Studies conducted in Western countries document the special role of mother-infant face-to-face exchanges for early emotional development including social smiling. A few cross-cultural studies have shown that the Western pattern of face-to-face communication is absent in traditional rural cultures, without identifying other processes that promote emotional Co-regulation. The present study compared three different samples: Western middle-class families in Italy, rural traditional Nso farmer families in Cameroon, and West African sub-Saharan immigrant families in Italy using biweekly observations of 20 mother-infant dyads from each cultural context from age 4 to 12 weeks. Longitudinal sequential analysis of maternal and infant behaviors showed that from as early as 4 weeks, in Italian dyads maternal affectionate talking is linked with infant active attention to mother in sequences of face-to-face contact; this link fosters the subsequent emergence of infant smiling/cooing, and then sequences of positive feedback between infant and maternal emotional expressions that, by the 3rd month, dynamically stabilize. In contrast, for Cameroonian/Nso dyads over the 2nd and 3rd month, maternal motor stimulation marked by rhythmic vocalizing is linked with infant active attention to surroundings. The relatively few smiling/cooing actions of Nso babies at their mothers were answered mainly with tactile stimulation that did not foster the maintenance of face-to-face visual contact. Finally, West African immigrant dyads showed a combination of both face-to-face and sensorimotor coregulated exchanges observed in their new and native cultures. These findings suggest that emotional Co-regulation in early infancy can occur via multiple, culture-specific pathways that may be substantially different from the western pattern of face-to-face communication.

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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.