Human infancy and parenting in global perspective: specificity

Abstract

We address three long-standing fundamental questions about early human development and parental caregiving within a specificity framework using data from 796 infant-mother dyads from 11 societies worldwide. Adopting a cross-society view opens a vista on universal biological origins of, and contextual influences on, infant behaviours and parenting practices. We asked: how do infant behaviours and parenting practices vary across societies? How do infant behaviours relate to other infant behaviours, and how do parent practices relate to other parent practices? Are infant behaviours and parent practices related to one another? Behaviours of firstborn five-month infants and parenting practices of their mothers were microanalysed from videorecords of extensive naturally occurring interactions in the home. In accord with behavioural specificity, biological expectations and cultural influences, we find that infants and mothers from diverse societies exhibit mean-level society differences in their behaviours and practices; domains of infant behaviours generally do not cohere, nor do domains of maternal practices; and only specific infant behaviours and mother practices correspond. Few relations were moderated by society.

Ecological contributions to maternal‐infant functioning: Differences between rural and urban family contexts

“…Future research would benefit from identifying subgroups of “rural” or “urban” communities, and from a dimensional treatment of rurality‐urbanicity. Cross‐cultural parenting research suggests that child‐rearing practices are often specific to the environment in which the child is raised (e.g., Bornstein, Putnick, Park, Suwalsky, & Haynes, ), and play interactions characterized by less responsiveness and synchrony may constitute appropriate preparation for some rural contexts (e.g., demanding agricultural occupations). Maternal‐age effects should additionally be better understood in the context of lifespan‐related trade‐offs such as energy/stamina and financial stability, which may differentially confer risk and protection with respect to parenting.…”

Mother–infant interactions with firstborns and secondborns: A within-family study of European Americans

“…(2) context covariates: the mother's and observer's evaluations of the visit (see the Appendix) and the percentage of time the mother spent in view of the infant; and (3) corresponding maternal practices for analyses of infant behaviors and corresponding infant behaviors for analyses for maternal practices. Based on previous work (Bornstein, Putnick, Park, Suwalsky, & Haynes, 2017), we defined the following six pairs of infant and mother domains as conceptually corresponding: (1) infant physical and maternal physical, (2) infant social and maternal social, (3) infant social and maternal language, (4) infant exploration and maternal didactic, (5) infant exploration and maternal materially outfitting the infant's surround, and (6) infant vocalization and maternal language. If a conceptually corresponding behavior was significantly different in mean level between siblings and/or significantly correlated with the partner's behavior (see Appendix Tables A4 and A5), it was controlled.…”

The Emergence of Modern Languages: Has Human Self-Domestication Optimized Language Transmission?

“…The idea of reduced input enhancement in esoteric societies is indirectly supported by evidence for cross-cultural differences in other aspects of parenting. Thus, depending on the culture, contingent parental reactions reinforce a range of culturally diverse behavioral repertoires of infants (Bornstein et al, 2017 ), with parental encouragement of infant physical activities and motor skills being less (Karasik et al, 2010 , 2015 ), and didactic activities encouraging cognitive and linguistic skills being more prominent in contemporary Western (i.e., exoteric) societies. Due to methodological difficulties associated with obtaining data on parenting behaviors for large numbers of different societies (Kline et al, 2018 ) it is at present not possible to reliably link differences in parenting strategies to differences in the social complexity associated with exoteric communication.…”