PSY CH3

Parental cultural belief systems

are also known as parental ethnotheories. Harkness and Super argue that parental ethnotheories serve as a basis for guiding parenting practices that structure children's daily lives.

Parenting styles

are an important dimension of caregiving. According to Baumrind (1971), authoritarian parents expect unquestioned obedience and view the child as needing to be controlled. In his three general patterns of parenting, permissive parents allow children to regulate their own lives and provide few firm guidelines.

The developmental niche

focuses on how the broader macrosystem structures a child's immediate microsystems. The developmental niche includes three major components: the physical and social setting, the customs of child care and child rearing, and the psychology of the caregivers.

The developmental niche

focuses on how the broader macrosystem structures the child's immediate microsystems.

Freedman (1974)

found that Chinese American babies were calmer and more placid than European American babies or African American babies. When a cloth was placed on their faces covering their noses, the Chinese American babies lay quietly and breathed through their mouths. The other babies turned their heads or tried to pull the cloth off with their hands.

Cross-cultural research

has not only demonstrated cultural differences in parenting behaviors; it has documented cultural similarities as well. All of the studies have shown that parenting beliefs and practices tend to be congruent with developmental goals dictated by culture.

LeVine

(1977, 1997) has theorized that the caregiving environment reflects a set of goals that are ordered in importance. First is physical health and survival. Next is the promotion of behaviors that will lead to self-sufficiency. Last are behaviors that promote other cultural values, such as prestige.

Six Cultures Study

A major finding of the Six Cultures Study was that women's work roles contributed to children's social behaviors. The Six Cultures Study clearly demonstrated that variations in the natural and cultural environment were linked to variations in child-rearing patterns and this, in turn, was linked to children's behaviors and personalities. One of the most in-depth and well-known studies of parenting, children, and culture was conducted by Beatrice and John Whiting in their Six Cultures Study

enculturation

Closely related to the process of socialization is the process called enculturation. Enculturation generally refers to the products of the socialization process—the subjective, underlying, psychological aspects of culture that become internalized through development. Closely related to the process of socialization is the process called enculturation. There is very little difference, in fact, between the two terms.

During class, American teachers

During class, American teachers tend to use praise to reward correct responses. Teachers in Japan, however, tend to focus on incorrect answers, using them as examples to lead into discussion of the computational process and math concepts. Teachers in Taiwan tend to use a process more congruent with the Japanese approach.

Socialization (and enculturation) agents

are the people, institutions, and organizations that exist to help ensure that socialization (or enculturation) occurs. The first and most important of these agents is parents, who help instill cultural mores and values in their children, reinforcing those mores and values when they are learned and practiced well and correcting mistakes in that learning.

Postfigurative cultures

are those in which cultural change is slow, socialization occurs primarily by elders transferring their knowledge to their children.

Chao's (1996)

cross-cultural study examined maternal beliefs regarding school success between Chinese and European American mothers of preschoolers. European American mothers also believed in a less directive approach in instruction, showed greater concern for building their children's social skills and self-esteem, and were concerned about "burnout" if they pushed their child to excel academically.

Margaret Mead (1978)

described three types of cultures with differing levels of peer influence on the socialization of its young people: postfigurative, cofigurative, and prefigurative cultures.

Cross-national differences

have been found in other samples as well. Studies comparing American, German, Russian, and Japanese children's beliefs about school performance showed that American children had the highest levels of personal agency and control expectancy, but the lowest belief-performance correlations. American children believed they had the most control over their academic outcomes, but this degree of perceived control was actually unrelated to their actual performance.

Bronfenbrenner's view

human development is a dynamic, interactive process between individuals and various ecologies that range from the proximal, immediate environment to the more distal. These environments include the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. School is an example of the microsystem.

Maccoby and Martin (1983)

identified a type of parenting style called uninvolved parenting. Uninvolved parents are often too absorbed in their own lives to respond appropriately to their children and may seem indifferent to them.

Cognative cultures

in which cultural change occurs more rapidly, adults continue to socialize their children, but peers play a greater role in socializing each other. Young people may have to turn to one another for advice and information.

Difficult temperament

is an intense, irregular, withdrawing style, generally marked by negative moods. Temperament is a biologically based style of interacting with the world that exists from birth.

Socialization

is the process by which we learn and internalize the rules and patterns of the society in which we live. This process, which occurs over a long time, involves learning and mastering societal norms, attitudes, values, and belief systems. The process of socialization starts early, from the very first day of life.

Contemporary theories

of child development incorporate elements of both, recognizing that communities, caregivers, and children are dynamic, interactive partners—all contributing to how children develop (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Grusec & Davidov, 2010; Lerner, 2006; Super & Harkness, 2002). This view suggests that children's active processing of information results in the reproduction of culture and the production of new elements of culture.

Baumrind (1971) identified three general patterns

of parenting based on two key dimensions: warmth/responsiveness and control. One of the three patterns of parenting is authoritarian parenting. Baumrind's parenting styles were originally based on observations of a European American sample.

According to Collins, Steinberg, Maccoby, Hetherington, & Bornstein

parents are one of the most important socialization agents.

Thomas and Chess (1977)

pioneers in the study of temperament, described three major categories: easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up. Temperament is a biologically based style of interacting with the world that exists from birth.

Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory

provides a useful framework for organizing the many dimensions of enculturation. These environments include the microsystem (the immediate surroundings, such as the family, school, peer group, with which children directly interact), the mesosystem (the linkages between microsystems, such as between school and family), the exosystem (the context that indirectly affects children, such as parent's workplace), the macrosystem (culture, religion, society), and the chronosystem (the influence of time and history on the other systems).

Goodness of fit

refers to how well the child's temperament matches the expectations and values of the parent, environment, and culture. If there is a mismatch, more negative child outcomes are expected. Conversely, if there is a good match, better child outcomes are expected.

According to Bronfenbrenner (1979),

the most important microsystem to a child's development is the family.

An important tenet of ecological systems

theory is that children are not simply passive recipients of the enculturation and socialization processes, but they also contribute to their own development by interacting with and influencing the people, groups, and institutions around them. Thus, children are active producers and architects of their own culture and development.