Carl-Philip Hwang

Effects of Paternal Involvement on Infant Preferences for Mothers and Fathers.

45 Swedish infants were observed at home interacting with their mothers and fathers when they were 8 and 16 months old. 15 of the fathers had spent at least 1 month (X=2.8 months) as primary caretakers. Analyses revealed that degree of paternal involvement had no effect on preferences displayed on measures of attachment and affiliative behaviors. At both ages, infants showed clear preferences for their mothers over their fathers, which contrasts with the lack of preference evident in previous studies of American infants. It is suggested that the failure to replicate earlier findings is attributable to the fact that Swedish fathers are not distinguished by an involvement in play and so are less affectively salient to their infants.

Does Out-of-home Care Affect Compliance in Preschoolers?

When they averaged 28 and 40 months of age, 140 Swedish children were observed with their mothers in two situations (a problem-solving task and a clean-up session) designed to allow the assessment of their compliance with maternal demands. Individual differences in their behaviour were then related to measures of the quality of care received by them both at home and in alternative care settings when they averaged 16, 28, and 40 months of age, the amount of social support reportedly received by the mothers, the childrens ages, and the amount of early out-of-home care received. Analyses using partial least squares (PLS) analyses showed that children were more compliant in the task situation at 40 months when they had experienced high quality care at home, when they were older, and when they had experienced less out-of-home care prior to 24 months of age. Variations in maternal behaviour in these settings were predicted by the same set of variables, suggesting that parent-child harmony, rather than compliance, was being studied. No consistent dimension of compliance was evident at 28 months.

Associations between Parental Agreement Regarding Child-Rearing and the Characteristics of Families and Children in Sweden

The parents of 128 Swedish preschoolers were independently interviewed concerning their child-rearing attitudes and values, and a parental agreement index was computed as suggested by Block, Block, and Morrison (1981). Mothers and fathers disagreed on a substantial number of items, with mothers showing more expressive and fathers more instrumental concerns. There were few differences between the parents of girls and boys. As in the Block et al.s (1981) research, parental agreement was associated with marital quality. Parental agreement was also associated with contemporaneous and earlier maternal reports of ego-resiliency in both boys and girls, as well as with maternal reports of ego-control in girls only. There were no significant correlations between parental agreement and measures of intellectual development in either boys or girls. The results suggest that parental agreement may have a less general and a less gender-differentiated impact on psychological functioning in contemporary Sweden than was true in the United States when Block et al.s (1981) data were gathered 20 years ago.

Effect of Gender and Caretaking Role on Parent—Infant Interaction

After decades in which developmental psychologists focused exclusively on mother—infant relationships, researchers have recently begun to study father—infant relationships as well (Lamb, 1978; Parke, 1979). These studies confirm that many fathers interact sensitively and responsively with their infants (Parke & Sawin, 1980) and that most infants form attachments to both their mothers and fathers at roughly the same age (Lamb, 19776). Despite such similarities between mother— and father—infant relationships, some important differences between maternal and paternal styles have also been identified. Mothers’ interactions tend to be centered around caretaking, whereas fathers’ interactions are characterized by play—especially physically stimulating play (Clarke-Stewart, 1978; Lamb, 1976, 1977b; Yogman, Dixon, Tronick, Als, Adamson, Lester, & Brazelton, 1977). Lamb (1978) has speculated that the distinctive sex stereotyped patterns of parent—infant interaction occupy an important place in the development of gender identity.

Cause and Causality in Daycare Research: An Investigation of Group Differences in Swedish Child Care.

One of the most important goals of child care research has been to determine whether or not nonparental care has adverse effects on child development. Answering this question involves making causal attributions about the origins of differences between groups of children who have experienced divergent nonparental care arrangements. Some of the problems researchers face when trying to demonstrate causal relationships are illustrated in this paper using data from the Göteborg Child Care Study, a comprehensive, prospective, longitudinal study comparing the developmental trajectories of children in exclusive home care, family daycare, and center daycare. It is argued that the discovery of significant differences between groups must initiate extensive efforts to validate and interpret the findings. Focusing on the specific characteristics of prospective longitudinal studies, the article shows what measures can be taken to avoid the misinterpretation of group differences that are actually attributable to pre-selection effects or confounding variables. By rigorously identifying such confounds, researchers can accumulate support for hypothesized causal relationships, but they cannot ‘prove’ them because unknown and unmeasured confounding variables may always have important effects.RésuméL’un des principaux objectifs de la recherche sur la garde nonparentale est d’établir dans quelle mesure des conséquences négatives pour le développement de l’enfant peuvent en résulter. Cela suppose que l’on puisse faire des imputations causales à partir d’échantillons d’enfants ayant connu des modes de garde différents. Ce texte concerne les difficultés que l’on rencontre quand on veut établir ce type de causalité. Les données utilisées proviennent de la Göteberg Child Care Study, une recherche longitudinale approfondie ayant permis de comparer la garde par les parents, la garde par d’autres membres de la famille et la garde dans un centre. La mise en évidence de différences entre les différents groupes d’enfants doit être confirmée et interprétée solidement. La mise en place d’études longitudinales ayant des caractéristiques bien précises doit permettre, à certaines conditions, d’éviter les erreurs d’interprétation, provenant en particulier de biais d’échantillonnage et de confusion entre variables. Même si des hypothèses sur l’effet des différrents types de gardes pourront dans l’avenir être confortées, il est peu probable que de véritables preuves puissent être produites, dans ce domaine où des variables implicitement associées à celles qu’on contrôle peuvent avoir un effet déterminant.