more affection, play more often with, and spend more time engaged with their baby than mothers of less attractive babies, despite the common belief that parents will treat their child the same, regardless of appearance. Psychologists compared the mother-infant interactions of three-month-old babies with craniofacial abnormalities and normal infants and observed that the mothers of the infants with abnormalities engaged their baby with smiles less often than the mothers of normal babies, spoke to their infants less, and were less responsive to their infants than were the mothers of the normal infants. The results of this study indicate that the appearance, attractiveness, and facial configuration of an infant is a strong predictor of maternal affection and behavior toward the child. Recent research has shown that the phenomenon of decreased responsiveness and attention was not limited to infants with mild to severe head and face deformities. Families of low socioeconomic status with healthy newborn infants were selected to participate. Photos of their newborns were rated on attractiveness by a panel of university students. Researchers observed mother-infant interactions and recorded the "affectionate interaction" between the baby and mother (how often the mother kissed, smiled at, cuddled, held the baby), the amount of time spent on "routine care-giving" (fed, changed, cleaned up after the baby), and how often the mothers "attended to others" while with the baby. The researchers compared attractive and unattractive babies and showed that the mothers of more attractive infants had more affectionate interactions with their infants than the mothers of less attractive infants while the mothers of unattractive infants spent more time on routine care-giving and attended to others more often. The researchers believe they have established a relationship between the attractiveness of an infant and his or her treatment by the caregiver for normal children of different attractiveness. Mother's attitudes toward attractive and unattractive babies Conflict exists in the research concerning mothers' attitudes toward unattractive infants. Some studies establish that mothers of unattractive babies find that their infants interfere more with their lives than do the mothers of attractive infants, and that a mother's attitude toward her child becomes more negative if the child becomes more unattractive, but several studies suggest attractiveness plays no major role in determining maternal attitudes. A study of mothers of infants with craniofacial deformities and normal children stated that mothers of children with deformities reported more positive parenting experiences than mothers of normal