Gender and discipline in 5-12-month-old infants: a longitudinal study

The Relationship between Parental Autonomy Support and Children's Self-Concept in China-The Role of Basic Psychological Needs

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between parental autonomy support and children's self-concept, and to explore the role of basic psychological needs in Chinese primary schools from the perspective of self-determination theory. A total of 3109 children aged 6-13 years participated in eastern China. The results indicated a significant correlation between parental autonomy support, basic psychological needs, and children's self-concept. Basic psychological needs play a partial mediating role between parental autonomy support and children's self-concept. Specifically, autonomy support varied by need types whereas parental control steadily played a negative predictive role. Parental autonomy support and control predicted children's self-concept differently through three basic psychological needs, with differences across gender and grades. Boys and elder children had stronger relationships to competence needs, while girls were sensitive to autonomy needs; in addition, both of them were sensitive to relatedness needs. The mediating effects model and cross-group analyses revealed the complex predictive role of parental autonomy support on children's self-concept in China, providing an effective entry point for cross-cultural research and family education to improve children's psychological well-being.

Talking to talkers: Infants' talk status, but not their gender, is related to language input

Prior research points to gender differences in some early language skills, but is inconclusive about the mechanisms at play, providing evidence that both infants' early input and productions may differ by gender. This study examined the linguistic input and early productions of 44 American English-learning infants (93% White) in a longitudinal sample of home recordings collected at 6-17 months (in 2014-2016). Girls produced more unique words than boys (Cohen's d = .67) and this effect grew with age, but there were no significant gender differences in language input (d = .22-.24). Instead, caregivers talked more to infants who had begun to talk (d = .93-.97), regardless of gender. Therefore, prior results highlighting gender-based input differences may have been due, at least partly, to this talking-to-talkers effect.

The Effects of Gendered Parenting on Child Development Outcomes: A Systematic Review

Gender role development occurs in the earliest months and years of a child's life. Parental attitudes, behaviours and modelling are likely to play a significant role in this process; however, to date no review has been conducted to consolidate knowledge of the effects of differential parenting on child development. This systematic review aimed to investigate the evidence for differential parenting behaviours based on child gender that affect child development, across six areas (vocalisation, socialisation, play, toys, dress and décor). Searches were conducted for English article using four databases: psycINFO, CINAHL, Sociological Abstract, and SCOPUS. The inclusion criteria were biological or adoptive parents, of a typically developing child aged below five, using any parenting behaviour or strategies that differed by child gender. 45 studies were included in this systematic review (14 vocalisation, 21 socialisation, 7 play, 3 toys). A variety of gender-differentiated parenting behaviours and child outcomes were examined. The review found evidence that parents do respond differently to their children. Parents vocalised differently, used different socialising strategies, played differently and provided different toys to their sons and daughters. This differential parenting was associated with some differences in child development across child gender, including differences in child vocalisation, displays of affect, pain responses, compliance, toy play and aggression. However, the overall quality of the evidence, the lack of longitudinal studies and the heterogeneous nature of the outcomes examined suggest the need for a systematic approach to examining the nature and effects of differential parenting on children's development.

Multimodal Interaction between a Mother and Her Twin Preterm Infants (Male and Female) in Maternal Speech and Humming during Kangaroo Care: A Microanalytical Case Study

The literature reports the benefits of multimodal interaction with the maternal voice for preterm dyads in kangaroo care. Little is known about multimodal interaction and vocal modulation between preterm mother–twin dyads. This study aims to deepen the knowledge about multimodal interaction (maternal touch, mother’s and infants’ vocalizations and infants’ gaze) between a mother and her twin preterm infants (twin 1 [female] and twin 2 [male]) during speech and humming in kangaroo care. A microanalytical case study was carried out using ELAN, PRAAT, and MAXQDA software (Version R20.4.0). Descriptive and comparative analysis was performed using SPSS software (Version V27). We observed: (1) significantly longer humming phrases to twin 2 than to twin 1 (p = 0.002), (2) significantly longer instances of maternal touch in humming than in speech to twin 1 (p = 0.000), (3) a significant increase in the pitch of maternal speech after twin 2 gazed (p = 0.002), and (4) a significant increase of pitch in humming after twin 1 vocalized (p = 0.026). This exploratory study contributes to questioning the role of maternal touch during humming in kangaroo care, as well as the mediating role of the infant’s gender and visual and vocal behavior in the tonal change of humming or speech.

Socioeconomic and demographic determinants of familial social capital inequalities: a cross-sectional study of young people in sub-Saharan African context

Background

Social capital is broadly acknowledged as a vital ‘health asset’ that promotes young people’s health and wellbeing and has the potential to prevent social- and health-related risk behaviours in the life-course. However, limited research has investigated the determinants of social capital for young people in sub-Saharan Africa. This study examines the role of socioeconomic and demographic factors in establishing inequalities in familial social capital among young people in Ghana.

Methods

The study utilised a cross-sectional survey data involving 2068 in-school adolescents (13-18 years) in the Upper West Region, Ghana. Familial social capital was assessed by ‘family sense of belonging’, ‘family autonomy support’ and ‘family control’. Multinomial logistic regressions established the relationships between socioeconomic and demographic factors and the measures of familial social capital.

Results

Adolescents from low affluence households had about 63 and 61% lower odds of attaining a high family sense of belonging (FSB) (OR = 0.373; 95%CI: 0.27–0.513) and high family autonomy support (FAS) (OR = 0.387; 95%CI: 0.270–0.556) respectively but had 67% higher odds of reporting high family control (FC) (OR = 1.673; 95%CI: 1.187–2.359) than their counterparts. Males had about 55 and 71% higher odds to possess high FSB (OR = 1.549; 95%CI: 1.210–1.983) and high FAS (OR = 1.705; 95%CI: 1.272–2.284) respectively but had 38% lower odds to report high family control (OR = 0.624; 95%CI: 0.474–0.822) than females. The odd of young adolescents to attain high FSB than older adolescents were about 66% higher (OR = 1.662; 95%CI: 1.168–2.367). Religion, educational level, ethnicity, family structure, and marital status were also significant predictors of adolescents’ family sense of belonging, family autonomy support and, family control.

Conclusions

Socioeconomic and demographic factors influence inequalities in the amount of familial social capital possessed by young people which suggests possible risks of social inequality. The family context is possibly failing some cohorts of young people with particular reference to female and poor adolescents regarding familial cognitive social capital. Public health strategies should include families in addressing socioeconomic and demographic differences in social capital with a key focus on the cohorts of young people at risk of social capital inequality.

Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to assess maternal and infant contributions to mother-infant affective exchanges during the Still-Face Paradigm

This study describes maternal and infant contributions to dyadic affective exchanges during the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) in an understudied mostly low-income sample. One hundred eleven mothers and their 7-month-old infants were videotaped during the SFP to analyze how a social stressor affects mother-infant positive and negative affective exchanges during interaction. The SFP includes 3 episodes: baseline, maternal still-face, and reunion. Maternal and infant positive and negative affect were scored by masked reliable coders. Data were analyzed using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to test the hypotheses that each partner's affectivity during the baseline episode would predict their own affectivity during the reunion episode (actor effects). We also expected that each partner's affectivity during the baseline episode would influence the other partner's affectivity during the reunion episodes (partner effects). After controlling for infant sex and maternal education, results provided evidence for actor effects for maternal and infant positive affect, and for partner effects for maternal baseline positive affect to infant positive affect during the reunion. One significant partner effect was observed for negative affect: Infant negativity during baseline predicted greater maternal negativity during reunion. Findings confirm that both mothers and infants contribute to dyadic affective processes during the SFP but specific findings vary depending on the affective valence in question. Clinical implications and future research are discussed.

Gender-Differentiated Parenting Revisited: Meta-Analysis Reveals Very Few Differences in Parental Control of Boys and Girls

Although various theories describe mechanisms leading to differential parenting of boys and girls, there is no consensus about the extent to which parents do treat their sons and daughters differently. The last meta-analyses on the subject were conducted more than fifteen years ago, and changes in gender-specific child rearing in the past decade are quite plausible. In the current set of meta-analyses, based on 126 observational studies (15,034 families), we examined mothers’ and fathers’ differential use of autonomy-supportive and controlling strategies with boys and girls, and the role of moderators related to the decade in which the study was conducted, the observational context, and sample characteristics. Databases of Web of Science, ERIC, PsychInfo, Online Contents, Picarta, and Proquest were searched for studies examining differences in observed parental control of boys and girls between the ages of 0 and 18 years. Few differences were found in parents’ use of control with boys and girls. Parents were slightly more controlling with boys than with girls, but the effect size was negligible (d = 0.08). The effect was larger, but still small, in normative groups and in samples with younger children. No overall effect for gender-differentiated autonomy-supportive strategies was found (d = 0.03). A significant effect of time emerged: studies published in the 1970s and 1980s reported more autonomy-supportive strategies with boys than toward girls, but from 1990 onwards parents showed somewhat more autonomy-supportive strategies with girls than toward boys. Taking into account parents’ gender stereotypes might uncover subgroups of families where gender-differentiated control is salient, but based on our systematic review of the currently available large data base we conclude that in general the differences between parenting of boys versus girls are minimal.

Multimodal sex-related differences in infant and in infant-directed maternal behaviors during months three through twelve of development

Using the concepts of sensory and affective experience, this work relates the concepts of socialization and cognitive development to the embodiment of gender in the human infant. Evidence obtained from biweekly observations from 30 children and their mothers observed from age 3 months to age 12 months revealed measurable sex-related differences in how mothers handle and touch their infants. This work offers novel approaches to visualizing combinations of behaviors with the aim of encouraging researchers to think in terms of suites of action rather than singular sensory or motor systems. New avenues of research into the mechanisms which produce sex-related differences in behavior are suggested.

How else can we study sex differences in early infancy?

This paper revisits group difference and individual variability in birth weight, head size, Apgar score, and motor performance in neonatal and 8-month-old males and females using a large existing data set. The goal is primarily theoretical--to reframe existing analyses with an eye toward designing and executing more predictive analyses in the future. 3D graphing to visualize both the areas of overlap and regions of disparity between boys and girls has been used. A two-step cluster analysis of boys and girls together revealed three clusters. One was almost equally divided between boys and girls, but a second was highly enriched for boys and the third highly skewed toward girls. The relationship between cluster membership and Bayley motor scores at 8 months tested the hypothesis that initial differences that have no sex-related behavioral content might start processes that produce later sex-related differences. Initially, parental belief systems may be less important than infant care patterns evoked by basic size and health characteristics, even though later parental behaviors assume a decidedly gendered pattern.

Sexual differentiation of childhood play: a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective

Freud (1905/1953) anchored his theories of unconscious psychological functioning in observations and inferences about childhood sexuality. These ideas remain influential among psychoanalysts today. Much progress subsequently occurred in extra-psychoanalytic research in human sexuality. This included the discovery in 1959 of an entirely new area of psychology: the sexual differentiation of behavior (Phoenix, Goy, Gerall, & Young, 1959; Wallen, 2009). The observations that led to this new field originally concerned the effects of androgen administered prenatally to non-human animals. This early research was compatible with later studies of humans as well. Prenatal androgen influences both erotic and non-erotic behavior, including childhood rough-and-tumble play (RTP). We have previously emphasized the need to integrate this psychoneuroendocrine knowledge with psychoanalytic theory and practice (Friedman, 1988; Friedman & Downey, 2002, 2008a, 2008b). In this article, we discuss additional aspects of the relationship between sexually differentiated childhood play, particularly RTP, and gender differences in psychosexual development and functioning. These topics and other aspects of the sexual differentiation of behavior have been under-emphasized in psychoanalytic thought.