Socialization of Emotion and Development of Behavior Regulation: US-Japan Comparison.

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1. Mmotional development as manifested in facial and behavioral expressions is influenced by a number of social and individual factors. Among them ara mother-infant emotional interaction -- what types of emotions the mother displays to the infant and how she responds to the infant's changing expressions -- and the infant's temperament. As a first step to elucidate this issue, a longitudinal data collection was carried out in Sapporo for the first 12 months of life with 48 healthy infants as the subjects. So far, our data indicate the possibility that mother's style of emotional communication in interacting with her infant is related to the individual differences in the intensity of emotional expressions in infants at 12 months. Moreover, examination of the relationships between the infant's tendency to behavioral inhibition in novel situations and expressive responses in a variety of affect-eliciting situations suggests that this aspect of the infant's temperamental dispositions plays a significant role inemotional development.2. Analysis of the mother-infant interaction at 5 months of infant' age reveals that the mother seldom responds negatively to her infant's negative emotion, while encouraging infant's positive emotion by expressing clearly positive or playful affect. We are to examine both differences and similarities in the mother's mode of emotional communication between US and Japan.3. Preliminary findings from lab observations demonstrate that the Japanese mother seems to be more inhibited to use harsh tone of voice and less verbal when prohibiting her 23 months old infant from touching attractive objects.