Child Odors and Parenting: A Survey Examination of the Role of Odor in Child-Rearing.
Child Odors and Parenting: A Survey Examination of the Role of Odor in Child-Rearing.
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0154392
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发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Touhara K
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Okamoto M;Shirasu M;Fujita R;Hirasawa Y;Touhara K
父母的照顾对我们幼崽的生存和我们物种的延续至关重要。在人类中，来自后代的视觉和听觉信号已被证明是养育子女的有力推动者。然而，我们还不清楚我们的孩子发出的气味是否也会影响人类的育儿方式。为了探索这一点，我们对有6岁以下孩子的父母进行了一系列问卷调查。首先，我们收集了儿童(n=507)体味/嗅觉不同部位的片段。在一项单独的调查中(n=384)检查了这些事件中描述的经历事件的流行率。根据这些结果，编制了父母养育方式中的儿童气味量表(COPS)，并随后在主要调查中使用(n=888)。我们发现COPS具有足够的内容效度、同时效度和信度。对警察的回应表明，父母，特别是有婴儿的母亲，意识到孩子的气味，并在日常育儿中积极寻找气味。COPS条目的因素结构和内容表明，儿童气味既具有情感作用，又具有工具性作用。情感体验会产生爱的感觉和深情的嗅觉，而工具性体验则与特定的卫生需求有关。头部是最常见的情感体验来源，而孩子的底部是器乐体验。超过90%的孩子在1岁以下的母亲都经历过这种情况。随着孩子年龄的增长，情感体验显著减少，这可能与父母和孩子之间身体亲密度的下降有关。这种与年龄相关的下降在工具性体验中并不显著，除了底部，在3岁后显著下降。目前的发现表明，儿童气味在人类育儿过程中发挥着作用，它们的性质和意义在儿童的发展过程中会发生变化。
Parental caregiving is critical for the survival of our young and continuation of our species. In humans, visual and auditory signals from offspring have been shown to be potent facilitators of parenting. However, whether odors emitted by our young also influence human parenting remains unclear. To explore this, we conducted a series of questionnaire surveys targeting parents with children under 6 years old. First, we collected episodes on experiencing odors/sniffing various parts of a child’s body (n = 507). The prevalence of experiencing events described in those episodes was examined in a separate survey (n = 384). Based on those results, the Child Odor in Parenting scale (COPs) was developed, and subsequently used in the main survey (n = 888). We found COPs to have adequate content validity, concurrent validity, and reliability. Responses to the COPs demonstrated that parents, especially mothers with infants, are aware of odors from their offspring, and actively seek them in daily child-rearing. The factor structure and content of the COPs items indicated that child odors have both affective and instrumental roles. Affective experiences induce loving feeling and affectionate sniffing, while instrumental experiences pertain to specific hygienic needs. The head was the most frequent source of affective experiences, and the child’s bottom of instrumental. Each was experienced by more than 90% of the mothers with a child below 1 year of age. Affective experiences significantly declined as the child grew older, possibly associated with the decline of physical proximity between parents and child. This age-related decline was not prominent for instrumental experiences, except for the bottom, which significantly declined after 3 years of age. The present findings suggest that child odors play roles in human parenting, and that their nature and significance change during the course of a child’s development.