Children's Socioemotional Development Across Cultures

The development of socioemotional competencies is central for children's development in general. Infants are equipped with basic predispositions to acquire environmental information. However, contexts and cultures differ with respect to their emphasis on particular developmental domains. Two developmental pathways for which research evidence is available have been characterized: the Western middle-class perspective and the perspective of rural traditionally living farming families. Infants have different social experiences with respect to their caregivers, their behaviors, and their social regulation. The developmental focus of Western middle-class children is on individualistic agency, which implies that socioemotional development is subordinated to self-development. The developmental focus of the rural traditionally living farmer child is on social connectedness and social responsibility. Self-development is part of the development of communal agency. This review discusses the ethical implications of regarding the Western middle-class pathway as universal and normative and emphasizes the need to consider different pathways as normative.