Looking back to the future: Māori and Pakeha mother-child birth stories.
Māori adults have earlier first memories than adults in any culture studied to date. To test the role of early memory socialization in this advantage, Māori (n= 15) and New Zealand European (or Pakeha, n= 17) mothers told birth stories and stories of shared past events to their children (3-4 or 7-8 years). Compared to Pakeha mothers, Māori mothers elaborated more in the birth stories, relative to their elaborations in stories about shared past events, and included more references to relational time and internal states in their birth stories. These data provide the first empirical evidence that Māori children experience a richer narrative environment than Pakeha children for significant events in their past.
Reese
Elaine
E
Department of Psychology, University of Otago, 95 Union Street, Dunedin, New Zealand 9054. ereese@psy.otago.ac.nz
Hayne
Harlene
H
MacDonald
Shelley
S
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005495:Folklore; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D033262:Narration; D036801:Parturition; D011247:Pregnancy; D013998:Time Perception