Kazuo Miyake

Infant Temperament, Mother's Mode of Interaction, and Attachment in Japan: An Interim Report.

The objective of our research is to investigate the possible relationships among several variables: the infants temperamental disposition, the mothers mode of interaction, and the quality of the subsequent motherinfant attachment. Our ultimate objective is to understand how processes in early infancy lay the basis for important individual differences in both personality and cognitive style in later childhood (Azuma, Kashiwagi, & Hess, 1981; Miyake, Tajima, & Usui, 1980). Specifically, our research concerns the relationship between the infants temperamental characteristics and the attachment to his or her mother; the

Production of Emotional Facial Expressions in European American, Japanese, and Chinese Infants.

European American, Japanese, and Chinese 11-month-olds participated in emotion-inducing laboratory procedures. Facial responses were scored with BabyFACS, an anatomically based coding system. Overall, Chinese infants were less expressive than European American and Japanese infants. On measures of smiling and crying, Chinese infants scored lower than European American infants, whereas Japanese infants were similar to the European American infants or fell between the two other groups. Results suggest that differences in expressivity between European American and Chinese infants are more robust than those between European American and Japanese infants and that Chinese and Japanese infants can differ significantly. Cross-cultural differences were also found for some specific brow, cheek, and midface facial actions (e.g., brows lowered). These are discussed in terms of current controversies about infant affective facial expressions.