Individual Differences In Physical And Affective Functio

该项目侧重于描述不同生态环境下的早期相互作用。在每种情况下，都获得了广泛的观察，以确保可靠地测量个体差异。对魁北克、德国、中非共和国和哥伦比亚以及美国的非裔美国人和欧美家庭的父母和婴儿进行了为期一天的比较观察，以进一步探索文化和环境对早期互动的影响。

This project focuses on the description of early interaction in diverse ecological contexts. In each case, extended observations have been obtained to ensure that individual differences are reliably measured. Comparable day-long observations of parents and infants in Quebec, Germany, the Central African Republic, and Colombia, as well as in African-American and Euro-American families in the United States, are being conducted to explore further the effects of culture and context on early interactions. Extended observations of 2- to 5-year old Bofi infants whose families either lived in villages or pursued a nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle revealed that, contrary to widespread beliefs, weaning was seldom a time of parent-offspring conflict. In both groups, weaning was initiated by the children as they began to eat a variety of foodstuffs, although villagers were more likely to terminate breastfeeding completely at a predetermined time, whereas foragers let the children themselves set the pace. Weaning was usually associated with pregnancy, and the children's reactions varied depending on maternal sensitivity as well as the availability of additional careproviders.