Exploring Parental Influences on Child Development Across Socio-Economic and Cultural Contexts in Infancy and Toddlerhood
Chair(s): Feyza Corapci (Sabanci University)
Despite major achievements in developmental milestones, children in the first two years of life still depend on parental support for psychological growth. Research with Western samples has consistently shown that certain parental characteristics (e.g., education, stress) and specific parenting behaviors (e.g., soothing, discipline) can significantly shape child development. Investigating cultural similarities and differences in parenting, along with their impact on infants and toddlers, is important to discover universal and culture-specific processes. This symposium will explore the role of early parental influences on self-regulatory outcomes (e.g., emotional reactivity, inhibitory control) in infants and toddlers from different cultural and socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds, drawing on data from four countries and utilizing both lab-based and diary-based assessments.
The first study, a longitudinal investigation from Germany, examines how positive parenting at 6 months, along with family SES factors, influences inhibitory control at 18 months in children growing up under adverse socio-economic conditions, as assessed through a modified Detour Reaching Paradigm.
The second study from Türkiye, which also involves a low-to-middle SES sample, uses a Forbidden Toy Experiment and shows how parental reflective functioning and power-assertive discipline predict emotional reactivity in 12-month-old infants.
The third study from Switzerland, tracks daily changes in child temperament between 6 to 18 months using a diary format and assesses its relation to the daily use of maternal soothing strategies in a high SES sample.
The last study from Romania, including middle-income mother-toddler dyads, similarly uses a diary format to assess mothers’ affective experiences in relation to child temperament and maternal emotion regulation strategies, highlighting the significant role of maternal regulatory competence.
Findings derived from four different cultural contexts and families with diverse SES backgrounds as well as different assessment methodologies provide key insights into the characteristics of universally adaptive parenting in the first two years of children’s lives.
Presentations of the Symposium
Inhibiting Impulses: Socioeconomic and Parenting Influences on Early Self-Regulation
Gizem Samdan, Sabina Pauen
Heidelberg University
Inhibitory control begins to develop during the first year of life (Diamond, 1990), yet most research to date has focused on the preschool period (Valcan et al., 2018). This study aims to examine inhibitory control at an earlier age—18 months—using a modified version of the Detour Reaching Task (DRT). Distinct from most previous studies, this research focuses on a socially and culturally disadvantaged sample.
A total of 550 families and their children from disadvantaged neighborhoods in Bremen, Germany, participated in the longitudinal study "Bremen Initiative to Foster Early Childhood Development" (BRISE). During pregnancy, data on family background, including parental education and household income, were collected. When the children were 6 months old, maternal behaviors were macroanalytically coded during a five-minute semi-structured play interaction. At 18 months, children completed a modified version of the DRT, designed to measure inhibitory control. In the first phase of the DRT, the toy is accessible through an open front of the box, allowing a direct reach. In the second phase, the side of the box is opened, requiring the child to suppress their initial impulse and make a "detour" to retrieve the toy. The DRT is one of the few tasks that reliably measures inhibitory control in children aged 1–2 years.
To date, N = 170 children have participated in the DRT. Preliminary findings based on the data coded so far (n = 76) suggest that (a) the DRT is suitable for assessing inhibitory control in this age group; (b) maternal education level—but not paternal education or household income—and (c) positive parenting, characterized by higher sensitivity, stimulation, emotionality, and positive engagement, at 6 months are both associated with stronger inhibitory control at 18 months. These findings will be discussed in relation to the socioeconomic characteristics of this specific sample.
The Roles of Parental Reflective Functioning and Power-Assertion on Infant Emotional Reactivity
Feyza Corapci1, Kivilcim Degirmencioglu2, Duygu Yildiz Akay3
1Sabanci University, 2The Pennsylvania State University, 3Bogazici University
Parental reflective functioning (PRF) involves the parents’ awareness, interest and curiosity in the child's mind, as well as their ideas about the nature of the infant’s mental processes (Slade, 2005). To date, most studies examined PRF in relation to parental sensitivity and children’s socioemotional development, including attachment security, mentalizing abilities, social competence and behavioral adjustment (Ensink, et al., 2019; Nieto-Retuerto et al., 2024; Nijssens et al., 2020). Going beyond past research, the goal of the present study was to examine Turkish mothers’ PRF in relation to their infant’s negative emotional reactivity over and above power-assertive discipline. Participants were 74 infants (42 boys, Mage =13.29 mos, SD = 0.43) and their mothers (Mage = 32.8 years, SD = 4.89) from Türkiye with low-to-middle socioeconomic status. Infant-mother dyads were observed in the research lab. During a 3-min wait task, when infants were not allowed to play with an attractive toy, infants’ emotional reactivity and mothers’ power-assertive discipline were rated in 5-sec intervals using reliable and valid coding schemes (Jahromi & Stifter, 2007; Kochanska et al., 2003). Mothers also completed the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ; Luyten et al., 2017). A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted with mothers’ power assertive discipline and PRF as predictors of infants’ emotional reactivity during the forbidden toy paradigm. Results revealed that power-assertive discipline and the pre-mentalizing modes subscale (i.e., interpretation of the child’s observed behavior with malevolent intentions) were each independent predictors of higher levels of emotional reactivity in infants. Thus, these results have potential to inform parenting programs to target not only mothers' behavioral strategies, but also their attributions about their infants’ mind.
Parental soothing strategies and infant state temperament: Results from a daily diary study
Tilman Reinelt, Giancarlo Natalucci
Zurich University Hospital, University of Zurich
Background. Parents help their infants regulate their emotions. But infants are not always easy to soothe. Parents' use of soothing strategies has been associated with infants’ regulatory behavior (e.g., whining, soothability, state temperament). However, these studies are usually based on either longitudinal data with relatively long time intervals between measurement points (e.g., years) or cross-sectional data from single observations. To date, the extent to which parents' daily soothing strategies are related to infants’ daily regulatory behavior is unknown. Methods. In total, N = 390 mothers of infants aged 6-18 months (M = 11.26 months, SD = 4.07 months, 51% male) participated in a baseline questionnaire and subsequent 10-diary study (M = 7.03 days; total observations: 2722). Mothers completed daily questionnaires about their child's temperament (adapted IBQ-R) and their own affect and used soothing strategies. Results and conclusion. Infant state temperament showed substantial intra-individual variability (ICCs = .52 and .48 for negative affectivity and orienting/regulation, respectively). On average, mothers used 2.91 different soothing strategies per day. On days when infants showed more negative affectivity, mothers reported using more different soothing strategies. This association remained after controlling for mothers' daily affect and demographic variables. Future longitudinal studies should investigate how variability in infant state temperament and the use of maternal soothing strategies influence long-term parenting behavior and child development.
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