Toddlers, Parents and Culture

One doesn’t have to travel extensively to realize that there are intriguing differences in the ways in which people from different cultures tend to behave. Gartstein and Putnam explore whether these differences are shaped during the early years of life, at the moment when children are just beginning to understand how, when, and why they should express some emotions, and not others.

Based on the findings of the Joint Effort Toddler Temperament Consortium (JETTC), which asked parents from 14 different countries multiple questions regarding their main goals and techniques for raising children to be successful in their culture, Gartstein and Putnam analyze how children’s characteristics (both normative and problematic) are shaped by different cultural environments. Drawing from insights in anthropology, sociology, and developmental psychology, the book explores the full spectrum of human experience, from broad sets of values and concerns that differentiate populations down to the intimate details of parent-child relationships. The results reveal a complex web of interrelations among societal ideals, parental attempts to fulfill them, and the ways their children manifest these efforts. In doing so, they provide a revealing look at how families raise their young children around the world.

Toddlers, Parents, and Culture will be of great interest to students and scholars in temperament, cross-cultural psychology, parenting and socioemotional development in early childhood, as well as professionals in early education, child mental health, and behavioral pediatrics.

Maria A. Gartstein is a professor in the Washington State University (WSU) Department of Psychology and Director of ADVANCE at WSU. Dr. Gartstein has been studying temperament and cross-cultural differences for the past 20 years. The cross-cultural emphasis in part reflects her own experience as an immigrant, arriving in the US with her family as a child.

Samuel P. Putnam is professor and chair of the Psychology Department at Bowdoin College, and Co-Chair of Undergraduate Research for the International Congress of Infant Studies (ICIS). His research concerns the measurement and structure of temperament, and how nature interacts with nurture to shape individual differences in children.