Infant carrying: Associations with parental reflective functioning, parental bonding and parental responses to infant crying

Infant carrying may have beneficial effects on the parent-infant relationship but only limited research has been conducted in this area. Therefore, the main aim of the current study was to investigate whether infant carrying is associated with parental reflective functioning, parental bonding, and parental (emotional) and behavioral responses to infant crying, key elements within the parent-infant relationship, promoting infant development. Parents reporting high levels (N = 389) of infant carrying (six times a week or daily) and parents reporting low levels (N = 128) of infant carrying (less than once a week or not at all) who participated in an online survey about the developing parent-infant relationship in Germany were included in the present study. Standardized questionnaires were used to assess parental reflective functioning, parental bonding impairments, and emotional responses to infant crying. Further insensitive (non-responsive and hostile) behaviors in response to infant crying were assessed. Parents with high levels of infant carrying showed better parental reflective functioning, lower parental bonding problems, less negative emotions, and less insensitive behaviors in response to infant crying.

A longitudinal comparison of maternal behaviour in German urban humans (Homo sapiens) and captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Comparative perspectives are crucial in the study of human development, yet longitudinal comparisons of humans and other primates are still relatively uncommon. Here, we combined theoretical frameworks from cross-cultural and comparative psychology, to study maternal style in 10 mother-infant pairs of German urban humans (Homo sapiens) and 10 mother-infant pairs of captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), during the first year of infants' development. We conducted focal observations of different behaviours (i.e. nursing, carrying, body contact, touching, grooming, restraining, approaching, leaving, rejection, aggression, mutual gaze, object stimulation), during natural interactions. Analyses revealed a more distal maternal style in WEIRD humans than in captive chimpanzees, with different behaviours being generally more common in one of the two species throughout development. For other behaviours (i.e. nursing), developmental trajectories differed between WEIRD humans and captive chimpanzees, although differences generally decreased through infants' development. Overall, our study confirms functional approaches as a valid tool for comparative longitudinal studies.

Early triadic interactions in the first year of life: a systematic review on object-mediated shared encounters

Infants' early interactions with adults and everyday objects are key to socio-communicative development, but their emergence and development are still under debate. Aiming at describing the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches on triadicity during the first year of life, we conducted a systematic and qualitative review of recent literature. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we explored the scientific production of recent decades on triadic interactions up to 12 months of age. We initially screened 1943 items from which we obtained a final sample of 51 publications. Studies are usually conducted in laboratory settings, while ecological research is becoming increasingly common, especially in home settings. According to a thematic analysis of the data, we discussed the different perspectives on the origin and conceptualization of triadic interactions, and how they contribute to structuring and facilitating other developmental phenomena, such as the children's communicative gestures and uses of objects. Prior to the origin of intentional communication, adults facilitate early forms of triadicity based on fostering opportunities for infants' communication and engagement with both adults and materiality. However, there is a need for further research that explore the potential of early triadic interactions for parenting and early childhood education practises.

Similarities and differences in the functional architecture of mother- infant communication in rhesus macaque and British mother-infant dyads

Similarly to humans, rhesus macaques engage in mother-infant face-to-face interactions. However, no previous studies have described the naturally occurring structure and development of mother-infant interactions in this population and used a comparative-developmental perspective to directly compare them to the ones reported in humans. Here, we investigate the development of infant communication, and maternal responsiveness in the two groups. We video-recorded mother-infant interactions in both groups in naturalistic settings and analysed them with the same micro-analytic coding scheme. Results show that infant social expressiveness and maternal responsiveness are similarly structured in humans and macaques. Both human and macaque mothers use specific mirroring responses to specific infant social behaviours (modified mirroring to communicative signals, enriched mirroring to affiliative gestures). However, important differences were identified in the development of infant social expressiveness, and in forms of maternal responsiveness, with vocal responses and marking behaviours being predominantly human. Results indicate a common functional architecture of mother-infant communication in humans and monkeys, and contribute to theories concerning the evolution of specific traits of human behaviour.

Face to face interactions in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and human (Homo sapiens) mother-infant dyads

Human mothers interact with their infants in different ways. In Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies, face-to-face interactions and mutual gazes are especially frequent, yet little is known about their developmental trajectories and if they differ from those of other primates. Using a cross-species developmental approach, we compared mother-infant interactions in 10 dyads of urban humans from a WEIRD society (Homo sapiens) and 10 dyads of captive zoo-based chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), when infants were one, six and 12 months old. Results showed that face-to-face interactions with mutual gaze events were common in both groups throughout the infant's first year of life. The developmental trajectories of maternal and infants' looks partially differed between species, but mutual gaze events were overall longer in humans than in chimpanzees. Mutual gazes were also more frequent in humans, peaking at six months in humans, while increasing with age in chimpanzees. The duration and frequency of mutual gazes varied across contexts in both groups, with mutual gazes being longer during caring/grooming and feeding contexts. These findings confirm that some aspects of early socio-cognitive development are shared by humans and other primates, and highlight the importance of combining developmental and cross-species approaches to better understand the evolutionary roots of parenting behaviour. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Face2face: advancing the science of social interaction'.

Somatovisceral influences on emotional development

Frameworks of emotional development have tended to focus on how environmental factors shape children's emotion understanding. However, individual experiences of emotion represent a complex interplay between both external environmental inputs and internal somatovisceral signaling. Here, we discuss the importance of afferent signals and coordination between central and peripheral mechanisms in affective response processing. We propose that incorporating somatovisceral theories of emotions into frameworks of emotional development can inform how children understand emotions in themselves and others. We highlight promising directions for future research on emotional development incorporating this perspective, namely afferent cardiac processing and interoception, immune activation, physiological synchrony, and social touch.

Early communicative gestures in human and chimpanzee 1-year-olds observed across diverse socioecological settings

We investigated the communicative gestures used by chimpanzee and human infants. In contrast to previous studies, we compared the species at the same age (12-14 months) and used multiple groups living in diverse socioecological settings for both species. We recorded gestures produced by infants and those produce by others and directed toward infants. We classified the gestures into the following types: human-usual, chimpanzee-usual, and species-common; and searched for within species and between species differences. We found no significant differences between groups or species in overall rates of infant-produced or infant-received gestures, suggesting that all of these infants produced and received gestures at similar levels. We did find significant differences, however, when we considered the three types of gesture. Chimpanzee infants produced significantly higher rates of chimpanzee-usual gestures, and human infants produced significantly higher rates of human-usual gestures, but there was no significant species difference in the species-common gestures. Reports of species differences in gesturing in young infants, therefore, could be influenced by investigators' choice of gesture type. Interestingly, we found that 1-year-old infants produced the gesture of "hold mutual gaze" and that the chimpanzee infants had a significantly higher rate than the human infants. We did not find strong evidence that the specific types of gestural environment experienced by young infants influenced the types of gestures that infants produce. We suggest that at this point in development (before human infants use lots of speech), nonverbal communicative gestures may be equally important for human and chimpanzee infants.

The cultural specificity of parent-infant interaction: Perspectives of urban middle-class and rural indigenous families in Costa Rica

Caregiver-infant interactions in Western middle class often take place in dyadic play settings, engaged in infant-initiated object stimulation, and surrounded by a positive emotional tone, reflecting a distal parenting style. With this study we aim to investigate whether the same conception of caregiver-infant interaction is embodied in the proximal parenting style. For this purpose, we compare the context and pattern of caregiver-infant interactions in two cultural groups in Costa Rica: Urban middle-class families in San José and rural indigenous Bribri families. Naturalistic observations and caregiver interviews revealed significant differences between the groups, with San José families resembling the Western middle-class interaction pattern. Among the Bribris, adult-child play is uncommon so that children interact with adults in primary care settings and with older siblings in play settings. Bribri interactions are further characterized by emotional neutrality. The groups did not differ in terms of body contact. Also, caregivers in both samples took the lead in interactions more often than infants. The results are discussed in the context of an autonomous-relational style as combining psychological autonomy and hierarchical relatedness. We argue that early childhood theories and intervention programs need to abandon the assumption that Western middle-class strategies are universal and recognize locally relevant patterns of caregiver-infant interaction.

Frequent body position changes and physical activity as effective as standard care for infants hospitalised with acute respiratory infections - a randomised controlled trial

Background

No definite consensus has been reached yet on the best treatment strategy for the large group of infants hospitalised with bronchiolitis or pneumonia. Minimal handling is often recommended, although not evaluated scientifically. There is a need to evaluate the management, as the infants often are critically affected, and the costs for society are high. The aim of this RCT was to evaluate the most common physiotherapy intervention in Sweden for this patient group, including frequent changes in body position and stimulation of physical activity, compared to standard care.

Methods

Infants 0-24 months old, without previous cardiac or respiratory diagnoses and born in gestational week 35+, were recruited in two Swedish hospitals. The participants (n=109) were randomised to either interventions in addition to standard care (intervention group) or to standard care alone (control group). The primary outcome measure was time to improvement. The secondary outcomes were immediate changes in oxygen saturation, heart rate and respiratory rate, time to improved general condition (parents' assessment), and lung complications.

Results

The median time to improvement was 6 hours in both groups (p=0.54). The result was similar when we adjusted for age in months, sex, tobacco smoke exposure, heredity for asthma/atopic disease, and early stage of the infection (for those with RSV), p=0.69. Analyses of the immediate changes showed no significant differences either (p=0.49-0.89). Time to improved general condition was median 3 hours in the intervention group and 6 hours in the control group, p=0.76. No lung complications occurred.

Conclusions

No statistically significant differences in outcomes were detected between the intervention group and the control group. Both strategies were found to be equally effective and safe, indicating that the current recommendation of minimal handling for these infants should be reconsidered. Furthermore, the findings suggest that this treatment can be safely continued.

Reification of infant-directed speech? Exploring assumptions shaping infant-directed speech research

The seemingly ubiquitous tendency of caregivers to speak to infants in special ways has captivated the interest of scholars across diverse disciplines for over a century. As a result, this phenomenon has been characterized in quite different ways. Here, we highlight the shift from early definitions of “baby-talk” which implied that the nature of speech directed towards infants would vary in different sociolinguistic contexts, to later terms such as “motherese” or “infant-directed speech” (IDS) which came to refer to a specific set of features, some of which were argued to represent a universal, optimal and culturally invariant form of speech. These divergent conceptualizations of IDS thus reflect broader disciplinary tensions pertaining to the role allotted to cultural processes in psychological research. We hope to contribute to this literature by pointing to the complexity associated with identifying discrete categories of speech (i.e., baby-talk and motherese/IDS) within a complex multi-dimensional sociolinguistic landscape. We also highlight ways in which a lack of attention to the cultural context of infant-caregiver interactions may have led to biased characterizations of IDS. Furthermore, these biases may implicitly penetrate the nature of empirical work on IDS as well. We end with a series of suggestions for future directions.

Maternal attitudes and behaviours differentially shape infant early life experience: A cross cultural study

Early life environments afford infants a variety of learning opportunities, and caregivers play a fundamental role in shaping infant early life experience. Variation in maternal attitudes and parenting practices is likely to be greater between than within cultures. However, there is limited cross-cultural work characterising how early life environment differs across populations. We examined the early life environment of infants from two cultural contexts where attitudes towards parenting and infant development were expected to differ: in a group of 53 mother-infant dyads in the UK and 44 mother-infant dyads in Uganda. Participants were studied longitudinally from when infants were 3- to 15-months-old. Questionnaire data revealed the Ugandan mothers had more relational attitudes towards parenting than the mothers from the UK, who had more autonomous parenting attitudes. Using questionnaires and observational methods, we examined whether infant development and experience aligned with maternal attitudes. We found the Ugandan infants experienced a more relational upbringing than the UK infants, with Ugandan infants receiving more distributed caregiving, more body contact with their mothers, and more proximity to mothers at night. Ugandan infants also showed earlier physical development compared to UK infants. Contrary to our expectations, however, Ugandan infants were not in closer proximity to their mothers during the day, did not have more people in proximity or more partners for social interaction compared to UK infants. In addition, when we examined attitudes towards specific behaviours, mothers' attitudes rarely predicted infant experience in related contexts. Taken together our findings highlight the importance of measuring behaviour, rather than extrapolating expected behaviour based on attitudes alone. We found infants' early life environment varies cross-culturally in many important ways and future research should investigate the consequences of these differences for later development.

A comparative study of mother-infant co-regulation of distance at home in Japan and Scotland

Mothers and infants co-regulate their distance from one another at home. Continuous, naturalistic home observations of the changes in mother-infant distance were carried out in Japan and Scotland during infant ages of 0-1, 6-7, and 12-13 months. This study examined mutual distance-increasing and distance-reducing behaviours, referred to as parent-infant 'centrifugalism' and 'centripetalism'. Cultural differences emerged in the modes of mother-infant distance co-regulation. Scottish mothers were more active in initiating contact and leaving infants alone to sleep, whereas Japanese mothers showed stronger infant-centredness by maintaining physical contact with infants when they fell asleep and reacting to their crying when they woke up. Age differences were found relating to decrease in sleep and increase in object play in the middle of the first year, which resulted in more separation within a 0.5 m distance at 6-7 months, a compromise between closeness and distancing between mothers and awake infants. Cultural and age differences in the co-regulation of mother-infant distance were discussed in relation to the development of locomotion, object play, and intention-reading.

Still-face redux: Infant responses to a classic and modified still-face paradigm in proximal and distal care cultures

Literature on infant emotion is dominated by research conducted in Western, industrialized societies where early socialization is characterized by face-to-face, vocal communication with caregivers. There is a dearth of knowledge of infant emotion in the context of social interaction outside of the visual and vocal modalities. In a three-population cross-cultural comparison, we used the still-face task to measure variation in behavior among infants from proximal care (practicing high levels of physical contact) communities in Bolivia and distal care (emphasizing vocal and visual interaction) communities in the U.S. and Fiji. In a modified version of the face-to-face still-face (FFSF), Study 1, infants in the U.S. and Fiji displayed the typical behavioral response to the still-face episode: increased negative affect and decreased social engagement, whereas infants in Bolivia showed no change. For tactile behavior, infants in Bolivia showed an increase in tactile self-stimulation from the interaction episode to the still-face episode, whereas U.S. infants showed no change. In Study 2, we created a novel body-to-body version of the still-face paradigm ("still-body") with infants in US and Bolivia, to mimic the near-constant physical contact Bolivian infants experience. The U.S. and Bolivian infant response was similar to Study 1: US infants showed decreased positive affect and increased negative affect and decreased social engagement from the interaction to the still-body episode and Bolivian infants showed no change. Notably, there were overall differences in infant behaviors between the two paradigms (FFSF and Still-Body). Infants in Bolivia and the U.S. showed increased positive facial affect during the FFSF paradigm in comparison with the Still-Body paradigm. Our results demonstrate the need for more globally representative developmental research and a broader approach to infant emotion and communication.

Caregiver-child proximity as a dimension of early experience

Human infancy and early childhood is both a time of heightened brain plasticity and responsivity to the environment as well as a developmental period of dependency on caregivers for survival, nurturance, and stimulation. Across primate species and human evolutionary history, close contact between infants and caregivers is species-expected. As children develop, caregiver-child proximity patterns change as children become more autonomous. In addition to developmental changes, there is variation in caregiver-child proximity across cultures and families, with potential implications for child functioning. We propose that caregiver-child proximity is an important dimension for understanding early environments, given that interactions between children and their caregivers are a primary source of experience-dependent learning. We review approaches for operationalizing this construct (e.g., touch, physical distance) and highlight studies that illustrate how caregiver-child proximity can be measured. Drawing on the concepts proposed in dimensional models of adversity, we consider how caregiver-child proximity may contribute to our understanding of children's early experiences. Finally, we discuss future directions in caregiver-child proximity research with the goal of understanding the link between early experiences and child adaptive and maladaptive functioning.

Joint Attention in Human and Chimpanzee Infants in Varied Socio-Ecological Contexts

Joint attention (JA) is an early manifestation of social cognition, commonly described as interactions in which an infant looks or gestures to an adult female to share attention about an object, within a positive emotional atmosphere. We label this description the JA phenotype. We argue that characterizing JA in this way reflects unexamined assumptions which are, in part, due to past developmental researchers' primary focus on western, middle-class infants and families. We describe a range of cultural variations in caregiving practices, socialization goals, and parenting ethnotheories as an essential initial step in viewing joint attention within inclusive and contextualized perspectives. We begin the process of conducting a decolonized study of JA by considering the core construct of joint attention (i.e., triadic connectedness) and adopting culturally inclusive definitions (labeled joint engagement [JE]). Our JE definitions allow for attention and engagement to be expressed in visual and tactile modalities (e.g., for infants experiencing distal or proximal caregiving), with various social partners (e.g., peers, older siblings, mothers), with a range of shared topics (e.g., representing diverse socialization goals, and socio-ecologies with and without toys), and with a range of emotional tone (e.g., for infants living in cultures valuing calmness and low arousal, and those valuing exuberance). Our definition of JE includes initiations from either partner (to include priorities for adult-led or child-led interactions). Our next foundational step is making an ecological commitment to naturalistic observations (Dahl, 2017, Child Dev Perspect, 11(2), 79-84): We measure JE while infants interact within their own physical and social ecologies. This commitment allows us to describe JE as it occurs in everyday contexts, without constraints imposed by researchers. Next, we sample multiple groups of infants drawn from diverse socio-ecological settings. Moreover, we include diverse samples of chimpanzee infants to compare with diverse samples of human infants, to investigate the extent to which JE is unique to humans, and to document diversity both within and between species. We sampled human infants living in three diverse settings. U.K. infants (n = 8) were from western, middle-class families living near universities in the south of England. Nso infants (n = 12) were from communities of subsistence farmers in Cameroon, Africa. Aka infants (n = 10) were from foraging communities in the tropical rain forests of Central African Republic, Africa. We coded behavioral details of JE from videotaped observations (taken between 2004 and 2010). JE occurred in the majority of coded intervals (Mdn = 68%), supporting a conclusion that JE is normative for human infants. The JA phenotype, in contrast, was infrequent, and significantly more common in the U.K. (Mdn = 10%) than the other groups (Mdn < 3%). We found significant within-species diversity in JE phenotypes (i.e., configurations of predominant forms of JE characteristics). We conclude that triadic connectedness is very common in human infants, but there is significant contextualization of behavioral forms of JE. We also studied chimpanzee infants living in diverse socio-ecologies. The PRI/Zoo chimpanzee infants (n = 7) were from captive, stable groups of mixed ages and sexes, and included 4 infants from the Chester Zoo, U.K. and 3 from the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan. The Gombe chimpanzee infants (n = 12) were living in a dynamically changing, wild community in the Gombe National Park, Tanzania, Africa. Additionally, we include two Home chimpanzee infants who were reared from birth by a female scientist, in the combined U.S., middle-class contexts of home and university cognition laboratory. JE was coded from videotaped observations (taken between 1993 and 2006). JE occurred during the majority of coded intervals (Mdn = 64%), consistent with the position that JE is normative for chimpanzee infants. The JA phenotype, in contrast, was rare, but more commonly observed in the two Home chimpanzee infants (in 8% and 2% of intervals) than in other chimpanzee groups (Mdns = 0%). We found within-species diversity in the configurations comprising the JE phenotypes. We conclude that triadic connectedness is very common in chimpanzee infants, but behavioral forms of joint engagement are contextualized. We compared JE across species, and found no species-uniqueness in behavioral forms, JE characteristics, or JE phenotypes. Both human and chimpanzee infants develop contextualized social cognition. Within-species diversity is embraced when triadic connectedness is described with culturally inclusive definitions. In contrast, restricting definitions to the JA phenotype privileges a behavioral form most valued in western, middle-class socio-ecologies, irrespective of whether the interactions involve human or chimpanzee infants. Our study presents a model for how to decolonize an important topic in developmental psychology. Decolonization is accomplished by defining the phenomenon inclusively, embracing diversity in sampling, challenging claims of human-uniqueness, and having an ecological commitment to observe infant social cognition as it occurs within everyday socio-ecological contexts. It is essential that evolutionary and developmental theories of social cognition are re-built on more inclusive and decolonized empirical foundations.

Enhancing maternal sensitivity in contexts of urban extreme poverty in Sierra Leone: A pilot study

This pilot study presents preliminary data on the efficacy of Strong Bonds, Strong Pikin (SBSP), a brief intervention program that aims to enhance sensitivity among mothers who care for their preschool children in a slum settlement in Freetown (Sierra Leone). SBSP adapts principles of attachment theory to intervention within a non-Western cultural setting, where families suffer from extreme poverty. A combination of psychoeducation, group work, video-feedback, and storytelling defines the methodology of the program. Maternal sensitivity, parenting stress, and the use of violent discipline practices were measured before (pretest) and after the intervention (posttest) in a sample of 43 mothers who participated in the program. Analyses showed a significant increase in observed maternal sensitivity, as well as a decrease in mother-reported parenting stress, child problems, and use of violent discipline practices from pretest to posttest. These results are discussed in terms of the potential value of culturally sensitive, attachment-centered interventions with caregivers who raise their children in non-Western settings affected by economic vulnerability.

Learning Through Shared Care : Allomaternal Care Impacts Cognitive Development in Early Infancy in a Western Population

This study investigates how allomaternal care (AMC) impacts human development outside of energetics by evaluating relations between important qualitative and quantitative aspects of AMC and developmental outcomes in a Western population. This study seeks to determine whether there are measurable differences in cognitive and language outcomes as predicted by differences in exposure to AMC via formal (e.g., childcare facilities) and informal (e.g., family and friends) networks. Data were collected from 102 mothers and their typically developing infants aged 13-18 months. AMC predictor data were collected using questionnaires, structured daily diaries, and longitudinal interviews. Developmental outcomes were assessed using the Cognitive, Receptive Language, and Expressive Language subtests of the Bayley III Screening Test. Additional demographic covariates were also evaluated. Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)-informed model selection was used to identify the best-fitting model for each outcome across three working linear regression models. Although AMC variables had no significant effects on Receptive and Expressive Language subtest scores, highly involved familial AMC had a significant medium effect on Cognitive subtest score (β = 0.23, p < 0.01, semi-partial r = 0.28). Formal childcare had no effect on any outcome. This study provides preliminary evidence that there is a measurable connection between AMC and cognitive development in some populations and provides a methodological base from which to assess these connections cross-culturally through future studies. As these effects are attributable to AMC interactions with networks of mostly related individuals, these findings present an area for further investigation regarding the kin selection hypothesis for AMC.

Maternal sleep related cognitions and child sleep quality: a cross-cultural comparison between the Arab and Jewish societies in Israel

OBJECTIVES

To examine differences in maternal sleep-related cognitions and to explore the associations between those cognitions and reported child sleep quality in a sample of mothers of young children, from two major cultural groups in Israel: Arab and Jewish.

METHOD

Mothers of 497 healthy, typically developing infants and toddler ranging in age from 3-36 months, participated in the study: 253 of the mothers were Arab and 244 were Jewish. Mothers completed the Maternal Cognitions about Infant Sleep Questionnaire, and the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire.

RESULTS

Cross-cultural differences in maternal sleep-related cognitions were found between Arab and Jewish mothers. Arab mothers were more likely to hold sleep-related cognitions reflecting their difficulty in limiting their nighttime intervention in response to their child's awakenings, compared to Jewish mothers who were more likely to report feelings of anger and higher levels of doubts in their parental competence in response to their child`s nocturnal awakenings. Moderation analyses demonstrated that, only for Arab mothers but not for Jewish mothers, cognitions reflecting difficulty in limiting nighttime intervention, and feelings of anger and doubts were positively associated with poorer perceived child sleep quality.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest that the links between maternal cognitions and child sleep are culturally-specific. Moreover, the discrepancies between Arab and Jewish mothers in sleep related cognitions may reflect differences between collectivistic and individualistic cultures. Maternal sleep-related cognitions seem to be an important parental aspect to consider in clinical sleep interventions of infants in the Arab society.

Revisiting the roots of attachment: A review of the biological and psychological effects of maternal skin-to-skin contact and carrying of full-term infants

During the early period of hypothesis building and empirical testing of attachment theory, a major emphasis was placed on mother-infant physical contact. In spite of this, mother-infant contact has received scant attention amongst attachment and child development researchers in the past decades. Here, a brief theoretical framework for mother-infant contact is presented, drawing on animal studies as well as human studies of preterm infants and neonates. Salient mechanisms may include an extended sensitive period during early infancy, requiring specific somatosensory stimuli for bio-behavioral homeorhesis; oxytocinergic and epigenetic pathways; kinesthetic stimuli and face-to-face proximity allowing for increased social interaction. Studies of extended human mother-full-term infant physical contact have demonstrated positive effects in multiple domains. For infants, these include sleep organization, temperature and heart rate regulation, behavioral response, crying/colic, socio-emotional development, attachment quality, speech development opportunities and mother-child interactions. For mothers, studies demonstrate improved depressive symptomatology, physiological stress regulation, contingent responsivity, breastfeeding and mother-child interactions. Parent-infant attachment quality has gained prominence as a trauma-resilience factor as well as a predictor of adult physical health. The potential role of mother-infant contact as an attachment promoting intervention as well as future research subjects are discussed. Current evidence supports the original attachment research that early maternal touch provision may influence infant socio-emotional development and attachment quality, with positive implications for mother-child relationship functioning.

Adolescents' family obligation and activities in rural and urban Vietnam: Implications for social change

This study examined how urbanisation may modify adolescents' values and activities concerning family obligation by surveying 572 adolescents (M_age  = 15.75, SD = .73) in rural and urban Vietnam. Compared with their rural peers, urban adolescents reported a stronger sense of family obligation but spent less time actually engaging in family assistance, findings that were partly explained by urban households' less financial hardship and higher parental education levels. As expected, stronger family obligation values were associated with greater family assistance activities across rural and urban Vietnam. However, stronger family obligation values were associated with more study hours only in urban Vietnam, indicating that urbanisation may broaden the meaning of family obligation to encompass the academic domain. Additionally, weaker family obligation values were associated with more employment hours only in rural Vietnam, suggesting that rural adolescents with little attachment to the traditional value of family obligation may pursue autonomy through employment outside the home. In traditionally familistic societies undergoing urbanisation, family obligation may take on different meaning depending on adolescents' ecological settings that construct cultural values and behavioural norms.

Neural signatures of child cognitive emotion regulation are bolstered by parental social regulation in two cultures

Caregiver impact on the efficacy of cognitive emotion regulation (ER; i.e. reappraisal) during childhood is poorly understood, particularly across cultures. We tested the hypothesis that in children from Japan and the USA, a neurocognitive signature of effective reappraisal, the late positive potential (LPP), will be bolstered by cognitive scaffolding by parents, and explored whether the two cultures differed in whether mere physical proximity of parents provides similar benefit. Five-to-seven-year-olds (N = 116; n_Japan = 58; n_USA = 58) completed a directed reappraisal task (EEG-recorded) in one of three contexts: (i) parent-scaffolding, (ii) parent-present and (iii) parent-absent. Across cultures, those in the parent-scaffolding group and parent-present group showed effective reappraisal via the LPP relative to those in the parent-absent group. Results suggest that scaffolding is an effective method through which parents in these two cultures buttress child ER, and even parental passive proximity appears to have a meaningful effect on child ER across cultures.

The Development of Cumulative Cultural Learning

Human culture is unique among animals in its complexity, variability, and cumulative quality. This article describes the development and diversity of cumulative cultural learning. Children inhabit cultural ecologies that consist of group-specific knowledge, practices, and technologies that are inherited and modified over generations. The learning processes that enable cultural acquisition and transmission are universal but are sufficiently flexible to accommodate the highly diverse cultural repertoires of human populations. Children learn culture in several complementary ways, including through exploration, observation, participation, imitation, and instruction. These methods of learning vary in frequency and kind within and between populations due to variation in socialization values and practices associated with specific educational institutions, skill sets, and knowledge systems. The processes by which children acquire and transmit the cumulative culture of their communities provide unique insight into the evolution and ontogeny of human cognition and culture.

Culture, carrying, and communication: Beliefs and behavior associated with babywearing

Ethnographic research suggests mother-infant physical contact predicts high levels of maternal responsiveness to infant cues, yet it is unclear whether this responsiveness is driven by the act of physical contact or by underlying beliefs about responsiveness. We examine beliefs and behavior associated with infant carrying (i.e., babywearing) among U.S. mothers and experimentally test the effect of mother-infant physical contact on maternal responsiveness. In Study 1 (N = 23 dyads), babywearing mothers were more likely to interact contingently in response to infant cues than non-babywearing mothers during an in-lab play session. In Study 2 (N = 492 mothers), babywearing predicted maternal beliefs emphasizing responsiveness to infant cues. In Study 3 (N = 20 dyads), we experimentally manipulated mother-infant physical contact in the lab using a within-subjects design and found that babywearing increased maternal tactile interaction, decreased maternal and infant object contact, and increased maternal responsiveness to infant vocalizations. Our results motivate further research examining how culturally-mediated infant carrying practices shape the infant's early social environment and subsequent development.

Infant gaze following depends on communicative signals: An eye-tracking study of 5- to 7-month-olds in Vanuatu

Gaze is considered a crucial component of early communication between an infant and her caregiver. When communicatively addressed, infants respond aptly to others' gaze by following its direction. However, experience with face-to-face contact varies across cultures, begging the question whether infants' competencies in receiving others' communicative gaze signals are universal or culturally specific . We used eye-tracking to assess gaze-following responses of 5- to 7-month olds in Vanuatu, where face-to-face parent-infant interactions are less prevalent than in Western populations. We found that-just like Western 6-month-olds studied previously-5- to -7-month-olds living in Vanuatu followed gaze only, when communicatively addressed. That is, if presented gaze shifts were preceded by infant-directed speech, but not if they were preceded by adult-directed speech. These results are consistent with the notion that early infant gaze following is tied to infants' early emerging communicative competencies and rooted in universal mechanisms rather than being dependent on cultural specificities of early socialization.

Mother⁻Infant Physical Contact Predicts Responsive Feeding among U.S. Breastfeeding Mothers

Responsive feeding—initiating feeding in response to early hunger cues—supports the physiology of lactation and the development of infant feeding abilities, yet there is a dearth of research examining what predicts responsive feeding. In non-Western proximal care cultures, there is an association between responsive feeding and mother–infant physical contact, but this has not been investigated within Western populations. In two studies, we tested whether mother–infant physical contact predicted feeding in response to early hunger cues versus feeding on a schedule or after signs of distress among U.S. breastfeeding mothers. With an online questionnaire in Study 1 (n = 626), physical contact with infants (via co-sleeping and babywearing) predicted increased likelihood of self-reported responsive feeding. Mothers who reported responsive feeding were more likely to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months, breastfeed more frequently throughout the day, and had a longer planned breastfeeding duration than mothers who reported feeding on a schedule or after signs of infant distress. In Study 2 (n = 96), a three-day feeding log showed that mother–infant physical contact predicted feeding in response to early hunger cues but mother–infant proximity (without physical contact) did not. In sum, our results demonstrate that physical contact with infants may shape breastfeeding behavior among U.S. mothers, highlighting a connection between social interaction and infant nutrition that warrants further investigation.

Ethical Challenges of Parenting Interventions in Low- to Middle-Income Countries

This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) with rural, subsistence lifestyles. Many of these interventions foster “positive parenting practices” to improve children’s chances of fulfilling their developmental potential. The practices are derived from attachment theory and presented as the universal standard of good care. But attachment-based parenting is typical primarily of people living Western lifestyles and runs counter to the different ways many people with other lifestyles care for their children given what they want for them. Thus, such parenting interventions involve encouraging caregivers to change their practices and views, usually with little understanding of how such changes affect child, family, and community. This undermines researchers’ and practitioners’ ability to honor promises to uphold ethic codes of respect and beneficence. Support for this claim is provided by comparing positive parenting practices advocated by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF; with the world health organization [WHO]) Care for Child Development (CCD) intervention with parenting practices typical of communities with rural, subsistence lifestyles—the most common of lifestyles worldwide and largely observed in LMICs. As UNICEF has a considerable presence in these countries, the CCD intervention was selected as a case study. In addition, parenting interventions typically target people who are poor, and the issues this raises regarding ethics of fairness and justice are considered. Recommendations are made for ways change agents can be sensitive to the living conditions and worldviews of communities, and, thus, be appropriately effective and ethically sensitive to the diverse needs of different communities.

Infants' Social Experiences in Three African Sociocultural Contexts

This study introduces a peri-urban context of poverty to the study of child development in Africa in contrast to the more typical assessments in middle-class and rural contexts. Spot observations were used to assess universal caregiving behaviors toward seventy-six 3-month-old infants. Results show that middle-class infants experienced distal parenting behaviors instantiated by mothers, whereas rural children experienced proximal parenting practices in interactions with others. Infants growing up in poverty had mothers and other caretakers involved at mostly low levels. They experienced low levels of body contact, body stimulation, and object stimulation, and high levels of face-to-face positions. The study indicates that caregiving in the context of poverty does not necessarily follow familiar pathways and needs to be contextualized accordingly.

Is the ideal mother a sensitive mother? Beliefs about early childhood parenting in mothers across the globe

In this article, we test the hypothesis that beliefs about the ideal mother are convergent across cultures and that these beliefs overlap considerably with attachment theory’s notion of the sensitive mother. In a sample including 26 cultural groups from 15 countries around the globe, 751 mothers sorted the Maternal Behavior Q-Set to reflect their ideas about the ideal mother. The results show strong convergence between maternal beliefs about the ideal mother and attachment theory’s description of the sensitive mother across groups. Cultural group membership significantly predicted variations in maternal sensitivity belief scores, but this effect was substantially accounted for by group variations in socio-demographic factors. Mothers living in rural versus urban areas, with a low family income, and with more children, were less likely to describe the ideal mother as highly sensitive. Cultural group membership did remain a significant predictor of variations in maternal sensitivity belief scores above and beyond socio-demographic predictors. The findings are discussed in terms of the universal and culture-specific aspects of the sensitivity construct.

Give me a hand: Differential effects of gesture type in guiding young children's problem-solving

Adults' gestures support children's learning in problem-solving tasks, but gestures may be differentially useful to children of different ages, and different features of gestures may make them more or less useful to children. The current study investigated parents' use of gestures to support their young children (1.5 - 6 years) in a block puzzle task (N = 126 parent-child dyads), and identified patterns in parents' gesture use indicating different gestural strategies. Further, we examined the effect of child age on both the frequency and types of gestures parents used, and on their usefulness to support children's learning. Children attempted to solve the puzzle independently before and after receiving help from their parent; half of the parents were instructed to sit on their hands while they helped. Parents who could use their hands appear to use gestures in three strategies: orienting the child to the task, providing abstract information, and providing embodied information; further, they adapted their gesturing to their child's age and skill level. Younger children elicited more frequent and more proximal gestures from parents. Despite the greater use of gestures with younger children, it was the oldest group (4.5-6.0 years) who were most affected by parents' gestures. The oldest group was positively affected by the total frequency of parents' gestures, and in particular, parents' use of embodying gestures (indexes that touched their referents, representational demonstrations with object in hand, and physically guiding child's hands). Though parents rarely used the embodying strategy with older children, it was this strategy which most enhanced the problem-solving of children 4.5 - 6 years.

Attachment between infants and mothers in China

The first distribution of Chinese infant–mother ( n = 61) attachment classifications categorised by trained and reliability-tested coders is reported with statistical comparisons to US norms and previous Chinese distributions. Three-way distribution was 15% insecure-avoidant, 62% secure, 13% insecure-resistant, and 4-way distribution was 13% insecure-avoidant, 58% secure, 16% insecure-resistant,13% disorganised. These findings support the hypotheses that: (1) consistent with global norms the majority of infants will show secure attachments to mother; (2) insecure-resistant attachments will be greater than insecure-avoidant attachments in this interdependent cultural setting; and (3) disorganised attachments will be comparable to Western norms. Pooled samples from previously reported Chinese samples demonstrate deviations from US norms on all categories including relatively low proportions of avoidant and disorganised classifications, especially among samples from the South. Culture-specific childrearing practices and the role of training and reliability-testing for coders are suggested as possible contributors to these differences.

Embodied intersubjective engagement in mother-infant tactile communication: a cross-cultural study of Japanese and Scottish mother-infant behaviors during infant pick-up

This study examines the early development of cultural differences in a simple, embodied, and intersubjective engagement between mothers putting down, picking up, and carrying their infants between Japan and Scotland. Eleven Japanese and ten Scottish mothers with their 6- and then 9-month-old infants participated. Video and motion analyses were employed to measure motor patterns of the mothers’ approach to their infants, as well as their infants’ collaborative responses during put-down, pick-up, and carry phases. Japanese and Scottish mothers approached their infants with different styles and their infants responded differently to the short duration of separation during the trial. A greeting-like behavior of the arms and hands was prevalent in the Scottish mothers’ approach, but not in the Japanese mothers’ approach. Japanese mothers typically kneeled before making the final reach to pick-up their children, giving a closer, apparently gentler final approach of the torso than Scottish mothers, who bent at the waist with larger movements of the torso. Measures of the gap closure between the mothers’ hands to their infants’ heads revealed variably longer duration and distance gap closures with greater velocity by the Scottish mothers than by the Japanese mothers. Further, the sequence of Japanese mothers’ body actions on approach, contact, pick-up, and hold was more coordinated at 6 months than at 9 months. Scottish mothers were generally more variable on approach. Measures of infant participation and expressivity indicate more active participation in the negotiation during the separation and pick-up phases by Scottish infants. Thus, this paper demonstrates a culturally different onset of development of joint attention in pick-up. These differences reflect cultures of everyday interaction.

Differences in practices of body stimulation during the first 3 months: ethnotheories and behaviors of Italian mothers and West African immigrant mothers

This study investigated cultural differences, continuity and change of practices concerning body stimulation in a context of immigration. Parenting behaviors during the interaction with infants at 4, 8 and 12 weeks, and parenting ethnotheories at 12 weeks of first-generation West African immigrant mothers in Italy and autochthonous Italian mothers were compared. A qualitative inspection of ethnotheories using a thematic approach was included. As expected, results showed that immigrant mothers placed more emphasis on motor stimulation and showed longer durations of rhythmic motor and rhythmic tactile behaviors than Italian mothers; the latter placed more emphasis on tactile stimulation than immigrant mothers. The practice of motor stimulation in immigrant mothers was also adapted to values of the new context of life, becoming a positive interaction game with a mutual exchange of positive emotions. Findings express the complexity of a multidimensional process of acculturation.

Cultural Differences in Stranger–Child Interactions

This study analyzes the embodiment of stranger–child interaction in the cultural context of German middle-class families and Cameroonian Nso farming families. We videotaped 22 encounters between a female stranger and a 1-year-old child in both cultural contexts and developed a coding manual to microanalytically assess differences on the part of the stranger and the child during the first minute of their interaction. We demonstrate that the stranger and the child apply an interaction style that respects the cultural agenda of their cultural context: The German stranger shows a responsive-sensitive interaction style and considers the child’s mother’s reaction, whereas the Cameroonian stranger displays a directive interaction style without monitoring the child’s mother. Likewise, German children take initiatives during the interaction; Cameroonian children follow the suggestions of the stranger. Because stranger–child encounters are incorporated in the paradigm of the strange situation, our data challenge the cross-cultural validity of this procedure.

Parenting Infants

This study was aimed at contributing to the understanding of cultural parenting strategies in a context of immigration. Socialization goals (SGs) and parenting behaviors during interaction with 3-month-old infants of first-generation West African immigrant mothers in Italy and autochthonous Italian mothers were compared. The relation between SGs and maternal behaviors within the two groups was also examined. As expected, results showed that West African immigrant mothers placed more emphasis on SGs related to hierarchical relatedness and a proximal parenting style than Italian mothers, who emphasized SGs related to psychological autonomy and a distal parenting style. Although there were no significant differences in the amount of overall vocal/verbal behaviors between the two samples, West African immigrant mothers showed longer durations of rhythmic vocalizing and singing than Italian mothers, who showed more affectionate talking. Compared with the literature on West African parenting strategies, this result suggests a possible increased amount of talking of immigrant mothers in the new language-driven environment, but maintenance of a protosong structure typical of their culture of origin. Furthermore, a significant association between socialization goals and parenting behaviors was found in the Italian group of mothers but not in the sample of immigrant mothers, suggesting that the weaker links between goals and behaviors in the immigrant sample may express a reorganization in the composition of parenting beliefs and practices.

Parental interaction with infants treated with medical technology

BACKGROUND

It is well established that parents must interact with their new-born babies to facilitate attachment. However, very little is known about how parents perceive different types of medical technology products commonly used in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) as barriers to their wish to interact with their infants.

AIM

This study aims to examine to what extent the different medical technology products commonly used in the NICU are perceived by parents to be obstacles in their wish to interact with their babies.

DESIGN AND METHODS

In 2010, a cross-sectional survey, using a questionnaire specifically developed for this study, was conducted among the parents of children who were discharged from any of the five NICUs of the Västra Götaland region in Sweden. A consecutive sample of 248 parents participated, and multiple regressions and t-tests were used to analyse the data.

RESULTS

The parents generally perceived the various medical technology products differently, according to the perceived level of obstruction. The variables of gender, age, educational level, origin, gestational age, previous experience of being a parent, and the offer of accommodation at the NICU were significantly associated with the perceived level of obstruction in the parents' wish to interact with their baby while the baby was being treated with different medical technology products.

CONCLUSION

The primary implication for practice is that to facilitate attachment, nurses should involve different categories of parents in different ways in the care of their children, depending on the equipment being used in the treatment of the children. Thus, the individual care plan should explicitly include the details of the specific medical equipment, because although its use is medically beneficial for the child, it is associated with potential liabilities regarding parent-child interaction and, consequently, regarding parent-child attachment.

A cross-cultural comparison of the development of the social smile: a longitudinal study of maternal and infant imitation in 6- and 12-week-old infants

Social smiling is universally regarded as being an infant's first facial expression of pleasure. Underlying co-constructivist emotion theories are the assumptions that the emergence of social smiling is bound to experiences of face-to-face interactions with caregivers and the impact of two developmental mechanisms--maternal and infant imitation. We analyzed mother-infant interactions from two different socio-cultural contexts and hypothesized that cross-cultural differences in face-to-face interactions determine the occurrence of both of these mechanisms and of the frequency of social smiling by 12-week-old infants. Twenty mother-infant dyads from a socio-cultural community with many face-to-face interactions (German families, Münster) were compared with 24 mother-infant dyads from a socio-cultural community with few such interactions (rural Nso families, Cameroon) when the infants were aged 6 and 12 weeks. When infants were 6 weeks old, mothers and their infants from both cultural communities smiled at each other for similar (albeit very short) amounts of time and used imitated each other's smiling similarly rarely. In contrast, when infants were 12 weeks old, mothers and their infants from Münster smiled at and imitated each other more often than did Nso mothers and their infants.

Ethnic differences in mother-infant language and gestural communications are associated with specific skills in infants

We examined gestural and verbal interactions in 226 mother-infant pairs from Mexican, Dominican, and African American backgrounds when infants were 14 months and 2 years of age, and related these interactions to infants' emerging skills. At both ages, dyads were video-recorded as they shared a wordless number book, a wordless emotion book, and beads and string. We coded mothers' and infants' gestures and language/vocalizations. Each maternal utterance was coded as referential (e.g. 'That's a bead') or regulatory (e.g. 'Put it there'). Mothers reported on infants' gestural, receptive, and productive vocabularies at 14 months, and infants were assessed on receptive language, expressive language, and action sequencing and imitation at 2 years of age. Mothers of the three ethnicities differed in their gesturing, distributions of the two types of language, and coupling of language and gestures. Mothers' ethnicity, language, and gestures were differentially associated with infants' 2-year skills. Mother-infant communicative interactions are foundational to infant learning and development, and ethnic differences in modes of early communication portend divergent pathways in the development of specific skills.

Motivational Basis of Body Contact

Evidence suggests that ideas about parenting are often not directly related to parenting behavior, a phenomenon defined as the belief-behavior dilemma. The present study considers both explicit socialization goals but also implicit motives as predictors for parenting behavior emphasizing close body contact between mother and infant. Mothers with 3-month-old infants were recruited in three cultural contexts that represent different cultural models. Socialization goals and implicit motives of power and affiliation were assessed. Finally, mothers were videotaped during an interaction with their infants. The cultural samples meaningfully differed from each other in socialization goals, implicit motives, and parenting behavior. In line with the belief-behavior dilemma, socialization goals did not predict maternal parenting behavior. However, the implicit motive of power predicted mothers’ level of body contact with their infants across and within cultural contexts.

Developing patterns of parenting in two cultural communities

This paper is aimed at analyzing verbal and nonverbal strategies in terms of body contact, face-to-face contact, and discourse style during the first three months of life in two cultural communities that have been characterized as embodying different cultural models of parenting: German middle-class, and Nso farmer families. It can be demonstrated that the Nso mothers have significantly higher rates of body contact during the assessments of free-play interactions during the first 12 weeks than the German women. The German women on the other hand demonstrate the expected increase of face-to-face contact, whereas the Nso women demonstrate a significantly lower and stable pattern of face-to-face contact over the assessments. The German mothers use an agentic discourse style, whereas the Nso mothers use a relational discourse style. Moreover, body contact and a relational discourse style form one parenting strategy, whereas face-to-face contact and the agentic discourse style form another parenting strategy. The results demonstrate culture-specific parenting strategies that not only differ with respect to the amount of behaviors expressed, but also the developmental course of particular behaviors. It is also evident that socialization strategies are expressed in different behavioral channels. The role of sociodemographic variables is particularly discussed with respect to their impact for defining sociocultural environments.

Cultural Expressions of Preschoolers’ Emerging Self: Narrative and Iconic Representations

The aim of this study was to investigate the socialization and internalization of children’s cultural self-representations. A total of 149 mothers and their 4-year-old children from four different cultural milieus representing different cultural models participated. The sociodemographic profiles of the four samples were associated with different emphases on autonomy and relatedness. There were 36 middle-class families from Berlin, Germany, and 42 middle-class families from Stockholm, Sweden (both representing the model of autonomy); 33 rural Cameroonian farming families (representing the model of relatedness); and 38 middle-class families from Tallinn, Estonia (representing the model of autonomy relatedness). Two tasks were investigated in view of children’s socialization and internalization of their self-representations: mother–child past event conversations and children’s drawings of themselves. Overall, the different cultural emphases on autonomy and relatedness were embodied in mother–child reminiscing and children’s drawings of themselves. Specifically, mothers in the autonomous contexts were more elaborative relative to being repetitive and focused more on the child relative to others during reminiscing. Accordingly, children provided more memory elaborations, referred more to themselves relative to others, and drew themselves bigger compared to children from the relational rural Nso milieu. Mother–child conversations in the Tallinn sample were very similar to those of the autonomous samples; however, children’s drawings were medium in size. Correlations between narrative and drawing variables were only prevalent in the autonomous milieus and not in the Tallinn and rural Nso milieus.

Desenvolvimento humano e cultura: integração entre filogênese, ontogênese e contexto sociocultural

O presente artigo tem como objetivo principal apresentar reflexão teórica sobre a integração entre aspectos da história filogenética do ser humano e a história de desenvolvimento ontogenético, considerando o contexto sociocultural onde o indivíduo está inserido. Pressupostos da Psicologia do Desenvolvimento Evolucionista, da Psicologia Transcultural e da Psicologia da Cultura são utilizados como referenciais teóricos. Conceitos como epigênese são apresentados para indicar a relação entre genética e fatores ambientais. Diferentes conceitos de cultura também são expostos e discutidos criticamente. Por fim, relações entre modelos culturais de independência e interdependência com as trajetórias de desenvolvimento são apresentadas e discutidas. Através da análise crítica apresentada, conclui-se que o estudo do desenvolvimento (em suas dimensões em termos de filogênese e ontogênese) mediado pelo contexto sociocultural é consistente e representa um modelo promissor para gerar programas de pesquisas inovadores e originais.