, gustatory, electrical, etc., modes)” (p. 30). In other words,

the experience of atmosphere does not comprise a simple one-way assertion, but is dependent upon

the complex relational networks of objective and material encounters that shape our ability to affect

and be affected, particularly in relation to our modes of sensing.

In comparison to psychology, where the concept of atmosphere is rarely used, it is a common

concept in architecture where it relates to the sensuous impressions of a particular location. Most of

the time it is linked to the experience of affects in relation to dense or forceful impressions radiating

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from the materiality of the surroundings. As such, materiality is central, but, as Seyfert observes,

this does not mean that a one-sided focus on the materiality of the surroundings will determine the

nature of the atmosphere. Gernot Bohme (2014) also stresses this when he writes: “Atmospheres are

in fact characteristic manifestations of the co-presence of subject and object” (p. 45). The

atmospheric quality of architecture is not fully objective in the sense that architecture creates a

particular perceptual intensity only through our interaction with it.

The architects Christian Norberg-Schulz (1980) and Peter Zumthor (2006) put atmosphere in the

forefront of architectural design. In this process, Zumthor argues that the experience of atmosphere

is related to immediate affective and bodily reactions to buildings and their surroundings. Professor

of architecture, Juhani Paallasmaa (2014a, 2014b) expands on the concept of the body and describes

the experience of atmosphere as affective, multi-sensory and existential. He defines it as “the

overarching perceptual, sensory, and emotive impression of a space, setting, or social situation. It

provides the unifying coherence and character for a room, space, place, and landscape, or a social

encounter. It is ‘the common denominator’, ‘the colouring’ or ‘the feel’ of the experiential situation.

Atmosphere is a mental ‘thing’, an experiential property” (2014a, p. 20). He goes on to describe it

as a “strong presence of materiality” (2014a, p. 35) that can be linked to any and all of the senses.

This intense presence, he argues, creates an experience with the characteristic of being particularly

real – both in the sense of its temporal and spatial feel. But despite this realistic aspect, several

theorists (e.g. Anderson, 2009; Bohme, 1993, 2014; Gumbrecht, 2012; Schmitz, 2014; Schmitz,

Müllan, & Slaby, 2011) link the experience to one of indeterminacy on several dimensions. For

instance, Anderson (2009) states that such experiences are immediate impressions that are

“impersonal, in that they belong to the collective situation and yet can be felt as intensely personal”

(p.80), while Bohme (2014) calls atmosphere the “prototypical ‘between’ phenomenon” (p. 43).

Even if we retain ‘atmosphere’ as a “between phenomenon” we can, based on the above

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descriptions, summarize an experience of atmosphere as an affective, immediate, bodily-based

impression that is objective in the sense that it is inter-subjectively available and highly influenced

by the material surroundings. It can be diffuse, but is immediately accessible. The diffuseness must

be only to the reflective determination of the experience, because affectively it is immediately felt.

This does not mean, however, that everyone experiences an atmosphere in the same way, but

instead, as Bohme (2006, p. 122) argues, individuals are affected by the atmosphere in similar ways,

but the individual experience is nevertheless dependent on the personal, affective situation. For

instance, a bad morning may indeed influence how the atmosphere of a building is experienced (cf.

also Sørensen, 2015).

Atmospheric Variations

‘Atmosphere’ is an example of a concept used within a new field of different theories with many

names. It is possible to demarcate this field as comprising at least three different theoretical areas:

theories of embodiment (e.g. Lakoff and Johnson, 1999; Johnson, 2007), phenomenology (e.g.

Legrand, 2007; Merleau-Ponty, 2002; Sheets-Johnstone, 2011) and theories of affect (e.g.

Colombetti, 2013, 2015; Colombetti & Krueger, 2015; Colombetti & Thompson, 2007). This

kaleidoscopic field unites around two common ideas. The first is that meaning-making is a product

of a constant activity. This idea is different from, or in direct opposition to, the view of meaning-

making as the passive recording of sense stimuli and perceptions, in combination with static

memories. The second idea is that this production is dependent on sources that are not primarily

based on consciousness (with consciousness perceived as mainly the center of attention and

reflexivity). The alternative that this new field presents is that the living body is embedded in a

context of other body-subjects, material artifacts and societal discourses. As such, the skin is only a

biological border necessary for the biomass. The meaning-producing body has much wider borders:

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meaning-making is not something which is produced in consciousness alone, but at another level

which stresses the pre-reflexive body (with the sense-organs reaching out for the world, as well as

with the perceptual and affective participation with other contextualized subjects to which the body

is in inter-body-subject relation). Consequently, there is a constantly intersubjective exchange of

meaning in every living moment and involved in this meaning-making is the atmospheric shade. It

emerges in a collective setting with other subjects, but these subjectivities can also be represented

materially in the context of buildings and other cultural artifacts. These complexities have intrigued

several scholars, who have proposed different concepts to describe phenomena rather similar to that

of atmosphere.

Affective Resonance

A concept which is closely related to that of atmosphere is philosopher Rainer Mühlhoff’s

(2015) notion of “affective resonance.” Affective resonance refers to affective experiences that are

not immediately conscious, not immediately initiated by consciousness (consciousness narrowly

understood and not as pre-reflective), and not linguistic in their primary manifestation. It refers to

experiences that arise because of a particular context and, as such, to similar experiences to

atmospheric ones. Particular to affective resonance, however, is Mühlhoff’s argument that it is not

about a person or context transmitting “vibrations” which are internalized/transferred to another

subject. Instead, he argues, a new phenomenon is constituted which is not limited to the different

persons involved (see also the concept “atmospheric arrangement” in Slaby, Mühlhoff & Wüschner

(2016) and “affective relationality” in Mühlhoff (2015)). On a post-modern note with reference to

the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, for instance, Mühlhoff describes affective resonance within a

system where relations are primary or ontological and where individuality is secondary. Affective

resonance refers to a new, emergent phenomenon which, he argues, is an irreducible, third

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phenomenon that is “sense-making” or meaning-making.2 As such, this conception of affective

resonance builds on an ontology giving priority to the relational. The maintenance of resonance

cannot happen through uniting separate parts into a whole, but that a new, independent phenomenon

arises which is initiated by the relation and not by the separate individual. If a beginning can be

localized in the individual, the irreducibility is revealed by referring back to the original relationship

and modifying it. The concept of atmosphere therefore has different epistemological roots for which

reason it is essential to retain ‘atmosphere.’ Although it certainly can, and has been, used by post-

modern scholars, the concept of atmosphere has strong phenomenological roots, making its

theoretical framework more applicable to psychology (see Roald, 2015).

Vitality Affects

The closest concept to atmosphere that we can find in developmental psychology relates to

Anderson’s (2009) suggestion that atmospheres are “spatially diffuse versions” of child

psychologist Daniel Stern’s ‘vitality affects’. Stern (e.g. 1985, 1995, 2010) developed the concept

of vitality affects throughout his writings (see Køppe, Harder, & Væver, 2008) and common to the

many descriptions of it is the focus on vitality affects as “dynamic qualities of feeling such as

‘calming’, relaxing’, ‘comforting’, ‘tense’, ‘heavy’, or ‘light’ that animate or dampen the

background sense of life” (Anderson, 2009, p. 78). As such, the concept refers to the “subjective

quality and quantity of feelings that accompany experience” (Stern, 1998, p. 83). Like atmosphere,

then, the vitality affects contain a private, or subjective, affective element. They are also influenced

by “the flow of thought or of perceptions or of motor patterns” (1998, p. 83), whereby they are

connected to more objective elements as well. But whereas the concept of atmosphere is closely

related to the spatiality of the material surroundings, the concept of vitality affects is closely related

2 With reference to De Jaegher and Di Paolo (2007), Mühlhoff discusses how social sensing is constitutive of meaning-making. “… “sense” and “meaning” are jointly constituted in processes of social interaction” (2015, pp. 1003–1004).

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to the temporality of the interaction: Stern named the vitality affects “affect-schemas in the form of

‘Temporal Feeling Shapes’” (1998, p. 82). Although Stern did not by any means claim that vitality

affects are not related to the material surroundings, he does not emphasize them either.

Stern changed the term vitality affect to different combinations (e.g. ‘vitality contours’ (1999)

and his last one was ‘vitality forms’ (2010)). The changes emphasize Stern’s project of describing

vital affects as abstract amodal processes, manifested in different sense modalities. The important

point is that the formation of vitality affect is a bodily, intersubjective action, e.g. a rhythmic move

of the child in the arms of the adult. As such, one of the first experiences of vitality affects are in the

movements of the child’s body, that is, in the rhythmic movement initiated by another person.

Similar to the concept of atmosphere, then, ‘vitality affects’ include embodied intersubjectivity,

diffuse emergence, and pre-reflective registration. But in comparison to Stern’s context which is

limited to that of the body-context, the concept of atmosphere operates with a much wider

contextual frame.

When Stern advanced his theory of vitality affects he viewed it as an answer to the question of

how meaning and intersubjectivity develop. He explained how the vitality affects of the other set in

motion the creation of vitality affects in the child. The theory is therefore about how most basic

aspects of experience come into being. Following Anderson’s suggestion that atmosphere is closely

related to vitality affects and based on Stern’s view on it, we therefore ask in this article whether the

concept of atmosphere can be a way of using the intersubjective feeling shape—the vitality affects

—in a way where we include not only the temporal aspects, but also the material and spatial

context. Can ‘atmosphere’ become a way to present variations in intersubjective meaning-making in

a way that is context sensitive?

Meaning-making

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Meaning-making has commonly been addressed as conceptual, but this approach leaves

questions of how the pre-linguistic infant creates meaning in the dark. We therefore follow

philosopher Mark Johnson’s (2007) arguments for meaning-making as being founded on our

embodied ways of being in the world.3 Meaning-making is a continuous process of perception.

Developmental psychologists have frequently addressed questions of meaning-making through

investigations of how intersubjectivity arises through thoroughly embodied approaches. How does

the infant make sense of itself (or become a self) in relation to the other? Beebe et al. (2005) review

the approaches of child psychologists Andrew Meltzoff, Colwyn Trevarten and Daniel Stern to

intersubjectivity, as these three researchers explicitly work on the development of intersubjectivity

in infancy. Common to their approaches is their focus on specific aspects of intersubjectivity

through cross-modal correspondence (Beebe 2005). Meltzoff is celebrated for his work on the role

of imitation and representation (e.g. Meltzoff, 1985; Meltzoff and Moore, 1993, 1998), Trevarthen

for his work on imitation and synchrony in primary and secondary intersubjectivity (e.g.

Trevarthen, 1980, 1998; Gratier and Trevarthen, 2008), and Stern for his work on time and intensity

in vitality affects and affect attunement (e.g. Stern, 1985, 1999, 2010). As such, these are some

central concepts for describing the origins of mind in infancy research, tangibly situated in the

concrete relation to the other. We want to introduce the concept of atmosphere as a new way to

describe the more intangible aspects of the creation of mind that surround the development of

intersubjectivity. Affect attunement, imitation and synchrony are important aspects for the

development of intersubjectivity, but it does not develop in relation to these alone. Intersubjectivity

also develops within a broader context with more fuzzy, in-between atmospheric relations. We

endeavor to describe atmospheres as the unity of the situation whereby we present alternative

dimensions to infant meaning-making as the concept of atmosphere not only entails the mother-

3 Johnson (2007) describes numerous ways in which infants make meaning, for instance through cross-modal perception and motor coordination, joint attention, and vitality affects.

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infant dyad, but also the spatial, material surroundings and expectations toward the situation. In this

way infant meaning-making is understood in its widest sense as being linked, not only to processes

of inter-subjectivity arising in relation to the primary caregiver, but as contextually situated

processes of sense-making.

We use the concept of sense-making as synonymous with meaning-making wherein meaning

begins with movement, and where movement is a foundation for conceptual thought (see Sheets-

Johnstone, 2011). This is similar to the conception of sense- or meaning-making in the enactive

tradition(s), where meaning-making has been brought to the forefront in a way where it happens

within the framework of embodied, embedded, extended and enactive minds. The enactive tradition

is currently intensely discussed, and Colombetti (2013, 2016) has developed the notion of the

feeling body as a recent extension of this paradigm. Colombetti regards atmospheric relations as

features of our affective life, but she hardly discusses such relations within her framework. Also,

since a goal of the enactive tradition is to describe the deep continuity between mind and life (see

Thompson, 2007), it comprises a rather complex framework in which sense-making is made up of

the processes of autopoiesis and cognition. As we retain the concept of atmosphere at a descriptive

level only, and do not seek to found it in a complex biology, we avoid conceptual complexities and

difficulties unnecessary and contentious to our purpose. If we look at the descriptive level of

meaning-making in the enactive tradition (and not at the underlying assumptions), however, it is

very similar to what we describe as the emergence of atmospheres. Cuffary, Di Paolo and De

Jaegher (2015), for instance, discuss sense-making and write that “meaning, understood as

relationally achieved consequences in experience and further acting/sensing/experience in all living

engagements” (p. 1121). But similar to the works of Streeck (e.g. 2015) and Goodwin (e.g. 2011,

2013, 2017), who focus on the contextual, embodied and multi-modal aspects of meaning-making,

they ignore our affective life to a great extent. In contrast, we develop the concept of atmosphere as

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a new way of studying meaning-making that comprises both the materiality and cultural context but

which also includes our affective life and applies it to the field of infancy research. There are many

aspects to meaning-making, and, as we will show in the following, one significant feature of

meaning-making is the atmospheric situation.

This reasoning is inspired by Gumbrecht’s (2012) claim that the concept of atmosphere can be

applied to any situation. Anderson (2009), holds a similar opinion and says that it is even “possible

to talk of … an atmosphere between two or more people” (p. 78). Thus, through the assumption of

atmosphere as present in almost any experience, it becomes possible to ask the question of whether

there are particular atmospheric qualities that surround infancy. What are the atmospheres in the

mother-child interaction like. Are they atmospheres that surround them ‘like vapor’? In other

words, how do affective tonalities emerge from their bodies (materiality) in interaction (in the

interaction between mother and child, interacting with the environment)? How are they present and

what are their patterns of change like?

Method

In order to investigate these questions, we wanted to describe atmospheric instances of the

mother-child relationship. But could we do this within a scientific, psychological paradigm? Our

doubt was grounded in Gumbrecht’s (2012) question: is there a scientific approach when reading

for Stimmung? His answer is that methods cannot be used. He does not explicate why he sees

methods as ineffectual, but perhaps it is because of the fluidity, diffuseness and difficulty (or

impossibility) of fully translating impressions into language. His rejection of methods may also be

connected to questions of causality as a defining feature of science. He reasons about atmosphere

that “we are unable to explain the causality (or, in everyday life, control its workings). One cannot

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claim to understand this dynamic, much less account for it fully” (2012, p. 4). But the lack of a

scientific method should not stop us from engaging with atmospheres. He also argues: “this

circumstance is no reason not to draw attention to it and describe its many variants” (p. 4). Instead,

he claims, when reading for Stimmung we should get hold of it through irritation or fascination by a

small detail. This is his “method” when he elegantly describes atmospheres of various epochs

(Gumbrecht, 1997, 2013), art works (Gumbrecht, 2012), and activities (Gumbrecht, 2006).

Gumbrecht (2012) also points to writers who continuously describe atmospheres, and as an example

he highlights Toni Morrison: “She was interested, I imagine, in an experience familiar to everyone:

that atmospheres and moods, as the slightest of encounters between our bodies and material

surroundings, also affect our psyche” (p. 4).

So we see that writers and literary scholars have amply described atmospheres. In order to do so

within the field of psychology, however, we have to leave traditional psychological methods

behind. Instead we should focus on descriptive methods that can capture the atmospheres of the

mother-child interaction. The chosen method is therefore phenomenological, as phenomenological

psychology focuses on description of the phenomenon as the basis for analyzing its psychological

meanings.

We followed the steps of the descriptive phenomenological psychological method as described

by psychologist Amadeo Giorgi (2009, 2012) in order to give a phenomenological description of

atmospheric infancy. We were three researchers who independently used the method: Initially, we

assumed the phenomenological attitude. According to Giorgi (2012) this implies that researchers try

to refrain from bringing past knowledge into the description in an attempt to account for whatever is

present. Hence, we applied as little theoretical psychological knowledge as possible in the

descriptions of the atmospheres. However, we maintained a psychological sensitivity to the

phenomenon in order to account for the different aspects of its manifestation. This sensitivity was

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expressed as a focus on describing the appearing atmospheres in relation to three different aspects.

This was because these aspects are elements of atmosphere that typically appear central to its

meaning, as exemplified in Pallasmaa’s (2014b, p. 231) description: “In addition to environmental

atmospheres, there are cultural, social, work place, family, etc. interpersonal atmospheres.”

Therefore, first of all we were interested in describing the interpersonal atmosphere, that is, the

atmosphere surrounding the mother and child in the interaction. This interpersonal, or shared,

atmosphere we defined as being present when the mother and the child share an affective

experience, i.e. both appear to experience similar or complimentary affective qualities, both in

terms of form and context. Two completely different atmospheres may surround the mother and the

child, where neither of them are drawn into the other’s atmosphere whereby no shared atmosphere

arises. When analyzing the interactions, we looked for instances where similar or complimentary

types of affectivity (e.g. a feeling of joy or a feeling of being hectic) surrounded both mother and

child. We looked for affectivity in the quality of their movements, facial expressions, vocalizations,

gaze and expressed intentions. Secondly, since the atmosphere is so closely connected to the

materiality (or environment, broadly understood) of the situation, we paid attention not only to the

material surroundings, but also to their bodies as part of the materiality. Thirdly, it quickly became

clear that the “cultural atmosphere”, here understood as expectations toward the experimental

setting, was constitutive for the interpersonal atmosphere. We therefore attempted to describe the

atmosphere between mother and child on three different (but not mutually exclusive) “levels”: the

interpersonal, the material, and the cultural.

Our empirical material consisted of twenty video recordings of mother–infant interactions in an

experimental setting. The mothers and infants were taking part in a longitudinal study at Babylab,

University of Copenhagen, investigating child development (for a more detailed description, see

Smith-Nielsen et al., 2015). The mothers were recruited during pregnancy through maternity-

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related websites and advertisements at local obstetricians. All mothers were primiparous and from

the Copenhagen area. The mother-infant dyads were video-taped during a 10-minute interaction in

the laboratory at infant ages 4, 7, 10 and 13 months. The dyads were seated in a standard face-to-

face setup (Tronick & Cohn, 1989): the infant was seated in an infant seat facing the mother. Two

video cameras, placed behind the mother, filmed the frontal view of the infant and the lateral view

of the dyad. Further, two mirrors placed behind the infant, made it possible to see the mother’s face

and body. Before the interaction, the mothers were instructed to talk and play with their infants as

they would normally do. The mother-infant dyads selected for this study were drawn from a pool of

62 mother-infant dyads. Due to the large amount of data material, we viewed 10 randomly selected

dyads and selected five of these for further analysis. The selection was based on variability, that is,

if we watched an interaction and it seemed similar to one already selected, we would pick another

dyad in which the interaction appeared different. This was done in order to capture variations in

atmospheres. In what follows all mothers and children have been given fictitious names. The study

was approved by the ethics committee at the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen.

On a practical level we began by watching the recordings from start to finish in order to get a

sense of the whole. We then watched the recordings again and whenever a shared atmosphere

appeared, we marked it as a “meaning unit” (Giorgi, 2009, 2012) and described these units

individually according to the three different levels. There was an overall consensus among the

researchers on shifts in atmosphere, suggesting that the same phenomenon was manifest to the

researchers. We transformed the written descriptions throughout the process into expressions that

more directly revealed the psychological content (Giorgi, 2012). Finally, we compared and

discussed the descriptions between the three researchers, gradually reaching consensus on the

content of the atmospheric descriptions.

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Results

We described atmospheres in infancy and could actually point to a pattern of change that stretched

across the entire period. For the first session at four months there were hardly any shared

atmospheres present. At seven months the atmospheres were generally calm, joyous and playful,

while at ten months they were characterized by a similar joyfulness that included more mutuality

and rhythmic expressions of bodily anticipation. At thirteen months, there were again many fewer

atmospheric interactions as the experimental setting was too burdensome on the child. However,

when atmospheres arose, they were mostly pleasant and continuous.

Regarding what we named as a ‘cultural constituent’ of the atmospheres, it was evident that the

mothers all had an awareness of social expectations towards the experimental situation. Although

they were told to behave with their child as they normally would, they all continuously attempted to

interact with their child. Their constant activities appeared as attempts to create positive interaction

with the child in order to preempt the possible frustration of the child. In this way, their actions

were not directed only at the present moment, in the way the child’s actions are, but also at the near

(and perhaps feared) future. This is, not surprisingly, the most constant aspect throughout the four

sessions in all of the dyads. A much less constant aspect that contributed to the atmospheres was the

ways in which the materiality of the experimental situation contributed to the creation of

atmospheres. In the beginning, when the infant was four months old, it was a background or

condition for the atmospheric relations, pulling the child’s attention away from the mother. At later

ages, it became a possibility for joint focus and an object for play and shared interest, sustaining

atmospheric relations. In the end, at thirteen months, the confinements of the experimental situation

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became too troublesome and so much the focal point for the child alone that it hindered the

possibility of atmospheric interaction.

4 Months: Lack of Atmospheres or Hints of Atmospheric Beginnings

At four months we could hardly detect any shared atmospheres in the five mother-infant dyads.

Although we could describe the atmosphere of the entire experimental situation, or discern an

atmosphere surrounding either the mother or the child (and these were of various qualities), there

were hardly any shared atmospheres between the mother and child in this particular experiential

context. This was the case even though it was evident that the mothers’ experience of the situation

was influenced by expectations toward the experimental situation, seen in their continuous attempts

to establish play.

For Louise and Signe, Helene and Frederik, as well as Malene and Jakob, the material

surroundings distract the child, making it difficult for the mother to obtain contact with the child.

For example, even though Malene (the mother) manages to create brief moments of contact with

Jakob, he is mainly focused on the body stocking he is wearing and the material surroundings, not

really noticing Malene and her attempts to create a dialogue. Thus, it is the experimental situation

and not the interaction with Malene that dominates Jakob’s actions in the entire session.

For Line and Vibeke, however, it is Vibeke’s (the child’s) discontent that distracts from the

possibility of an atmospheric relation. It is hard to tell the cause of her discontent, perhaps she is

tired, or perhaps she is uncomfortable in the seat. In comparison to Jakob it is not immediately

evident that it is the surroundings that distract from the shared atmosphere. Instead it seems to be an

internal state in Vibeke that creates the grumpiness.

In all of the dyads, when brief moments of shared atmosphere arise, it is when the child accepts

the mother’s invitation, and the mother then adjusts her activity to the child’s interests. For instance,

18

Signe (the mother) captures Louise’s attentions when she initiates a walking-on-body game and a

rhythmic clapping game. Signe’s cheerful games are surrounded by calmness. At the same time,

Louise is also really calm, making a small smile and brief sounds once in a while, in a way

participating in the dialogue. Thus, Louise shows she is affected by Signe and joins Signe’s

atmosphere, but only for a moment.

Although the activity levels of the five mother-infant dyads vary when moments of shared

atmosphere arise, the mother initiates interaction while the child observes the mother. Generally, the

shared atmospheres present in the interactions are pleasant and calm. They are manifested in mutual

gaze and attention, a focus on the other in a calm manner, accompanied by smiles, laughter and

physical contact. They seem to be constituted by tranquil body movements, smiles, and rhythmic

interaction in games, often just for a moment.

There are also moments bordering on a joint atmosphere in that the child is obviously aware of

the mother (their intentionalities are directed towards one another) and is being soothed by the

mother’s voice. They are not necessarily in a joint atmosphere however, as their emotional tonalities

diverge. For example, Vibeke (the child) is discontent, whereas Line (the mother) acts in a rather

light and cheering way, smiling and chuckling during the interaction in an attempt to lift Vibeke’s

grumpy mood. Vibeke is aware of Line and her actions. Line receives a smile occasionally, and

sometimes Vibeke seems to become calmer because of Line’s soothing voice. In other words,

Vibeke is affected by Line’s affective expressions, but they do not develop a shared atmosphere

since their emotional tonalities diverge substantively.

7 Months: Atmospheric Interactions of Calm Delight and Rhythmic, Joyous Play

Moments of shared atmospheres between the mother and the child become more frequent and of

longer duration at 7 months compared to at 4 months. For three of the dyads, Signe and Louise,

19

Line and Vibeke, as well as Stine and Kristian, the atmospheres appear as a continuation of the few

moments of calm and joy that we could detect at 4 months. For instance, in the interaction between

Stine and Kristian, the most common shared atmosphere is one of calmness. Stine (the mother)

sings pat-a-cake in a low voice, almost whispering while clapping her hands silently. Kristian is

calm and looks attentively at Stine’s face and her hands. He lays one of his hands on top of Stine’s,

and he moves with Stine’s hand. During the interaction Stine invites Kristian to share a more

playful atmosphere when she makes a higher, more intense sound. However, it is not until the end

that a playful shared atmosphere develops. Stine makes a slurping-sound, which makes Kristian

laugh intensely, which in turn makes Stine laugh. This pattern is repeated several times, each time

Stine waits for Kristian’s laughing, before she starts laughing.

Generally, the atmospheres at 7 months are more lively and energetic with different kinds of

rhythmic games and tactile interactions compared to 4 months. For instance, in the interaction

between Line and Vibeke, it seems as if they have a pre-established game: Both are dancing in their

seats while Line (the mother) sings “boogie baby.” In this episode, Line is still mainly the one who

initiates and structures the interaction. However, she does this in a way where she carefully takes

Vibeke into consideration and whereby she allows Vibeke to be part of the structuration process:

Line initiates play, then waits for Vibeke’s response, and if Vibeke seems to be pleased by what

Line is doing, Line does it again, often in a more exaggerated way. Thus, the pleasant atmosphere is

expressed in the culmination of different rhythmic and tactile activities of intense joy and laughing.

Along this line, at 7 months the mothers more often attempt to initiate dialogue through imitation

and repetition, which is especially evident in the interactions between Line and Vibeke, Helene and

Frederik, as well as Stine and Kristian.

The surroundings still distract the children from the joint atmospheres. Especially in the

interactions between Helene (the mother) and Frederik there are still few instances of shared

20

atmosphere. Frederik is mainly focused on the surroundings and not on Helene’s attempts to create

a pleasant interaction. But the few moments of shared atmosphere that appear are joyous: For

instance, when Helene sings Frederik takes part in the singing by waving his arms and legs

excitedly. Frederik quickly gets distracted, though, and focuses on the surroundings instead.

However, Frederik does look more often at his mother compared to when he was four months and it

is not always the case that the material surroundings hindered the creation of a shared atmosphere.

In some dyads, the material surroundings were explored together and incorporated into the joint

interaction, and, as such, a part of the shared atmosphere. For instance, Louise looks around in the

room, Signe follows Louise’s gaze while she calmly comments on the things Louise sees. Louise

makes sounds and Signe responds by telling more about the things they see.

Finally, in the interaction between Malene and Jakob, the shared atmosphere is of a different

quality. The atmosphere is calm and empathetic, tending almost towards an inter-subjective

contemplative “dwelling”, in the sense of doing nearly nothing but being together. They are in

rather similar affective states, both in terms of form and content, and the material conditions are not

causing significant differences in the interaction. Malene (the mother) does not dominate the

interaction and in addition to her rhythmic invitations she follows Jakob’s lead. They seem to be

comfortable and relaxed with each other. The atmosphere is remarkably consistent throughout the

session with very few shifts and interruptions.

Compared to 4 months the atmosphere at 7 months is primarily dominated by the intersubjective

conditions available from the initial openness of the infant and the interaction-directed activities of

the mother: The child is not just focused on the surroundings and engages with the mother. It is a

general atmosphere of calmness and content, play and harmony, evident in their synchronic

movements and sounds. The interaction is more complex with more shifts, in the sense that the joint

atmosphere takes the form of focus on one another or the surroundings.

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10 Months: Pleasant Mutuality and Rhythmic Expectations

At 10 months there is a continuation of the joyous and playful atmosphere present at 4 and 7

months for Signe and Louise, as well as Line and Vibeke. The interactions between Helene and

Frederik, which did not comprise many instances of shared atmosphere at 7 months, are now also

characterized by shared playful atmospheres. For these three dyads, the interaction shifts between

being energetic and playful, where the mother and the child focus on each other, to being more calm

and exploring, where the mother and the child focus on the surroundings. Compared to the earlier

ages, there is a development towards an increased use of the surroundings in the establishment of a

shared atmosphere. The interaction between Helene and Frederik illustrates these two aspects. In

the beginning, Frederik (the child) plays with Helene’s hands. She, in return, touches his back and

tummy before she tickles him. There is a repetition of the physical contact and it is accompanied by

laughter which makes the atmosphere sweet and playful. The atmosphere turns into one of

concentration when Frederik focuses on the objects in the room and Helene follows his gaze and

interest; the mirrors behind Frederik become objects of joint attention and play.

Although it is still mostly the mother who initiates a shared atmosphere, the child continues to

become a more structuring and active part of the interaction. For instance, in the interaction

between Signe and Louise, Louise (the child) initiates a joint harmonic atmosphere when she starts

to swing her body from side to side. Signe immediately picks up on it and starts swinging together

with Louise. It seems as if Signe and Louise have established a common repertoire of sounds and

movements, i.e. they have certain activities that they do together. Since Louise’s swinging from side

to side is a repetition of the past, Louise knows what she can expect when she initiates this activity.

22

The knowledge of the link between certain movements and a certain atmosphere makes it easier for

Louise to initiate a new (known) atmosphere.

The dyads differ with regard to how quickly a shared atmosphere is established and how mutual

the establishment of the atmosphere is. In the interaction between Signe and Louise, the session

starts with open curiosity and exploration in a light conversational atmosphere. The activity seems

to begin jointly and it cannot be said who initiates it. By contrast, for Line and Vibeke it takes some

time before any shared atmosphere arises. In the beginning Vibeke (the child) is simply looking at

Line, not contributing to the dialogue, and eventually she turns to an individual investigation of the

body stocking she is wearing. Likewise, for Stine and Kristian, the shared joyous atmosphere only

arises towards the end of the interaction, where Stine (the mother) makes pet sounds to Kristian’s

great pleasure; they look into each other’s eyes, smile and laughs.

The material conditions become particularly present and influential for the shared atmospheres

when it is threatened by the child’s discontent with sitting in the chair. This is the case for Signe and

Louise as well as for Helene and Frederik. Due to the mothers’ successful distractions the

discontent does not develop into pronounced dissatisfaction for the children. However, the situation

is different for Malene and Jakob. The session starts with calmness, and the atmosphere appears

harmonious. However, it is quickly disturbed by the intensity in Malene’s (the mother’s) voice and

movements and Jakob’s dissatisfaction with sitting in the chair. Although the level of activity seems

quite calm on the surface, the general atmosphere is tense. This is partly caused by Jakob constantly

being at the brink of frustration, which in turn seems to animate Malene to working hard to change

his mood. However, Malene’s intensity is not all-pervasive, and although she repeats the Jakob’s

movements with a higher degree of intensity than his own, she also lets him just sit, if only for a

few seconds. At times she also manages to establish a playful atmosphere. For instances she “eats”

23

his hands and feet which makes both laugh. However, there seem to be a fine line between laughing

and crying, and even the playful atmosphere seems unstable.

Thus, at ten months we can discern some patterns where, for instance, Signe and Louise appear

with a more continuous atmosphere at four, seven and ten months: their shared atmospheres are

characterized as calm, curious, harmonious and content. For Malene and Jakob, the differences

between the sessions are marked to the extent that the atmospheres appear with qualitative

discontinuities from calm to ambivalent and intense. Nevertheless, for all of the dyads at ten months

the atmospheric interactions are also joyous and comfortable where each anticipates the other’s

move in rhythmic bodily attunement.

13 Months: Intense Distraction to Fight of Discontent (but also Calm, Pleasant Play).

At 13 months there are even greater differences between the atmospheres in the five mother-

infant dyads. For three of the dyads, Signe and Louise, Helene and Frederik, as well as Malene and

Jakob, there are hardly any shared atmospheres as the child wants to get out of the chair and nothing

can distract from that. In that sense the mother is not as much “in charge” as the child’s project of

getting out of the chair dominates the session. For instance, even though there are brief moments of

the playful atmospheres characteristic for Signe and Louise at 7 and 10 months, the interaction is

dominated by Louise’s (the child) frustration with the restrictions of sitting in the chair. Signe tries

to take advantage of every opportunity for distraction, e.g. every time Louise looks towards

something, Signe tries to stimulate her curiosity. She does this in a gentle way. For short periods of

time, Louise calms down and looks attentively at Signe, who is calm and cheerful. But shortly

thereafter, Louise breaks into tears again and the possibility of a shared atmosphere decreases. In

the interaction between Malene and Jakob, Malene (the mother) does not handle Jakob’s frustration

in Signe’s gentle way. Their interaction is characterized by Jakob’s discontent and Malene’s intense

24

attempts to distract him. The interaction between Malene and Jakob starts with Jakob crying and

reaching towards Malene, expressing his dissatisfaction with being confined to the chair and his

wish for Malene to pick him up. Malene responds with a high-pitched, intense voice. She is

constantly trying to distract Jakob and the situation seems to be stressing her. Jakob gets his pacifier

and he stops crying, but he is still not satisfied with the situation and Malene continues intensely

with attempts to engage him. At times they manage to create a joint activity. For example, they look

around in the room together while Malene points towards the cameras. However, they do not

develop a shared atmosphere since their affective tonalities diverge. Jakob looks tired and almost

worried; he seems to be overwhelmed by the situation. On the other hand, Malene has a rather high

activity level with excessive gestures. She seems exaggerated in her communication with Jakob.

Nevertheless, there are moments of shared atmospheres for all dyads, including Malene and

Jakob. These moments are characterized by mutuality, expectations, joyfulness, caring and warmth,

revealed in smiles and coordinated body language. The interaction between Line and Vibeke stands

out, since the playful atmosphere dominates the entire session. Both Line and Vibeke imitate the

sounds and movements made by the other. In the expectant way Vibeke (the child) sometimes looks

at Line, it seems as if she is waiting for Line to imitate the gesture or sound she just made.

Likewise, Line waits for Vibeke to respond to her initiatives. The dialogue between Line and

Vibeke is well established. It is clear that they have a common repertoire of sound and movement.

Line sings and Vibeke makes coordinated movements to Line’s singing. In some instances, it seems

as if Vibeke anticipates what comes next in the song and acts it out, e.g. she starts “dancing” in the

seat, just before Line sings “dancing.”

Like at 10 months, the child continues to become a more structuring part of the interaction,

especially evident in the interaction between Line and Vibeke. In some instances, Vibeke takes on

25

the role in the game, which originally was played by Line: for instance, Vibeke becomes the one

who starts the peak-a-boo game.

Finally, the interaction between Stine and Kristian differs from the ones described above, since

their shared atmosphere is not as much playful as it is calm and inquiring. In Stine and Kristian’s

interaction, the material surroundings appear intensely present as the focus of mutual exploration

and a common point of interest. Stine and Kristian look around in the room. Kristian (the child)

points wide-eyed towards different things, whereupon Stine explains what they are in a low, almost

whispering, voice. They both seem to be deeply engaged in their joint exploration of the strange

setting.

With respect to the lack of shared atmospheres, the interactions at 13 months resemble those at

four months. However, the reason for the few shared atmospheres is quite different. At 13 months it

is primarily due to the confinement of the children’s movements, whereas at four months it was due

to either absorption in the surroundings or an internal unpleasant state.

Different Kinds of Atmospheric Qualities

Within this general developmental pattern, there were variations in the atmospheric qualities and

we could discern four distinct kinds of atmospheres. The most prevalent atmosphere comprised a

pleasantness of mutual joy, where activity and calmness blended in a harmonious manner. The

mother and child played together, mainly focused on each other. Close to this kind of atmosphere is

one where activity and calm are still central, but the atmosphere is also characterized by curiosity

and inquisitive motions where they jointly explored the experimental setting. Then there was an

atmosphere of “dwelling” together, not necessarily comprising much activity, but tiny movements

showing that they were feeling comfortable together, relaxing in the moment. The last distinctive

atmosphere was one where it seemed on the surface as if it was a pleasant one, but lurking in the

26

background was an ambivalence, a hastiness that indicated that the atmosphere would break and

trouble could arise at any moment.

Discussion

Inspired by the use of the term ‘atmosphere’ in architecture and literature studies, the concept

has in this article for the first time, to our knowledge, traversed from aesthetic fields to

developmental psychology and we described and conceptualized moments of infancy as

atmospheric. In other words, there is a shared psychological atmosphere, both in relation to the

affective form and content, creating a particular atmospheric appearance that surrounds mother and

child like vapor. This does not mean that the mother and child are in identical affective states, but

that they are in a sphere of affective similarity, or appear so affectively coordinated, that the

dialogue takes on more of the form of a monologue.

When atmospheres appear, it is within a cultural framework of expectations, with definitive

materialities of both the subjects and objects, causing particular interactions with distinct

atmospheric variations. We have also shown that these interactions had a distinct pattern of change.

At four months there was hardly any shared atmosphere. Then, at seven months atmospheres arise,

characterized by calm delight and rhythmic play. At ten months the atmospheres are even more

rhythmic in their pleasant mutuality, in longer and more frequent instances. At thirteen months there

is a significant change in that far fewer atmospheric instances appear, as the child is discontent with

the confinements of the experimental situation.

It is surprising that we hardly found any shared atmospheres at four months since the concept of

primary intersubjectivity (Trevarthen, 1979) and several empirical studies show the mutuality

characterizing the communication between mother and infant at this age (e.g. Beebe et al., 2010;

Jaffe et al., 2001; Cohn, Campbell, Matias, & Hopkins, 1990). We do not know the reason for this

difference and it could be coincidental to the selected empirical material. It is an aspect that

27

warrants further investigation. Our finding that the duration and intensity of the atmospheres

increases as the child becomes older is supported by existing literature on child development and

intersubjectivity, however.

As for the question of particular atmospheric qualities that surround infancy, we discovered four

distinct atmospheric variations: joyous, explorative, and contemplative atmospheres as well as one

that was unstable or ambivalent. These are particular in the sense that the child gradually becomes

more and more active in structuring the shared atmosphere, participating gradually more intensively

in giving it form and content. This structuring seems strongly related to the role of expectations in

the child as we could see that the content, when initiated by the child, to a great extent seemed

dependent on pre-established games that the child had learned. The children also to a greater degree

incorporate the context in their play and thus particular atmospheres appear to arise in infancy,

although we cannot from the present data say whether these are limited to infancy. Neither can we

say that only these variations are possible atmospheres in infancy and it is likely that the

experimental setting only allowed for particular atmospheres. With changing conditions, different

varieties of atmospheres may appear. Since, for ethical reasons, the experiment would stop if the

infant cried for more than two minutes, shared atmospheres of sadness or pain were not detected.

Using an analytical tool of phenomenological psychology named ‘eidetic variation’, we can easily

imagine such atmospheres as possibilities in other situations.

Sometimes we discovered that it was difficult to set theoretical assumptions aside and we

could see them appear in the material. Being three researchers describing the empirical material

proved itself particularly useful in such cases as we could detect some of each other’s theoretical

assumptions. Thus, through discussions we could ensure that the work with the empirical material

remained mainly at a descriptive level, and was not cloaked in a theoretical framework. As the

hermeneutic scholar Hans Georg Gadamer (1960) has shown, it is impossible to fully free oneself

28

from theoretical assumptions. Therefore, our goal was to arrive at as “pure” descriptions as

possible, rather than completely pure descriptions.

When agreeing on the correctness of the descriptions, some discussion about the phenomenon

had to take place. Although we agreed most of the time on the content of the descriptions, a few

times we did not. For instance, one of us described an episode in Frederik and Christina’s session at

four months as one of “reassuring content,” while the other two perceived little or no atmosphere as

Frederik was not engaged with the mother, but with the surroundings. After looking closely at the

material again it became clear that the differences were due to variations in focus. One of us had

described the general atmosphere instead of the shared atmosphere. We therefore stressed the

distinction between the ‘general’ and ‘shared’ atmosphere. The general atmosphere was

conceptualized as the atmosphere of the entire setting as it appeared to us, where the mother and

child could be in rather different affective states. The shared atmosphere, which was the atmosphere

we were interested in, arose as a unifying force.4 It surrounded the mother and child and was

grounded in a coinciding, affective situation in the particular setting.

Why did we elect to describe the atmosphere in an experimental setting and not in a more

naturalistic setting such as at a playground or in the home? First of all, in this experimental setting

with video cameras and restricted movement we could focus on minute details of the interaction. It

also made the situation more uniform for all of the participants, whereby it would be easier to

discern what remained similar and what might have varied among the different mother-child dyads.

Our experimental setting might arguably have made the task at hand even more difficult, but we

believe that it was also more rewarding. What we found, then, was that in the atmospheric

appearances—even in this experimental setting—meaning is made as an affective interaction in

4 It is important to note that the general atmospheres can also be characterized by different affective tonalities that nevertheless have a shared aspect in the sense that they are complementary. Atmospheres can be complementary where for example one person oppresses the other one and the other one is fearful. We have not included such cases in what we describe as “shared atmospheres,” but regard it as a “general atmosphere,” although it is an example of a borderline phenomenon between “shared” and “general” atmospheres.

29

combination with the particular context of the environment. Meaning can be found in the shared

relation where rhythm and harmony are manifested in coordinated movements that appear with

particular affects, partially shaped by the way the mother and child reach out for, or ignore, the

experimental setting. Thus, our results show atmosphere as a way of describing a form of meaning-

making both including the interaction and the materiality of the surroundings. When an atmosphere

appears and when their focus is on one another and not on the room and its features, then the bodily

materiality is part and parcel of the atmosphere through activities that can be a part of all the sense

modalities. As such, we operate with a broad conception of materiality where sounds and singing

can also be constitutive of a shared atmosphere.

There are, however, some potential issues regarding the use of phenomenological psychology in

an experimental setting. It would be more traditional phenomenology if we were to make

descriptions of atmospheres occurring in interactions in ‘real-life settings’ and described the

experiential structures of these based on an overall view of what is going on. Nevertheless,

phenomenological psychology also allows for creativity and room for divergence when using the

method, especially in unusual contexts. We emphasize the primacy of description and reveal

structural conditions for the emergence or development of consciousness, primary themes or goals

of phenomenological psychology.

In a manner similar to “affective resonance,” but based on phenomenological psychology—a

different epistemology—the concept of atmosphere emphasizes the relational atmospheric

appearance. In terms of vitality affects, many of their timely dynamic qualities seem to be what also

characterizes the atmosphere, such as “calm”, “relaxed” or “tense”. But in comparison to them,

atmospheres include both form and content to a greater extent, and thus they have a greater focus on

the materiality and cultural setting. The concept of atmosphere has therefore shown itself as a new

way to capture intersubjective meaning-making that develops in a greater contextual frame than

30

Stern’s more limited (but still very important) body-context. In contrast to the vitality affects, the

concept of atmosphere is not limited to how the mother’s feeling shapes are internalized by the

child, but it additionally shows that the mother and child appear in a particular harmonious form

that surrounds them, which each of them can initiate and structure.

The experience of atmospheres should have similar developmental consequences for various

affects, due to their resemblances. But the nature of the atmosphere is contextually bound to a

greater degree than, for instance, the vitality affects which are more constant for the dyad than the

various context in which they move. In fact, if we are correct then various atmospheres influence

the form of the vitality affects in question. And while related concepts such as primary and

secondary intersubjectivity or joint attention refer to interpersonal relations, the concept of

atmosphere does not necessarily do so. Atmospheres arise for one person, but can also include two

or many persons. In comparison to the commonly-used concepts that are focused on the close

alignment of the primary care-giver and the child in the interaction, the concept of ‘shared

atmosphere’ includes this alignment, but is more intangible and contextual. It refers to processes of

sensing the environment and its materiality that are more subtle and imprecise, but are nevertheless

influential for how we act and interact. As such, atmospheres affect the process of meaning-making

in infancy and are a category that should be considered on a par with other affective phenomena in

the creation of subjectivity and intersubjectivity.

Conclusion

Although affective life is inexhaustibly complex, we described moments of infancy as

atmospheric with features of stability and variation. We could point to the possibility of a pattern of

change with distinct atmospheric qualities. We also showed that an atmosphere arises not as a

dialogue between two partners, but as an all-encompassing force where the mother and child appear

31

in a unified, contextual and intersubjective monologue. In other words, their affective and material

worlds correspond and reveal a particular, atmospheric appearance.

As a relational and contextual concept, the description of atmospheres in parent-infant

interaction opens a viable path to the study of the development of meaning-making and

intersubjectivity. The concept of atmosphere refers to a fuzzier background for intersubjectivity that

influences, and is influenced by, central moments of the creation of intersubjectivity such as the

vitality affects. What is both challenging and interesting is that atmospheres do not belong to either

the parent or the infant alone, but appear as a potential for affective actualization in-between

intensions and actions.

32

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