Publications

Universality and cultural specificity in early mother-infant interaction: Is the 2-month transition really universal?  (2014)

Authors:
Lavelli, Manuela
Title:
Universality and cultural specificity in early mother-infant interaction: Is the 2-month transition really universal?
Year:
2014
Type of item:
Abstract in Atti di convegno
Tipologia ANVUR:
Abstract in Atti di convegno
Language:
Inglese
Format:
Elettronico
Congresso:
International Conference on Infant Studies 2014
Place:
Berlin
Period:
July 3-5
Page numbers:
41-41
Keyword:
Mother-infant interaction, 2-month transition, universal behaviors, culture-specific behaviors
Short description of contents:
Infant studies conducted in Western countries documented that a major developmental transition occurs by the end of the 2nd month, indexed by the onset of social smiling, increased alertness, sustained visual attention, and speech-like sounds such as cooing. These transformations, and their effect on caregivers’ behavior, provide the infant with experiences of reciprocity via face-to-face exchanges, deemed fundamental for the development of social cognition. Only few studies have explored this transition in rural non-Western environments. These studies revealed both cross-cultural evidence for the 2-month transition and differences in maternal responses to their infants’ social signals, raising central questions regarding the nature of the 2-mont shift in cultures where face-to-face interaction with infants is rare. This symposium addresses these questions with four studies in traditional rural (Ghana, Kenya, Fiji, Cameroon) and urban Western (Canada, U.S., Germany, Italy) cultures, that rely on different perspectives and research paradigms, including longitudinal observational and experimental designs. The first two papers show cross-cultural evidence for the still-face-effect around the 2-month-shift when infants had high skin-to-skin-contact (paper 1), and mothers’ affect mirroring (paper 2). The third and fourth papers show that the infants’ behaviors indexing the 2-month transition are integrated in culture-specific patterns of mother-infant interaction, with different tools of analysis (contingency rates, paper 3; sequential analysis, paper 4). Taken together, these papers provide new evidence that the development of the 2-month shift in mother-infant interaction is affected by both the previous experience of mother-infant interaction and culture-specific patterns of interaction over and above neurological maturation.
Web page:
https://www.isisweb.org/view/0/ISISconference2014.html.2014ProgramBook.pdf
Product ID:
89164
Handle IRIS:
11562/930036
Last Modified:
November 1, 2022
Bibliographic citation:
Lavelli, Manuela, Universality and cultural specificity in early mother-infant interaction: Is the 2-month transition really universal?  in ISISconference2014.ProgramBook.pdfProceedings of "International Conference on Infant Studies 2014" , Berlin , July 3-5 , 2014pp. 41-41

Consulta la scheda completa presente nel repository istituzionale della Ricerca di Ateneo IRIS

Related projects
Title Department Managers
Early development of intersubjectivity: Universality and cultural specificity (in collaboration with University of Osnabrueck, Germany) Department Scienze Umane Manuela Lavelli
<<back

Activities

Research facilities

Share