Human infancy and parenting in global
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perspective: specificity
Research
Cite this article: Bornstein MH, Putnick DL,
Park Y, Suwalsky JTD, Haynes OM. 2017
Human infancy and parenting in global
perspective: specificity. Proc. R. Soc. B 284:
20172168.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2168
Received: 27 September 2017
Accepted: 10 November 2017
Subject Category:
Behaviour
Subject Areas:
behaviour
Keywords:
mother – infant interaction, cross-society,
infancy, parenting
Author for correspondence:
Marc H. Bornstein
e-mail: marc_h_bornstein@nih.gov
Electronic supplementary material is available
online at https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.
figshare.c.3938296.
Marc H. Bornstein, Diane L. Putnick, Yoonjung Park, Joan T. D. Suwalsky
and O. Maurice Haynes
Child and Family Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
6555 Rock Spring Drive, Suite 220, Bethesda, MD 20817, USA
MHB, 0000-0002-6810-8427; DLP, 0000-0002-6323-749X
We address three long-standing fundamental questions about early human
development and parental caregiving within a specificity framework using
data from 796 infant–mother dyads from 11 societies worldwide. Adopting
a cross-society view opens a vista on universal biological origins of, and con-
textual influences on, infant behaviours and parenting practices. We asked:
how do infant behaviours and parenting practices vary across societies?
How do infant behaviours relate to other infant behaviours, and how do
parent practices relate to other parent practices? Are infant behaviours and
parent practices related to one another? Behaviours of firstborn five-month
infants and parenting practices of their mothers were microanalysed from
videorecords of extensive naturally occurring interactions in the home.
In accord with behavioural specificity, biological expectations and cultural
influences, we find that infants and mothers from diverse societies exhibit
mean-level society differences in their behaviours and practices; domains of
infant behaviours generally do not cohere, nor do domains of maternal prac-
tices; and only specific infant behaviours and mother practices correspond.
Few relations were moderated by society.
1. Introduction
(a) Cross-society1 developmental science
Human infancy, infant caregiving, and infant–mother interactions represent our
earliest beginnings, and can have far-reaching effects across development. In con-
sequence, they are topics of perennial and compelling interest in science and to
society. However, our contemporary understanding of each is constrained
because most human biological, social and behavioural science is justly criticized
for drawing on too narrow a database. A central limitation of research in infancy
and parenting to date is that it has described constructs, structures, functions and
processes largely deriving from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and
democratic (so-called WEIRD) societies [1]. Reviews of the literature consistently
reveal that perhaps 80–90% of published science in these fields emanates from
Western Europe and North America (the minority ‘developed’ world), whereas
only perhaps 10–20% of the world’s literature represents humanity from the
majority (‘developing’) world [2]. Making broad theoretical generalizations
about infant behaviour and parental caregiving based largely on WEIRD societies
likely leads to errors of omission, and norms developed on limited samples risk
advancing ethnocentrism and its untoward ramifications.
Although the identification of psychological universals in humans constitutes
a central goal of the biological, social and behavioural sciences [3,4], contempor-
ary theory posits pervasive ecological moderation by physical and social
circumstances as influential in the development and expression of behaviour
[5]. The absence of broad sampling or assessments of contextual moderation
have impeded a comprehensive appreciation of human development and caregiv-
ing, led to repeated critiques of perspectives on vital topics in infancy and
caregiving that are built on inductions from single-society studies, and motivated
& 2017 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
 persistent calls for enlarged comparative studies across mul-
tiple societies. Such comparisons are especially valuable
because they expose and deepen our understanding of bio-
logical, social and behavioural processes that may generalize
across disparate populations, and provide the opportunity to
formally test society moderation of observed effects.
The remedy for these limitations—the lack of broad repre-
sentativeness and the complementary need for proper tests of
generalizable theory—is to identify effects that are society
common (i.e. that obtain across societies and generalize
widely) versus society specific (i.e. that obtain only in the
place they are studied) through the close observation and
comparison of multiple diverse wider-world samples. In a
nutshell, only similarities and differences in infancy and
parenting across disparate societies can supply unique evidence
of society-common versus society-specific biological, social and
behavioural processes. The present investigation aimed to fill
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gaps in fundamental knowledge about human infancy, infant
caregiving and infant–mother relationships in the vital develop-
mental period of the first half-year of the human infant’s life
by submitting standardized and detailed observations of
infant behaviours and maternal parenting practices in 11 dis-
tinct societies around the world to quantitative microanalysis;
samples came from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon,
France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea and the United
States. Science can only benefit from enlarged empirical repre-
sentativeness, and this cross-society approach, deriving from
the world’s inhabited continents, afforded a rare opportunity
to assess the specificity versus the generality of findings in the
youngest children and their caregivers across divergent contexts.
Several considerations guided our selection of the 11
societies. The specific samples we studied all consisted of pri-
miparous mothers and their healthy young babies, with
samples balanced for infant gender, but the 11 differed in
national origin, geographical location, history and ideology,
social and economic conditions, values and other sociodemo-
graphic characteristics thought to shape early development
and caregiving. Drawing on a wide representation of infants
and their mothers, this research begins to illuminate how
comprehensive are presumed universals of human infancy
and parenting. This is not a report about specific societies,
but one that uses information from many societies to address
three general theoretical issues: similarities and differences in
base rates of infant and maternal activities, coherence
in infant and in maternal activities and correspondence in
infant –mother activities.
(b) Three questions about infancy and parenting
Guided by theory, we re-visited three sets of basic and endur-
ing questions about infants, mothers and infant–mother
relationships in the context of this multi-society study, and
we developed specific hypotheses about each. As detailed
below, contemporary scientific inquiry offers compelling but
contrasting answers to each of the three basic questions.
However, our expectations about society similarities and
differences, covariation and correspondence in infant beha-
viours and maternal parenting practices are tied together
by the specificity principle, which holds that individual infant
behaviours are distinct and follow independent courses of
emergence and ontogeny, and that parenting practices are mul-
tidimensional and characterized by specific forms that relate in
specific ways to specific aspects of child development [6].
(i) Question 1: society similarities and differences 2
Our first question concerns similarities and differences in
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activities of infants and mothers across societies. Do infants’
behaviours and mothers’ parenting practices appear at the
same frequency and for the same duration? It could be that a
tendency to arrive at the same phenotype, regardless of varia-
bility in the genotype or environment [7,8], or universal
demands on babies and caregivers, call forth highly similar
infant behaviours and parenting practices. Alternatively, how-
ever, context forms a powerful basis for differentiating and
shaping activity, and it has been observed that the most forma-
tive source of influence operating on human development is
Proc. R. Soc. B 284: 20172168
the place a child is born. Of course, infants and parents could
show similar patterns of activity but at different absolute
levels across different societies. We considered the behaviours
of infants and the practices of mothers we studied might be
universal in the sense that infants and mothers everywhere
engage in similar activities, but we expected that their beha-
viours and practices would be engaged in at different levels
across societies. We studied 13 infant behaviour indicators
that represent key developmental tasks and performance com-
petencies that are critical to successful adaptation of human
infants around the middle of their first year of life, and 12
maternal practice and context indicators that assess the pri-
mary caregiving tasks and performance competencies
required of the parent of a young infant.
The derivation of our activity foci might best be understood
with reference to the emic/etic distinction [9,10]. Etic constructs
consist of accounts, descriptions and analyses of activities
expressed in terms of conceptual schemes and categories that
are regarded as meaningful and appropriate by the broad com-
munity of scientific observers. (By contrast, emic constructs
consist of accounts, descriptions and analyses expressed in
terms of conceptual schemes and categories that are regarded
as meaningful and appropriate by members of a particular
community.) Etic classifications are available in advance of,
rather than determined during, analysis and are based on
prior encompassing sampling or surveys (emic units are
indigenous and discovered, not predicted). Thus, the etic
organization of a cross-society scheme of activities is created
by the analyst, as we have done here. Etic knowledge is essen-
tial for cross-society comparison because such comparison
necessarily demands standard units and categories (emic
knowledge is relevant for an intuitive and empathic under-
standing of an activity). All behaviours can be described
from these two vantages. The etic approach validly treats
diverse samples together at one time (the emic approach is
sample specific and applies to one sample at a time).
(ii) Question 2: behavioural coherence
Our second question pertains to coherence in infants’ and
coherence in mothers’ activities. Do infants’ behaviours, and
do mothers’ parenting practices, each exhibit cohering pat-
terns, or are the respective activities of each unrelated?
Coherence is a major theme in the biological, social and behav-
ioural sciences and describes organized patterns among
systems or activities. We asked if the behaviours of infants
and the parenting practices of mothers in different societies
are each organized in any systematic pattern as evidenced by
their covariation, a standard means to evaluate associations.
Opposing perspectives on infancy and on parenting raise
central theoretical questions about coherence.
 (1) Coherence in infancy
With respect to infant coherence, historical and contempo-
rary theories disagree. Many classical observers of human
infancy—Freud [11], Piaget [12], Erikson [13], and Werner
[14]—posited that early emerging behaviours might covary
[see also 15–21] because interrelated behaviours come ‘online’
together and develop or manifest similarly. However, other
theorists have questioned the utility and even existence of
coherence, noting that such ‘stage’ theories are descriptive
rather than explanatory, downplay individual differences and
fail to contribute to understanding individual development, dis-
count the sometimes nonlinear progression of development, and
are idealistic when life is replete with unevenness, variation and
inconsistency [22–24]. In accord, a general principle of biological
development—the independence of systems—postulates that
different organs and physiological structures develop at differ-
ent times and grow along different trajectories. For example,
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different brain regions and neural connections between them
mature on different schedules in infancy, and different organ
and sensory systems develop at different times and mature
along different (staggered) trajectories [25–32].
(2) Coherence in parenting
Some theories—psychoanalysis, personality, ethology and
attachment—also conceptualize parenting (usually maternal)
practices as more or less cohering and unidimensional—often
denoted as ‘good’, ‘good enough’, ‘sensitive’, ‘warm’ and ‘ade-
quate’ [33–38]. The assumptions of such monistic parenting
theories are that caregiving is characterized by one or a small
number of bipolar dimensions and that caregiving is ‘trait-
like’ and packaged in all-or-nothing ‘styles’ [39,40]. That is,
parents’ practices cohere to manifest in similar ways across
interaction, time and context. Thus, for example, mothers are
authoritative or authoritarian or permissive. A position
alternative to the trait and style conceptualization is that
diverse parenting practices are not necessarily linked, parents
do not necessarily or always behave in uniform or consistent
ways, and parents vary in the constellation and patterning of
their caregiving practices according to situations, goals and
child characteristics and behaviours [6]. That is, parents
emphasize different activities with their infants at different
times in different contexts for different ends, so diverse
domains of parenting constitute distinctive constructs.
Operationally, coherence in infancy and in parenting
would be characterized by systematic interrelations among
diverse behaviours and practices, respectively. To test coher-
ence, we correlated infant behaviours and correlated mother
parenting practices. Because we subscribe to the specificity
principle, we expected infants and mothers, even from con-
trasting societies, to show independence across most
behaviours and practices (but not all because some parenting
practices, e.g. engaging in didactic activities and outfitting
the material environment, go together).
(iii) Question 3: correspondence
Are infant behaviours and parent practices related to one
another in unsystematic, in omnibus, or in specific ways? Par-
enting is an interpersonal activity that reflects the constant
interplay and coordination of two parties [41], and correspon-
dences between the two parties index the nature of mutual
influences that mother and infant exert on one another.
It could be (however unlikely) that infant behaviours and
maternal practices are largely uncoordinated, especially 3
during the first fetus-ex-utero months of life. Infant and
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mother are not always on the same schedules. The two have
different priorities and are sometimes simply out of step in
early dyadic development. Alternatively, parents’ overall
level of stimulation or engagement might relate to infants’
overall level of development generally. From this perspective,
parenting practices in any or all domains might coordinate
with infant behaviours in any or all domains. The overall sen-
sitive or authoritative mother may have the secure or behaved
or verbal child. A third possibility is that specific (rather than
general or ad hoc) practices of parents relate to specific (rather
Proc. R. Soc. B 284: 20172168
than general or ad hoc) behaviours of infants. Real-time encoun-
ters between parents and infants are constructed of specific
functional connections that shape broader behavioural
tendencies in child development.
Correspondences begin to define mutual influences
that child and parent exert on one another. Operationally,
correspondence refers to a pattern of covariation between indi-
viduals. From specificity, we expected that infants and mothers
would show positive correspondences but only between
conceptually related domains of activity. For example, signifi-
cant correspondence between maternal provisions in the
environment and infant exploration (but not other domains)
points to mother–infant cognitive attunement, and correspon-
dence between mother and infant social behaviours points to
their socioemotional attunement. However, there is no saying
that mothers’ promotion of infant verbal development, for
instance, is related to infant motor development. To detect
regular relations between caregiving or the environment on
the one hand and child characteristics or development on the
other necessitates seeking and finding specific and matching
combinations of domains.
To address these three questions and test our hypotheses,
we first identified, recorded, micro-coded, and analysed 13
specific behaviours of infants and 12 specific parenting prac-
tices of mothers in the 11 worldwide societies; we then
organized the behaviours and practices into thematic and
theoretically derived overarching domains and finally, we sub-
mitted the infant and maternal domains to three sets of
analyses. The three theoretical questions about young human
infants and their mothers include one about mean levels of
infant and mother activity (the society similarity/difference
question), a second about activity organization in infants and
in mothers (the coherence question), and a third about activity
associations between infants and mothers (the correspondence
question). We also explored moderation of activity, coherence
and correspondence by society.
2. Results
(a) Society similarities and differences
(i) Cross-society comparisons of infant behaviours
Although infants in all societies engaged in etic physical,
social, exploration, nondistress vocalization and distress beha-
viours (see electronic supplementary material, figure S1), we
compared the 11 societies to provide an inferential understand-
ing of mean levels (and ranges) of specific infant behaviours.
We expected society differences in infant behaviours, and
they emerged for four of five domains: physical, social, explora-
tion and nondistress vocalization. Figure 1 plots society effects
 infant physical infant social infant exploration 4
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Figure 1. Infant behaviour domain comparisons by society. The effects of society, controlling for nuisance covariate(s) and their 95% confidence intervals for each
infant domain score. The zero-line represents the generalized grand mean. Where the confidence intervals do not overlap the zero-line, societies differ from the
generalized grand mean; where confidence intervals from different societies do not overlap, the generalized means for those societies differ.

and their 95% confidence intervals as differences from the
generalized grand mean across societies for each infant
domain. (Generalized means, standard errors, 95% confidence
intervals, F-tests of society differences and Holm–Bonferroni
pairwise tests for infant behaviours are reported in the
electronic supplementary material.)
(ii) Cross-society comparisons for mother parenting practices
Although mothers in all societies engaged in etic nurturing,
physical, social, didactic, material and language practices
with their infants, society differences emerged in levels for
all six maternal parenting practice domains. Figure 2 plots
the society effects and their 95% confidence intervals as
differences from the generalized grand mean for each
mother practice domain score. (Generalized means, standard
errors, 95% confidence intervals, F-tests of society differences
and Holm –Bonferroni pairwise tests for maternal parenting
practices are reported in the electronic supplementary
material.)
(b) Coherence among behaviours of infants and among
parenting practices of mothers
We expected that observed coherence correlations of infant
behaviour domains would be small, and they were. Seven
out of 10 cross-domain correlations were statistically signifi-
cant (table 1A bottom); however, these statistical
significances were powered by the large sample size (N ¼
796), and the mean absolute correlation ¼ 0.09 or less than
1% of variance shared (table 1A top); effect sizes were
small, range jrj ¼ 0.01 to 0.17. Omnibus tests of 11 correlations
and pairwise analyses by society for each pair of infant
domains tested coherence of infant domains across societies;
no differences by society emerged.
We also expected that most observed correlations among
domains of mother parenting practices would be small, but
conceptually related domains would correlate. Nine out of
15 cross-domain correlations were statistically significant
(table 1B bottom), again powered by the large sample size.
However, the mean absolute coherence ¼ 0.18 or 3% shared
variance, range jrj ¼ 0.01 –0.47, and effect sizes of significant
correlations were generally small to medium (table 1B top).
Five omnibus society differences—out of 15—are described
in the electronic supplementary material.
(c) Correspondences between behaviours of infants
and parenting practices of mothers
In accord with specificity, we expected positive relations in six
conceptually corresponding infant and maternal domains:
infant physical and mother physical, infant social and
mother social, infant social and mother language, infant
exploration and mother didactic, infant exploration and
mother material, and infant nondistress vocalization and
mother language. Table 2 shows correlations between infant
and maternal domain scores. Significant positive relations
emerged in all conceptually corresponding domains except
one pair (infant nondistress vocalization and mother
language). The average correlation using the six correspond-
ing infant and maternal domain scores, r ¼ 0.20,
range ¼ 20.06 to 0.40, was significantly larger than the aver-
age absolute correlation among the other domains, jrj ¼
0.06, range ¼ 20.44 to 0.14, z ¼ 2.84, p ¼ 0.005. Only one
omnibus society difference—out of 30—is described in the
electronic supplementary material.
 mother nurture mother physical mother social 5
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mother didactic mother material mother language
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Figure 2. Mother parenting practice domain comparisons by society. The effects of society, controlling for nuisance covariate(s), and their 95% confidence intervals
for each mother domain score. The zero-line represents the generalized grand mean. Where the confidence intervals do not overlap the zero-line, societies differ
from the generalized grand mean; where confidence intervals from different societies do not overlap, the generalized means for those societies differ.

Table 1. Coherence correlations. Note, N ¼ 796. Below the diagonal: the correlation coefficient in each cell controlled for potential nuisance covariates. All
significances held when controlling for possible corresponding covariates. Above the diagonal: corresponding proportions of unshared variance.

(A) Correlations among infant behaviour domains and proportions of unshared variance
physical social exploration nondistress vocalization distress communication
physical — 0.99 0.98 0.99 0.99
social 20.10** — 0.99 0.98 0.99
exploration 0.15*** 0.11** — 0.99 0.99
nondistress vocalization 20.07 0.14** 20.03 — 0.97
distress communication 20.01 20.11** 20.08* 0.17*** —
(B) Correlations among mother parenting practice domains and proportions of unshared variance
nurture physical social didactic material language
nurture — 0.99 0.99 0.98 0.93 0.98
physical 20.01 — 0.96 0.95 0.99 0.99
social 0.05 0.19***a — 0.87 0.99 0.78
didactic 20.15*** 0.22***a 0.36***a — 0.92 0.84
material 20.27*** 20.06 20.04 0.29*** — 0.99
a a
language 0.13*** 0.05 0.47*** 0.40*** 0.04 —
a
Society was covaried when society effects emerged in the correlation.
*p , 0.05, **p , 0.01, ***p , 0.001 for two-tailed test.

limitations in the research literature constrain answers to these

3. Discussion
Are infant behaviours and mother parenting practices patterned
across societies around the world? Does each vary across
societies? Do infants’ behaviours, and do mothers’ parenting
practices, each cohere? Do infants’ behaviours and mothers’
parenting practices correspond? Contemporary context-related
fundamental questions about human infancy and early parental
caregiving. Specifically, the narrow participant database in
the research enterprise undermines global generalizability, as
biological, social and behavioural developmental science suffers
a dearth of multi-society data on conditions of early develop-
ment [2]. Multi-society studies are requisite to identifying,
 Table 2. Correspondence correlations between infant behaviour and mother parenting practice domains. Note, N ¼ 796. The correlation coefficient in each cell
controlled for potential nuisance covariates.
infant domain
mother domain physical social
nurture 20.10** 20.11**
†††
physical 0.40 20.02
social 0.03 0.17†††
didactic 0.01 0.07
material 0.05 20.02
language 20.07 0.09††a
a
Society was covaried when society effects emerged in the correlation.
**p , 0.01, ***p , 0.001 for two-tailed test of non-corresponding domains.
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††
p , 0.01, †††p , 0.001 for one-tailed test for corresponding domain.
distinguishing and appreciating general as well as specific
patterns in human development. Only multi-society inquiry
provides adequate opportunity to explore uniformity and
diversity in human phenotypic expression.
With respect to our three research questions, first, very
young infants in different societies engaged in the five domains
of behaviour we measured. Still, in accord with specificity,
society differences in levels emerged in four of the five
domains. Only infant distress did not differ across societies,
which is not surprising as many contemporary theoreticians
have pointed to the conserved nature of infant cry across
species and the likely high survival value of infant cry
[42–44]. Mothers of young infants in different societies also
show etic behaviours, physically encouraging their infants’
motor skills, socially engaging with them, encouraging their
didactic activities and speaking to them; nonetheless, as speci-
ficity predicts, society differences emerged in all six domains.
That five-month olds in different societies already vary in
some basic behaviours calls into question the validity of
widely accepted Western norms of early human development
[45]. That mothers of five-month olds in different societies
vary in how they parent very young infants points to societal
influences over basic human caregiving. Different societies
emphasize different specific practices. Notably, however,
infants and mothers in no one society exceeded or fell behind
all others; rather, the distributions of behaviours and practices
varied in society-specific ways. Likely, these early idiosyncratic
society differences set the stage for how unique constellations
of experiences inflect trajectories of society-specific ontogenetic
development. Indeed, it has been argued that central to a con-
cept of society is the fact that different peoples possess different
ideas as well as behave in different ways with respect to their
parenting and their children’s development. Some authorities
have even contended that the transmission of society-specific
values and characteristics largely transpires intergeneration-
ally—from parent to child—within families. That is, that
societal values are conserved through family life.
Second, in accord with specificity, meaningful between-
domain correlations in infant behaviours are sparse,
unsystematic and small. Only meagre patterns of correlation
across domains were obtained in spite of the large sample size
and shared method and source variance. Furthermore, no society
differences in infant coherence emerged. A few between-domain
6
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exploration nondistress vocalization distress
20.44*** 20.02 0.11**
0.14*** 20.02 0.00
20.06 20.02 20.02
0.30††† 20.07 0.02
Proc. R. Soc. B 284: 20172168
†††
0.38 20.04 0.01
20.04 20.06 0.03
correlations for mother parenting practices were significant, but
in accord with specificity most were unrelated or negatively
related. The largest coherences obtained between mother
language and social and didactic caregiving, which is unsurpris-
ing because the social and didactic domains of caregiving
include verbal attempts to amuse the baby and to draw the
baby’s attention to objects, respectively. Given the study’s sub-
stantial sample size there was adequate power to detect even
small effects, but the few society differences in mother coherence
correlations that emerged were attributed to a single society.
Thus, different domains of behaviours and of practices appear
to be largely separate in infants and in mothers, respectively, as
specificity predicts. We studied behaviours and domains at
micro-coded levels; it could be that behaviours of infants and
practices of mothers at more aggregated levels would cohere.
Nonetheless, these infant and parent findings raise questions
about widely accepted stage, style and trait interdependent
views of development and of caregiving in the first years of life
and, rather, favour biological independence perspectives.
Finally, we found that mothers and their young infants
were moderately attuned, but mostly in conceptually corre-
sponding domains, also as predicted by specificity: mothers
who more often promoted their infants’ physical development
had infants who were more developed physically; mothers
who more often encouraged their infants to engage in dyadic
social exchanges had infants who attended to and smiled at
them more; and mothers who more often engaged their infants
didactically and provided more, and more responsive, investi-
gative materials for their infants had infants who explored their
environments more. These relations were also common across
societies, with only one society difference in mother–infant
correspondence. Of course, these correlations do not measure
direction of effects or imply causation between infants and
mothers; importantly, however, they document the pervasive-
ness of specific and early attuned dyadic interactions. This
uniformity of correspondences further supports some univer-
sal aspects of mother–infant interaction. The trait and style
approach to parenting tends to reify typologies and to cast
them as inherent to the individual; it is also unwelcoming to
developmental questions, to ontogenetic change and to bidir-
ectionality (that particular child characteristics or behaviours,
situations or goals, times and interactions, evoke particular
features of parenting). Yet, child effects and transactional
 models implicate behavioural adjustments parents regularly
make relative to children’s age and gender, appearance and
behaviour, temperament and activity.
In one exception to predicted correspondence, amounts of
infant nondistress vocalization and mother language were
unrelated. However, the analysis of simple base rates of
mother –infant correspondence in the vocal modality is inap-
propriate; turn-taking in conversation is more fundamental
and valid. Sequential analysis of these data has borne out
this explanation and supports correspondence of this specific
contingency in mother –infant vocalization [46]. (In addition,
two un-hypothesized, small, positive correlations are
discussed in the electronic supplementary material.)
Contrasting theoretical positions have grown up to explain
basic features of infant development and parenting. Some
emic theoretic orientations focus on idiosyncratic expressions
of behaviour or caregiving in one or another societal
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group, others have been advanced to account for dimensional-
ity in infant behaviours and parenting practices. Overall,
however, the three sets of answers to the societal similarity
and difference, coherence and correspondence questions in
infancy and caregiving from this multi-society study accord
with the specificity principle in human development and
parenting [6].
In considering the findings, strengths of this study should be
balanced with its limitations. It is noteworthy that some samples
were relatively, although not wholly, restricted in terms of their
sociodemographic level, education and living conditions;
mothers were the primary caregivers to their infants; and infants
were all firstborn and healthy. This sampling homogeneity con-
trols for potential confounding factors that are often present, but
unaccounted for, in multi-society comparisons. It is possible,
however, that different results might be found with other
samples, such as multiparous mothers or mothers with older
or at-risk children or with fathers and other caregivers. It is
also the case that some society samples were small, which left
pairwise comparisons underpowered, and future studies
should include larger and more diverse samples. Whereas
most social and behavioural science studies compare general
parental cognitions or broad parental styles, almost always in
single-society settings, the present study observed, recorded,
coded, analysed and compared specific infant and mother
micro-coded activities directly in almost 800 families from
about a dozen societies around the world.
Infants everywhere have the same biological needs and
must succeed at many of the same developmental tasks and
challenges. Infancy is the time when we forge our first social
bonds, first learn how to express and read human emotions,
and first make sense of the physical world. Parents escort
infants through all those dramatic firsts. Adult caregiving
responsibilities are substantial during infancy because the altri-
cial human infant’s ability to cope alone is minimal and infants
depend on caregiving for survival. Parents bear responsibilities
to ensure offspring vitality and guide adjustment and adap-
tation to the physical and social environment in which the
child is born. The fit is neat to the task. The amount of inter-
action between parents and offspring is greatest in infancy,
and early childhood is the time when human beings are
especially susceptible to the influences of experience [47].
Indeed, the opportunities afforded by enhanced parental influ-
ence and prolonged childhood learning are thought to
constitute evolutionary reasons for neoteny, the extended
duration of human infancy [47,48]. In the view of many
philosophers and theorists through the ages, in childhood we 7
are open to expectations and influences we carry with us long
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after we leave our family of origin. Reciprocally, virtually
all of young infants’ worldly knowledge is acquired from
interactions they have with their parents. Infant and parent
may be separate entities, but they are inextricably dyadic [49].
Establishing adaptive modes of mutual infant–mother inter-
action soon after birth is a primary task of the dyad because
it is requisite to wholesome development in otherwise
dependent young.
The normative patterns of expression and association of
infant behaviours and maternal parenting practices, as they
Proc. R. Soc. B 284: 20172168
occur in dyadic involvement in everyday situations, have far-
reaching implications for biological and developmental theory
and research, as well as clinical practice and social policy.
Because it embraces a wider selection of samples and analyses
infant and mother activities in a detailed way, this investigation
may advance theory, help guide fresh research about early
human development, and inform programmes aimed at
improving parental caregiving and child well-being [50]. On
the basis of these findings, biological, behavioural and clinical
scientists may formulate more accurate accounts of how parents
and infants interact in everyday situations to promote or hinder
children’s wholesome development. Despite the pervasive
differences in mean levels of nearly all infant and mother activi-
ties across societies, coherence among infant and among mother
activities and correspondence between infant and mother activi-
ties were nearly universal across societies. Consistent patterns of
interaction in parent–infant encounters anticipate stable
psychological tendencies in children [51] and forecast stable be-
havioural currents in other relationships and other situations
children encounter as they develop [19]. Social competence in
children, for example, has origins in specific socioemotional
characteristics of the parent–infant relationship [52].
Some psychological theorists seek developmental univer-
sals, whereas other theorists focus on diversity in core
processes. Comparative biological, social and behavioural
science concerns the common and the specific as well as the
complementary conditions under which society-common
mechanisms may be expressed in society-specific ways. These
two mutually interacting forces shape ontogeny and caregiving
from the very start of each individual’s life.
4. Material and methods
(a) Participants
A total of 796 infant–mother dyads from Argentina, Belgium,
Brazil, Cameroon, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea
and the United States participated. All infants were five months
of age when observed, firstborn children in their families, born
within three weeks of their due date, and healthy at birth and at
the time of the observation. These inclusion criteria were selected
to control some of the natural variation in infant–mother relation-
ships associated with infant age, birth order, term status and health.
Approximately equal proportions of girls and boys were recruited
into each society sample (electronic supplementary material).
Electronic supplementary material table S1, provides
sociodemographic characteristics of the samples, and electronic
supplementary material table S2, provides comparative socio-
demographic information about the larger societies. Argentine
infant–mother dyads (n ¼ 134) were recruited from Buenos
Aires (66% of the sample) and its surrounding metropolitan area
and from Córdoba Province (34%), a rural community. Belgian
 dyads (n ¼ 115) were recruited from Ghent (47%) and Antwerp
(53%). Brazilian dyads (n ¼ 59) were recruited from metropolitan
Rio de Janeiro. Cameroonian dyads (n ¼ 29) were Nso, a group
indigenous to the northwestern part of Cameroon. French dyads
(n ¼ 59) were recruited from Paris and its immediate banlieux.
Israeli dyads (n ¼ 31) were recruited from metropolitan Haifa. Ita-
lian dyads (n ¼ 98) were recruited from metropolitan Padua (58%),
a northern city, and from Ruoti (42%), a southern town. Japanese
dyads (n ¼ 74) were recruited from the greater metropolitan Tokyo
area. Kenyan dyads (n ¼ 25) were Kamba, Bantus living in eastern
parts of Kenya. South Korean dyads (n ¼ 57) were recruited
from the greater Seoul metropolitan area. Dyads from the United
States (n ¼ 115) were randomly selected from a larger sample of
European American participants (N ¼ 373); 83% came from the
Washington, DC, metropolitan area, including Maryland and
Virginia, and 17% from rural West Virginia. All mothers gave
informed consent, and data collection procedures were approved
by the NICHD Institutional Review Board (IRB) as well as local
Downloaded from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/ on 18 November 2023
IRBs in the 11 societies. (See the electronic supplementary material
for details of sample recruitment, societal variation, etc.)
(b) Procedures
Infants and mothers were visited and audio/videorecorded in
their homes for 1 h of naturalistic ongoing interaction (an optimal
time for reliable and valid data collection [53]) when only infant,
mother and a female researcher, who was native to the society,
were present. Home visits were scheduled at a convenient time
for the families and when the infants were expected to be awake
and alert. This research was conducted in the natural context
in which infant and mother interactions take place to achieve
maximal ecological validity. Records were then coded using a
mutually exclusive and exhaustive, continuous and comprehen-
sive, coding system yielding unbiased estimates of the frequency
and duration of each activity. This microanalytic strategy allowed
us to examine infant and mother activities at the level of in-
the-moment lived experiences. Coders established initial training
reliability and maintained reliability throughout coding by
having two coders independently score approximately 20% of
the videorecords in their entirety. Inter-rater reliabilities follow
the individual codes below.
In infants, the five domains were operationalized in 13 behav-
iour indicators. We focused on physical development (balance,
ICC ¼ 0.89 and movement, Intraclass correlation coefficient
(ICC) ¼ 0.94), social interaction (looking at mother, k ¼ 0.66, 96%
agreement; smiling, k ¼ 0.50, 99% agreement; alert expression,
k ¼ 0.70, 88% agreement), exploration (extent and efficiency of
looking, k ¼ 0.70, 86% agreement; touching; k ¼ 0.66, 89% agree-
ment and mouthing objects, k ¼ 0.75, 95% agreement), nondistress
vocalization (k ¼ 0.68, 94% agreement) and distress communication
(by face and voice, k ¼ 0.72, 99% agreement). In mothers, the six par-
enting practice domains were operationalized in 12 practice and
context indicators. We focused on nurturance (feeding, k ¼ 0.90,
98% agreement; bathing, k ¼ 0.87, 98% agreement; holding, k ¼
0.93, 97% agreement), promotion of physical development (balance,
ICC ¼ 0.91 and movement, ICC ¼ 0.89), social interaction (encoura-
ging attention to mother, k ¼ 0.70, 95% agreement; expressing
affection, k ¼ 0.68, 99% agreement; social play, k ¼ 0.74, 98% agree-
ment), didactics (encouraging attention to properties, objects or
events in the environment, k ¼ 0.73, 94% agreement), materially out-
fitting the infant’s surround with quantity (ICC ¼ 0.97) and quality
(ICC ¼ 0.95) of objects, and speech to baby (k ¼ 0.69, 89% agree-
ment). These purpose-made codes were theoretically derived and
consisted of specific, observable, micro-coded etic behaviours that
are commonly observed in infants and mothers in all societies.
Using specific micro-coded indicators rather than subjective
macro-coded ratings increased cross-society validity. (Additional
procedures, operational definitions, and coding details for all
indicators of the five infant behaviour and six parenting practice 8
domains appear in the electronic supplementary material.)
This report focuses on domain-level analyses. Domain scores
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were calculated as the mean of the (usually standardized) infant
behaviour, maternal practice, and context indicators that related
conceptually to the domain [54,55]. (Descriptive statistics and pro-
files for domain indicators appear in electronic supplementary
material, figures S1 and S2.)
(c) Analytic plan
Analyses of infant and mother domains followed three main
paths developed to evaluate the three sets of substantive and
Proc. R. Soc. B 284: 20172168
theoretical questions: (i) society similarity and difference, (ii)
infant coherence and mother coherence and (iii) infant– mother
correspondence. We collapsed data from the 11 societies and cal-
culated rates and durations per hour and correlation coefficients.
(In the electronic supplementary material, we also report omnibus
tests of society differences.) Analyses used robust and resistant
statistics in R v. 3.1.1 (R. Development Core Team, 2014) calling
the rlm() function [56] with MM estimation to obtain weighted,
unbiased, consistent and efficient estimates of model coefficients
with high breakdown points. To focus on society-level variation
per se, the analyses also applied multiple covariates: (i) all ana-
lyses controlled for nuisance covariates—cross-society variation
associated with sampling error (infant age and birth weight),
(ii) significant society differences were controlled for context cov-
ariates—alternative variance associated with society differences
(mother age, education, and the duration she was in view of
her child), and (iii) when appropriate, analyses controlled for cor-
responding covariates—variance associated with the dyadic
nature of data collection (mother for infant and infant for
mother). (More details about the analytic plan, power analyses,
preliminary analyses, covariates, and correlations of infant and
maternal domains with covariates are available in the electronic
supplementary material, tables S6 and S7.)
Ethics. This study was performed in compliance with the guidelines of
the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development Institutional Review Board.
Data accessibility. Informed consent forms signed by participants in this
study do not allow public sharing of the data. Researchers interested
in collaborating on these data may contact the first author.
Authors’ contributions. M.H.B. designed the study and drafted the manu-
script; D.L.P., Y.P. and O.M.H. performed the data analyses, drafted
the method and results, and provided critical revisions of the full
manuscript; and J.T.D.S. helped to develop the coding systems, over-
saw the training and data coding across countries, and provided
revisions of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version
of the manuscript for submission.
Competing interests. We have no competing interests.
Funding. This research was supported by the Intramural Research
Program of the NIH, NICHD.
Acknowledgements. We thank H. Azuma, S. Bali, E. Berti, A. De Houwer,
C. de Zingman Galperin, M. Kabiru, K. Kwak, S. Maital, M. L. de
Moura de Siedel, A. Nsamenang, M.-G. Pêcheux, J. Ruel, S. Toda,
P. Venuti and A. Vyt.
Endnote
1
Here we use the term ‘society’ to mean a group of individuals living
as members of a community and to refer to our samples generically.
We distinguish society from (i) ‘culture’ which connotes the beliefs
and behaviours characteristic of a particular social or ethnic group
and are transmitted from one generation to another, (ii) ‘country’
which connotes a political state, and (iii) ‘nation’ which connotes a
body of people, associated with a particular territory, that possesses
a government peculiarly its own. Although the samples came from
different nations, we do not claim that they are representative of
their respective nations.
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