Child Development From Infancy to Adolescence. Laura E. Levine
role of the grandfather to be the spokesman for the family. Native Americans may not make sustained eye contact when talking to others and may not display emotion even when they are dealing with personal grief. Because this culture values listening, it is not unusual for its members to remain silent even while sitting together. Autopsies are usually prohibited, as is postmortem contact with the deceased. In the cultural context of this family, their behavior was appropriate, respectful, and in keeping with their traditions and beliefs (Cacciatore, 2009). However, we also need to remember that within any culture there is a range of individual differences. Other Native American families who are more assimilated to Western culture might not adhere to all these cultural traditions.
Cultures are often described as varying along a continuum from individualism to collectivism. In individualistic cultures, heroes often are those who are self-made and who manage to rise from deprived circumstances to become successful. The emphasis is on being independent, competitive, and unique. In collectivist cultures, the emphasis is more on an obligation to your family or your group, however you define it, and identity is derived primarily from the individual’s social affiliations. The child is raised to be aware of how his or her behavior affects others and is encouraged to share resources, with an emphasis on maintaining harmony in social relationships (Thies & Travers, 2006).
Western industrialized societies have been the prototype of individualistic cultures, while Asian cultures have been the prototype of collectivist cultures. However, researchers have begun to question whether this “east-west” dichotomy adequately describes cultural differences. Vignoles and colleagues from around the world (2016) have conducted research that shows that there is not one unitary way to be independent or interdependent. Their research has identified seven different ways in which individuals can be independent or interdependent. They further argue that thinking of cultures as appearing somewhere on a continuum from collectivist to individualistic does not adequately describe the mix of characteristics that describes cultures. For example, Latin American cultures are often identified as collectivist because of a cultural focus on interdependence, but the Latino samples in their study emphasized independence on six of the seven cultural dimensions they identified. Similarly, Middle Eastern samples emphasized self-reliance, toughness, and self-enhancement (which are individualistic characteristics) along with attention to others and the social consequences of one’s behavior (which are collectivistic characteristics). These researchers call for future research that looks at the different ways that individuals within different cultural groups are both independent and interdependent.
Cultural values are expressed in overt behaviors, but also in much more subtle ways. Some cultural expectations are taught explicitly to children. For example, we might say to a child “Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” whereas parents in other cultures might tell a child that not looking directly at an adult is a sign of respect. However, much cultural information is conveyed in more subtle ways through a number of parenting practices, including how parents deal with issues as basic as how to feed infants and toddlers.
Think about what you would expect to see when a mother in the United States feeds her 1-year-old baby. Most likely you have an image of the baby sitting in a high chair. The mother spoon-feeds the baby but often lets the baby take the spoon to begin learning to feed herself (usually with messy and somewhat hilarious results, as shown in the photo on the right on the previous page). She may also put some “finger food,” like dry cereal, on the tray for the baby to take on her own to encourage independence. By contrast, in cultures that emphasize interdependence rather than independence, feeding remains under the control of the parent, as shown in the photo on the left. In the process, the child learns to be patient and cooperate with another person. Mealtime becomes an expression of family love and expectations for proper behavior.
Cultural differences in feeding. Babies in cultures that emphasize independence are often encouraged to try to feed themselves, but babies in cultures that emphasize interdependence are more likely to be fed in a way that encourages connection to family. Do you see how these different cultural values are reflected in these pictures?
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Despite cultural differences in parenting, infants and toddlers around the world all learn to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom in accordance with the expectations of their cultures. This is an example of equifinality as described earlier in this chapter. There may be multiple pathways, but they all get the child to the same place.
Check Your Understanding
Knowledge Questions
1 What is the primary context for most children’s development?
2 How does socioeconomic status affect a child’s development?
3 How does culture affect child-rearing practices?
Critical Thinking
Why is it so easy for us to slip into thinking that the way we have been raised is the best way to raise children? What can be done to overcome this tendency?
Being a Smart Consumer of Information About Development
>> LQ 1.4 How can you be a smart consumer of information about development?
Information about children and child development is everywhere—in books, magazines, and television programs, at home, and online. To be able to judge the quality of all this information on development, you will need to become an informed consumer. When you are planning to make a large purchase, you often make a better choice if you gather information from a variety of sources and evaluate how trustworthy they are. You can use a similar process when learning about child development.
Knowing Your Sources
Knowing the source of the information you are using is the first step in becoming an informed consumer. You should ask yourself if you are getting information from someone who is knowledgeable about the topic and is providing objective and unbiased information, or if you are getting information from someone who is not credible or is presenting personal opinion as though it were fact.
Your campus library owns many journals, books, and professional publications in the field of child development, and you can trust these to be reliable sources of information. Many of them are available through your library’s electronic databases. For students of child and adolescent development, the PsycINFO and ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) databases are probably of greatest interest. PsycINFO contains over 4 million records that include peer-reviewed journals, books, and dissertations from the 17th century to the present (American Psychological Association, 2017b). ERIC is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and contains journal and other education-related materials, including conference papers and reports, from 1966 to the present (Institute of Education Sciences, n.d.). In these databases, you can find abstracts of articles (brief summaries of the research done and the conclusions drawn from it) and information on how to locate the complete articles.
The reason you can have confidence in the information you find in professional journals is that many of them use a peer review process to determine which articles they will publish. Articles that are submitted to a journal are reviewed by professionals knowledgeable about the topic of the research before it is accepted for publication. This process ensures that the information in peer-reviewed journals has passed professional scrutiny before it gets into print. When you turn to the Internet to find information, you need to provide your own scrutiny and use good judgment. Remember that