Several studies in each program illustrate the range of investigations underway in the CFRS. Program I: The Child, the Parent, and the Family across the First Three Decades of Life Emotional availability (EA) is a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-infant dyad. This study examines associations of multiple maternal and infant behavior and context indicators to variation in aspects of EA in mothers and their young infants. The associations to each were explored in separate analyses for maternal sensitivity and infant responsiveness in 369 European American mothers and their firstborn 5 month olds. Beyond zero-order relations, robust regression analyses revealed differentiated patterns of unique relations of mother and infant behavior and context indicators to the EA dimensions of maternal sensitivity and infant responsiveness. Although potential behavior and context relations to EA are many, prominent relations to maternal sensitivity and infant responsiveness are few, and patterns of association vary for the two dimensions of EA. Adequate EA is fundamental to a healthy parent-infant relationship, and understanding the behavior and context indicators associated with emotional availability is fundamental to its enhancement. Knowledge of childrearing and child development is relevant to parenting and the well-being of children. In a sociodemographically heterogeneous sample of 268 European American mothers of 2-year-olds, we assessed the state of mothers parenting knowledge, compared parenting knowledge in groups of mothers who varied in terms of parenthood and social status, and identified principal sources of mothers parenting knowledge in terms of social factors, parenting supports, and formal classes. On the whole, mothers demonstrated a fair but less than complete basic parenting knowledge, and mothers age, education, and rated helpfulness of written materials each uniquely contributed to their knowledge. Adult mothers scored higher than adolescent mothers, and mothers improved in their knowledge of parenting from their first to their second child (and were stable across time). No differences were found between mothers of girls and boys, mothers who varied in employment status, or between birth and adoptive mothers. Experiencing some degree of parenting stress is virtually unavoidable, particularly as children enter early adolescence and assert their independence. In this study, we examined how parenting stress attributed to the parent himself/herself, to the behavior of the child, or to parent-child dysfunctional interaction changed in mean level and relative standing across their child's transition to adolescence. We also compared mothers and fathers from the same families in terms of parenting stress and explored how one parent's stress affected the other parent's stress. European American parents (111 mothers and 111 fathers) were assessed when their children were 10 and 14 years old. Parenting stress was highly stable from 10 to 14 years. Total parenting stress increased across time, and was attributable to stress due to increased parent-child dysfunctional interaction, not parental distress or stress due to child behavior. Mothers and fathers agreed moderately in their relative standing and in the average levels of parenting stress in the three different domains of parenting stress at each time point. Mothers'and fathers'stress across domains were sometimes related. CONCLUSIONS: Mothers'and fathers'increased parenting stress across their child's transition to adolescence seems to derive from parent-child interaction rather than qualities of the parent or the child per se. Finding ways to maintain parent-child communication and closeness may protect parents and families from increased stress during this vulnerable time. Program II: Child Development and Parenting in Multicultural Perspective We used country and regional contrasts to examine culture-common and community-specific variation in mother-infant emotional relationships. Altogether, 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. American mothers and their daughters and sons, living in rural and metropolitan settings, were observed at home at infant age 5 months. Both variable- and person-centered perspectives of dyadic emotional relationships were analyzed. Supporting the notion that adequate emotional relationships are a critical and culture-common characteristic of human infant development, across all samples most dyads scored in the adaptive range in terms of emotional relationships. Giving evidence of community-specific characteristics, Italian mothers were more sensitive, and Italian infants more responsive, than Argentine and U.S. mothers and infants;in addition, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and rural dyads more likely than expected to be classified as mid-range in emotional relationships and less likely to be classified as high in emotional relationships. Adaptive emotional relationships appear to be a culture-common characteristic of mother-infant dyads near the beginning of life, but this relational construct is moderated by community-specific (country and regional) context. Play is a predominant individual and social activity of early childhood and has been related to young children's early cognitive growth, social development, and preparation for formal schooling. We examined individual differences and developmental changes in South Korean child and mother exploratory and symbolic play longitudinally when children were 13 and 20 months of age. Children engaged in less exploratory and more symbolic play when playing collaboratively with their mothers than when playing alone. Children engaged in more symbolic play at 20 months than 13 months. Child solitary and collaborative symbolic play were modestly stable across time, but child exploratory play and maternal play were not. Child solitary and collaborative symbolic play were correlated across the two ages. Child and mother play were regularly associated at the two ages, and 13-month maternal play predicted 20-month child collaborative play. The cross-cultural validity of play is affirmed, and individual differences and age-related changes in child and mother play are partly mediated by matched partner play and partly motivated by processes independent of partner play. Both the adolescent peer attachment and perceived parenting style literatures emphasize the role of the quality of the parent-child relationship in children's healthy adjustment beyond the family, but few studies have investigated links between adolescents peer attachment and perceptions of parenting. We investigate and compare relations of adolescents perceptions of warmth and psychological control from their parents with avoidance and anxiety in attachment to close friends, respectively, in two culturally contrasting groups of adolescents. Altogether, 262 Turk and 263 Belgian youth between 14 and 18 years of age participated. Cross-culturally, attachment avoidance was negatively related to maternal warmth, and attachment anxiety positively related to maternal and paternal control and negatively to paternal warmth. Beyond these general relations, attachment avoidance was associated with paternal psychological control in Belgians but not in Turks. The study provides cross-cultural evidence for specific relations between peer attachment and perceived parenting and suggests a culture-specific pathway for the development of attachment avoidance. Program III: Developmental Neuroscience Categorization constitutes a critical and adaptive solution to the challenges posed by both biological instability and environmental diversity. Categories refer to shared representations of like, but (usually) discriminable, entities, and are in evidence when organisms treat
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