Super Charles M, Harkness Sara
Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
New Dir Child Adolesc Dev. 2020 Jul;2020(172):11-24. doi: 10.1002/cad.20366. Epub 2020 Sep 23.
The behavior of newborns is ambiguous. Cultural models-representations shared by members of a community-provide new parents and others with a cognitive and motivational structure to understand them. This study asks members of several cultural groups (total n = 100) to judge the "similarity" of behavioral items in the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). Data were obtained from NBAS experts, mothers, and undergraduates in Massachusetts, and mothers and high-school students in rural Kenya. Multidimensional scaling of their judgments reveals that NBAS experts were especially attentive to a dimension of State Control-exactly as the scale emphasizes. Kenyan mothers focused on a dimension of motor responsiveness-in accord with their concern and practices regarding motor development, and the Massachusetts mothers organized their judgments around cognitive competence-abilities emphasized in contemporary discussions of early development. The US students appear to be more similar to US mothers than did the Kenya students to the Kenyan mothers. Each adult group's representation reflects their cultural values and goals, and helps them understand the newborn child in local terms.
新生儿的行为具有模糊性。文化模式——一个社区成员共享的表征——为新生儿父母及其他人员提供了理解新生儿行为的认知和动机结构。本研究要求几个文化群体的成员（共100人）对新生儿行为评估量表（NBAS）中的行为项目的“相似性”进行判断。数据来自NBAS专家、马萨诸塞州的母亲和大学生，以及肯尼亚农村的母亲和高中生。对他们判断结果的多维标度分析表明，NBAS专家特别关注状态控制维度——正如该量表所强调的那样。肯尼亚母亲关注运动反应维度——这与她们对运动发育的关注和做法一致，而马萨诸塞州的母亲则围绕认知能力组织她们的判断——这是当代早期发育讨论中强调的能力。美国学生与美国母亲的相似程度似乎高于肯尼亚学生与肯尼亚母亲的相似程度。每个成年群体的表征反映了他们的文化价值观和目标，并帮助他们从当地角度理解新生儿。
