Chenglong Jia, Yuan Shen, Ling Zhu, Li Sun, Kelin Du, Jinliang Qin
{"title":"Into the unknown: Maternal responsiveness influences young children's support-giving expectations of fathers but not unfamiliar others","authors":"Chenglong Jia, Yuan Shen, Ling Zhu, Li Sun, Kelin Du, Jinliang Qin","doi":"10.1002/icd.2496","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Interactions with primary caregivers shape children's expectations of interactions with others, but the mechanism is not clear yet. We included Han Chinese children aged 5–6 (<i>N</i> = 121, 61 boys) from a city in East China and tested their support-giving expectations of mothers, fathers and unfamiliar others after observing mother–child interactions with different levels of maternal responsiveness. Across two studies, we found that children's support-giving behaviour and willingness expectations decreased significantly in the unresponsive condition for mothers and fathers but not for unfamiliar others; while these expectations did not change significantly for all partners in the responsive condition. The results suggest that relationship type between children and interaction partners moderates the effects of maternal responsiveness on children's expectations of partners' support-giving. They shed light on how young children understand and represent interpersonal interactions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47820,"journal":{"name":"Infant and Child Development","volume":"33 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Infant and Child Development","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/icd.2496","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Interactions with primary caregivers shape children's expectations of interactions with others, but the mechanism is not clear yet. We included Han Chinese children aged 5–6 (N = 121, 61 boys) from a city in East China and tested their support-giving expectations of mothers, fathers and unfamiliar others after observing mother–child interactions with different levels of maternal responsiveness. Across two studies, we found that children's support-giving behaviour and willingness expectations decreased significantly in the unresponsive condition for mothers and fathers but not for unfamiliar others; while these expectations did not change significantly for all partners in the responsive condition. The results suggest that relationship type between children and interaction partners moderates the effects of maternal responsiveness on children's expectations of partners' support-giving. They shed light on how young children understand and represent interpersonal interactions.
期刊介绍:
Infant and Child Development publishes high quality empirical, theoretical and methodological papers addressing psychological development from the antenatal period through to adolescence. The journal brings together research on: - social and emotional development - perceptual and motor development - cognitive development - language development atypical development (including conduct problems, anxiety and depressive conditions, language impairments, autistic spectrum disorders, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders)