Sense and Sensitivity: A Response to the Commentary by Keller et al. (2018)

Mesman, Judi

doi:10.1111/cdev.13030

Cited by 17 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Researchers may also impose what they view to be natural social situations between participants, (e.g., face-to-face or one-on-one interaction between mothers or infants) to assess important concepts, such as attachment or sensitivity (37). In the many cultural settings where these imposed situations are not the dominant mode of interaction (e.g., in multiple caregiver settings), observations of behavior can pose deep interpretive challenges (37)(38)(39)(40).…”

Section: Beyond the Likert Formatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from failures of protocol in cross-cultural research

Hruschka

Munira

Jesmin

et al. 2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The many tools that social and behavioral scientists use to gather data from their fellow humans have, in most cases, been honed on a rarefied subset of humanity: highly educated participants with unique capacities, experiences, motivations, and social expectations. Through this honing process, researchers have developed protocols that extract information from these participants with great efficiency. However, as researchers reach out to broader populations, it is unclear whether these highly refined protocols are robust to cultural differences in skills, motivations, and expected modes of social interaction. In this paper, we illustrate the kinds of mismatches that can arise when using these highly refined protocols with nontypical populations by describing our experience translating an apparently simple social discounting protocol to work in rural Bangladesh. Multiple rounds of piloting and revision revealed a number of tacit assumptions about how participants should perceive, understand, and respond to key elements of the protocol. These included facility with numbers, letters, abstract number lines, and 2D geometric shapes, and the treatment of decisions as a series of isolated events. Through onthe-ground observation and a collaborative refinement process, we developed a protocol that worked both in Bangladesh and among US college students. More systematic study of the process of adapting common protocols to new contexts will provide valuable information about the range of skills, motivations, and modes of interaction that participants bring to studies as we develop a more diverse and inclusive social and behavioral science. generalizability | diversity | cross-cultural | social discounting | Bangladesh I n 1932, the psychologist Rensis Likert (1) published his dissertation on a novel method for measuring attitudes. After giving university students printed statements about race relations, Likert asked them to check one of five options (strongly approve, approve, undecided, disapprove, and strongly disapprove) indicating how much they endorsed each of these statements. Likert then assigned numbers to these levels of approval and took an average across all statements. The simplicity of both the response format and construction of the scale soon spurred researchers to adopt elements of the technique to assess not only attitudes (Likert's original interest) but also subjective judgments along many dimensions, including likelihood, desirability, difficulty, and happiness (2). Today, after decades of testing and refinement on generations of participants, Likert's simple format has become a reliable mainstay of social and behavioral research.Given its ubiquity in the social and behavioral sciences, one might guess that a five-or seven-item Likert format is a natural way of asking humans about their subjective judgments. However, in the rare cases when researchers have described their experience using Likert items outside of formally educated populations, they have been met with mixed success (3,4). It turns out tha...

show abstract

Section: Beyond the Likert Formatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from failures of protocol in cross-cultural research

Hruschka

Munira

Jesmin

et al. 2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Keller, 2018), and this critique merits consideration (see, e.g. Mesman, 2018). What is not always clearly specified is whether such critiques lie with the theory itself (i.e.…”

Section: Considerations For Attachment Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Working toward anti-racist perspectives in attachment theory, research, and practice

Stern

Barbarin

Cassidy

2021

Attachment & Human Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent social movements have illuminated systemic inequities in U.S. society, including within the social sciences. Thus, it is essential that attachment researchers and practitioners engage in reflection and action to work toward anti-racist perspectives in the field. Our aims in this paper are (1) to share the generative conversations and debates that arose in preparing the Special Issue of Attachment & Human Development, "Attachment Perspectives on Race, Prejudice, and Anti-Racism"; and (2) to propose key considerations for working toward anti-racist perspectives in the field of attachment. We provide recommendations for enriching attachment theory (e.g. considering relations between caregivers' racial-ethnic socialization and secure base provision), research (e.g. increasing the representation of African American researchers and participants), and practice (e.g. advocating for policies that reduce systemic inequities in family supports). Finally, we suggest two relevant models integrating attachment theory with perspectives from Black youth development as guides for future research.

show abstract

“…Based on the previous findings linking maternal responsiveness to SES, personal emotional risks, material deprivation, and cultural practices, we propose two broad but alterative hypotheses. The first is based on the concept of universal maternal responsiveness (Keller et al, 2018; Mesman, 2018). According to this hypothesis, relatively similar responsiveness would be predicted across heterogeneous groups despite socioeconomic and cultural variability, but the strength of the response to infant distress may be associated with personal emotional risks related here to mental disorders.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupillary and Attentional Responses to Infant Facial Expressions in Mothers Across Socioeconomic Variations

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Maternal responses to infant facial expressions were examined in two socioeconomically diverse samples of South African mothers (Study I, N = 111; and Study II, N = 214; age: 17-44 years) using pupil and gaze tracking. Study I showed increased pupil response to infant distress expressions in groups recruited from private as compared to public maternity clinics, possibly reflecting underlying differences in socioeconomic status (SES) across the groups. Study II, sampling uniformly low-SES neighborhoods, found increased pupil dilation and faster orientation to expressions of infant distress, but only in the highest income group. These results are consistent with maternal physiological and attentional sensitivity to infant distress cues but challenge the universality of this sensitivity across socioeconomic diversity.

show abstract

Sense and Sensitivity: A Response to the Commentary by Keller et al. (2018)

Cited by 17 publications

References 9 publications

Learning from failures of protocol in cross-cultural research

Learning from failures of protocol in cross-cultural research

Working toward anti-racist perspectives in attachment theory, research, and practice

Pupillary and Attentional Responses to Infant Facial Expressions in Mothers Across Socioeconomic Variations

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About