Socialization strategies during infancy. Middle-class mother-infant interactions in different European countries

Abstract

European middle class families can be considered to emphasize psychological autonomy in their socialization strategies. This implies to rely on face to face contact as the primary channel of communication, embellished conversations and extensive object stimulataion. Other parenting systems like body contact and body stimulation are supposed to play minor roles. This paper is going to report about studies comparing mother - infant free play interactional situations (with infants three months of age) in the home situation. Whereas the mothers in different German cities follow the prototypical patterns described earlier, the Greek mothers from Athens demonstrated more smiling than the German mothers during facial exchange, thus transmitting more warmth. A first inspection of the Italian mothers from Verona and Mantua reveals that the Italian mothers show more body contact in these intercational situations than the German mothers thus also displaying more wamrth although in a proximal channel. These comparisons serve as a beginning of a planned initiative for the study socialization strategies in Europe which will be presented at the conference