Socialization of Emotion in Infancy : US-Japan Comparative Study

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To explore how the basic emotions are socialized in infancy in Japan and the US is a key to understand the differential course of personality development in the two contrasting cultures.1. Although the arm restraint procedure for eliciting anger was successful in eliciting anger in the US 5-year-old sample, the same procedure did not elicit anger in the Japanese infants. Only 7% of anger facial expression components were observed in Japanese infants, compared to 54% in US babies. On the other hand, the Japanese and US 12-month-olds showed similar proportion of anger facial expression (over 70%). Moreover, the 5-month-old Japanese infants took considerably longer to produce anegative affect expression than did the American counterparts. However, the Japanese 12-month-olds became distressed as quickly or even more quickly than the American counterparts. Thus the cultural difference found at 5 months seems to disappear by 12 months of age. These findings reflect an interesting interaction … More between cultural and developmental factors. Why do Japanese infants get so upset when they are 12 month old?It is speculated that the change has to do with self-produced locomotion that might create in infants a much stronger sense of self as a physical agent than exists in a pre-locomotory 5-month-old. This variable may interact with another aspect of Japanese infant care, AMAE, to produce an infant who may get even more upset than American infants do when s/he perceives her/his will as being thwarted.2. Mother and 23-month-olds in Japan and the US were observed in a lab setting representing a public setting for discipline in both cultures. Focus of our analysis was on a set of hypotheses regarding control and compliance in the lab. Our findings suggest that Japanese mothers are less likely than American mothers to express negative affect when prohibiting their children, and that the former appear less insistent on achieving immediate compliance with their requests. Although Japanese mothers appear to be more lenient or permissive than American mothers, their children are equally to comply overall compared with American children. Less