This paper is based in a conception of culture that is rooted in contextual/demographic parameters. It is argued that the degree of formal education is influencing the age of first parenthood, the ...number of children and family composition. Particular norms and values as well as behavioral conventions are related to the socio demographic milieus. Socialization goals, parenting beliefs and parenting behaviors are framed by these cultural models. Two prototypical cultural models, psychological autonomy with psychological relatedness, characteristic for Western middle class parents and hierarchical relatedness with action autonomy, characteristic for non Western rural farmers will be outlined with respect to children’s learning environments during infancy. Consequences for socioemotional development will be highlighted with respect to children’s socio emotional development. It is important to apply mixed method methodologies to assess local meaning systems along with behavioral observations. It is concluded that one system cannot be evaluated according the assumptions and values of another other system – a practice that unfortunately is widespread. Implications for application are discussed and ethical challenges are diagnosed.
— Autonomy and relatedness are considered basic human needs that manifest differently in different cultural environments in response to contextual demands. This article conceptualizes 3 types of ...cultural environments—prototypical Western, urban, middle‐class families; prototypical rural, subsistence‐based farming families; and a hybrid milieu of urban middle‐class families from non‐Western environments—and proposes that autonomy and relatedness have different meanings in each type. In contexts in which individuals have a high degree of formal education (Western and non‐Western middle‐class families), there is an emphasis on inner states and mental representations. Western middle‐class families focus on separate individuals; non‐Western middle‐class families focus on the family as a social unit. In contexts in which individuals have a low degree of formal education, there is a primary emphasis on social responsibilities. Different socialization strategies support adaptive frameworks in each of the 3 types of contexts: individual psychological autonomy in Western middle‐class families, communal psychological autonomy in non‐Western middle‐class families, and action autonomy in subsistence‐based farming families. All conceptions of autonomy and relatedness can be considered as universal competencies, yet they are differently emphasized in different cultural milieus due to differing contextual demands.
Culture and Development Keller, Heidi
Perspectives on psychological science,
09/2017, Letnik:
12, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article argues that the relationships between culture and development are differential and systematic. Therefore the presentation of the Western middle-class developmental pathway in textbooks ...as universal is grossly neglecting the reality and the psychologies of the majority of the world’s population. First, the conception of culture as the representation of environmental conditions is presented. The level of formal education acts as organizer of social milieus that define different learning environments for children. Mainly two developmental pathways are portrayed: the Western middle-class trajectory and the traditional farmer childhood. Different developmental principles are highlighted, demonstrating systematic cultural differences in the development of a conception of the self: developmental dynamics as exemplified in early mother infant interactions, the timing of developmental milestones emphasizing cultural precocities in motor development and self-recognition, developmental gestalts in different attachment relationships and precursors and consequences demonstrating that different, sometimes contradictory behavioral patterns have the same developmental consequences with the examples of empathy development and autobiographical memory. It is argued that evaluating the development in one pathway with the principles and standards of the other is unscientific and unethical. The recognition of different developmental pathways is a necessity for basic science and a moral obligation for the applied fields.
Attachment between an infant and his or her parents is a major topic within developmental psychology. An increasing number of psychologists, evolutionary biologists and anthropologists are ...articulating their doubts that attachment theory in its present form is applicable worldwide, without, however, denying that the development of attachment is a universal need. This book brings together leading scholars from psychology, anthropology and related fields to reformulate attachment theory in order to fit the cultural realities of our world. Contributions are based on empirical research and observation in a variety of cultural contexts. They are complemented by careful evaluation and deconstruction of many of the underlying premises and assumptions of attachment theory and of conventional research on the role of infant-parent attachment in human development. The book creates a contextual cultural understanding of attachment that will provide the basis for a groundbreaking reconceptualization of attachment theory.
The Myth of Attachment Theory confronts the uncritical acceptance of attachment theory - challenging its scientific basis and questioning the relevance in our modern, superdiverse and multicultural ...society - and exploring the central concern of how children, and their way of forming relationships, differ from each other. In this book, Heidi Keller examines diverse multicultural societies, proposing that a single doctrine cannot best serve all children and families. Drawing on cultural, psychological and anthropological research, this challenging volume respects cultural diversity as the human condition and demonstrates how the wide heterogeneity of children's worlds must be taken seriously to avoid painful or unethical consequences that might result from the application of attachment theory in different fields. The book explores attachment theory as a scientific construct, deals with attachment theory as the foundation of early education, specifies the dimensions that need to be considered for a culturally conscious approach and, finally, approaches ethical problems which result from the universality claim of attachment theory in different areas. This book employs multiple and mixed methods, while also going beyond critical analysis of theory to offer insight into the implications of the unquestioning acceptance of this theory in such areas as childhood interventions, diagnosis of attachment security, international intervention programs and educational settings. This volume will be a crucial read for scholars and researchers in developmental, educational and clinical psychology, as well as educators, teachers-in-training and other professionals working with children and their families.
The development of socioemotional competencies is central for children's development in general. Infants are equipped with basic predispositions to acquire environmental information. However, ...contexts and cultures differ with respect to their emphasis on particular developmental domains. Two developmental pathways for which research evidence is available have been characterized: the Western middle-class perspective and the perspective of rural traditionally living farming families. Infants have different social experiences with respect to their caregivers, their behaviors, and their social regulation. The developmental focus of Western middle-class children is on individualistic agency, which implies that socioemotional development is subordinated to self-development. The developmental focus of the rural traditionally living farmer child is on social connectedness and social responsibility. Self-development is part of the development of communal agency. This review discusses the ethical implications of regarding the Western middle-class pathway as universal and normative and emphasizes the need to consider different pathways as normative.
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.
Universality claim of attachment theory Keller, Heidi
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
11/2018, Letnik:
115, Številka:
45
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The first part of this paper reviews the basic tenets of attachment theory with respect to differences in cultural socialization strategies. In one strategy infants have the lead, and the social ...environment is responsive to the infant’s wishes and preferences. In another strategy the caregivers—children or adults—are experts who know what is best for a baby without exploring his or her mental states. Accordingly, the definition of attachment is conceived as a negotiable emotional bond or a network of responsibilities. Attachment theory represents the Western middle-class perspective, ignoring the caregiving values and practices in the majority of the world. However, attachment theory claims universality in all its components. Since the claim of universality implies moral judgments about good and bad parenting, ethical questions need to be addressed. These issues are discussed in the second part of the paper. It is first demonstrated that sensitive responsiveness in attachment theory is built on a different concept of the person and self than concepts of good caregiving in many rural subsistence-based farming families. Evaluating one system with the standards of another ignores different realities and different value systems. The common practice of large-scale interventions in rural subsistence-based contexts promoting Western-style parenting strategies without knowing the local culture positions a false understanding of scientific evidence against cultural knowledge. This practice is unethical. Diversity needs to be recognized as the human condition, and the recognition of diversity is an obligation for better science as well as for improving people’s lives.
This article offers a conceptual framework for the study of the development of emotion regulation during infancy that synthesizes evolutionary theory with cultural psychology. Two prototypical ...environments are characterized: Western urban middle-class families and rural farmer families in non-Western societies. The adult psychologies that are adapted to these environments are oriented toward autonomy and relatedness, respectively. A combined methodological approach of quantitative and qualitative procedures demonstrates that the expression of emotions is differently embodied in these environments. Prototypes are composed from different data sets that exemplify socialization goals, parenting ethnotheories, and behavioral strategies. Developmental consequences of the early experiences in different learning environments are presented with respect to children’s emotion regulation during the approach of a stranger. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
In this cross-cultural study, we tested 2 main hypotheses: first, that an early self-concept along with self-other differentiation is a universal precursor of prosocial behavior in 19-month-olds, and ...second, that the importance attached to relational socialization goals (SGs) concerning interpersonal responsiveness (obedience, prosocial behavior) is related to toddlers' prosocial behavior. Contrary to these predictions, the results show that mirror self-recognition, as an indicator of early self-concept, was correlated with toddlers' prosociality only in the Berlin sample (
N
= 38) and not in the Delhi sample (
N
= 39). As expected, however, Delhi mothers emphasized relational SGs more strongly than did Berlin mothers. There were no cross-cultural differences in toddlers' prosociality. On an individual level, mothers' emphasis on relational SGs (obedience) was a significant predictor of toddlers' prosocial behavior. On the basis of these results, we propose that
situational
helping behavior based on shared intentional relations provides an alternative developmental pathway for understanding toddlers' prosocial behavior. This view differs from the often-cited view that anticipating other people as autonomous intentional agents with their own psychological states gives rise to prosocial behavior in toddlers.
PDF
