Researchers at Ohio State University say playing with dolls shouldn't only be reserved for young girls that want to hone their maternal instincts.

It can also be pivotal in predicting how expectant parents handle potential conflicts after birth.

Parents' behavior towards dolls predicts their co-behavior with their baby a year later, claims Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-author of a study about parenting and a professor of human sciences at Ohio State.

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This means the extent to which a couple supports or undermines each other's interactions with the doll will manifest more or less in their parenting style with their child.

Researchers videotaped 182 couples in the third trimester of pregnancy as they interacted with dolls and role-played. Researchers wanted to predict their ability to work together in order to raise a child.

They visited the couples' homes and presented them a custom doll that is essentially an infant sleeper stuffed with seven to eight pounds of rice to resemble the weight of a newborn.

The parents participated in five-minute sessions where they played with the doll separately and then together and finally discussed their experience.

After studying the videotapes, researchers pinpointed important parenting behaviors such as intuitiveness, warmth and structure of play. After nine months, a different set of researchers studied the couples' behaviors to assess their co-parenting with their babies.

The results of the co-parenting with the doll and the real baby varied,

Some new parents were arguing about how to hold the baby while others complimented each other about their natural parenting abilities. The consistency of the parents' reactions to the doll and their baby was remarkable, according to Schoppe-Sullivan.

She also confirmed that the couples' parenting style does not necessarily affect their romantic relationship with each other, Couples' were asked about their overall happiness in their relationships apart from this experiment.

Lead author Lauren Altenburger said co-parenting has been linked to the child's outcomes. When parents fight and undermine each other, the child ultimately suffers.

This study was published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

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