Parental Ethnotheories, Social Practice and the Culture-Specific Development of Social Smiling in Infants

Parenting and child adjustment: a comparison of Turkish and English families

“…Although the parent-child relationship is important in all cultures, specific contexts that are associated with particular parenting strategies result in culture-specific developmental pathways (Kärtner, Holodynski & Wörmann, 2013). Even when the same standardized assessment procedures are used across cultures, it is not always clear whether differences in ratings are caused by true cultural differences (Bengi-Arslan, Verhulst, Van der Ende, & Erol, 1997) or by culturally specific meanings attached to those behaviours.…”

Current and Impending Issues in Cultural-Historical Studies on Emotions: A Follow-Up

“…The crucial point in the internalization model (Holodynski, 2013) and in the articles of Kärtner et al (2013) and Röttger-Rössler et al (this issue) is that expressions are already interpreted as culturally mediated signs. Their use and meaning are introduced and negotiated first within the interactions between caregivers and child.…”

“…The contribution of Röttger-Rössler et al (this issue), and also those articles in the first part of the special issue, provided inspiring approaches from a Vygotskian perspective (Holodynski, 2013;Kärtner et al, 2013) and from a Bakhtinian perspective (Demuth, 2013;White, 2013). They conceptualize and empirically analyze this first developmental step of how emotions and their expressive manifestations, given at birth, are integrated into the social exchange and attunement of early caregiver-child interactions.…”

“…However, only a minority of contributions in both parts of the special issue on the psychology of emotions from a cultural-historical perspective provide an explicit definition. Holodynski (2013; first issue), Kärtner et al (2013;first issue), and Röttger-Rössler et al (this issue) defined emotions through the functions they play within the regulation of an activity. This is in line with Leont'ev's (1978) approach.…”

“…Their use and meaning are introduced and negotiated first within the interactions between caregivers and child. In their cross-cultural review, Kärtner et al (2013) showed how culture-specific caregiver-infant interactions can transform the very first positive expression, an endogenous smile in newborns, to a culturally meaningful sign in older infants. The ethnographical study of Röttger-Rössler et al (this issue) intriguingly demonstrated how so-called socializing emotions and their expressions are inculcated in line with culture-specific affordances.…”