title: Emotional Relationships in Mothers and Infants: Culture-Common and Community-Specific Characteristics of Dyads from Rural and Metropolitan Settings in Argentina, Italy, and the United States.
abstract: This study uses country and regional contrasts to examine culture-common and community-specific variation in mother-infant emotional relationships. Altogether, 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. American mothers and their daughters and sons, living in rural and metropolitan settings, were observed at home at infant age 5 months. Both variable- and person-centered perspectives of dyadic emotional relationships were analyzed. Supporting the notion that adequate emotional relationships are a critical and culture-common characteristic of human infant development, across all samples most dyads scored in the adaptive range in terms of emotional relationships. Giving evidence of community-specific characteristics, Italian mothers were more sensitive, and Italian infants more responsive, than Argentine and U.S. mothers and infants; in addition, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and rural dyads more likely than expected to be classified as mid-range in emotional relationships and less likely to be classified as high in emotional relationships. Adaptive emotional relationships appear to be a culture-common characteristic of mother-infant dyads near the beginning of life, but this relational construct is moderated by community-specific (country and regional) context.
authors.affiliation: Child and Family Research  Eunice Kennedy Shriver  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development National Institutes of Health Public Health Service.
authors.forename: Marc H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Bornstein
authors.forename: Diane L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Putnick
authors.forename: Joan T D
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Suwalsky
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Venuti
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: de Falco
authors.forename: Celia Zingman
authors.initials: CZ
authors.lastname: de Galperín
authors.forename: Motti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gini
authors.forename: Marianne Heslington
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Tichovolsky