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First Annotated Bibliography:. The Role Maternal Interaction

Decent Essays

First Annotated Bibliography:
The role maternal interaction plays in gender differentiation in developing children
By:
Malaysia Clark
PSYC 205
Childhood Psychology
BL1
Spring 2017
Tompkins Cortland Community College

Fausto-Sterling, A., Crews, D., Sung, J., García-Coll, C., & Seifer, R. (2015). “Multimodal sex-related differences in infant and in infant-directed maternal behaviors during months three through twelve of development”. Developmental Psychology, 51(10), 1351-1366. doi:10.1037/dev0000033

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to determine what, if any, effect maternal behavior has upon gender differentiation in developing infants. Specifically if the type and amount of physical contact between mother and child …show more content…

The current researchers found the greatest amount of touch occurred in the 3-4 and 5-6 months of age range. The women who had male infants initially tended to touch them more than the mothers of female infants. Interestingly, the frequency of touch by the mothers declined as the infants increased in age. They also found that as the children increased in age, the differences in the amount of touching between male and female infants became equal. The types of touch were divided into two groups; instrumental (instances where the mother 's physical contact with the infant consisted of activities such as moving and sitting) and stimulatory (instances where the mother 's physical interaction with the infant consisted of activities such as rocking as well as playing with the infant). The researchers found that the mothers of male infants had a tendency to use more stimulatory and affectionate touch while the mothers of female infants had a tendency to use more instrumental and caretaking forms of touch. In regards to the infants themselves, researchers found no gender specific differences in the amount of time spent engaging in such activities as laying still, kicking while lying, rolling over, bouncing, or sitting. They did find that the during the 3-4 month period male infants sat up more often with maternal assistance while female infants sat up for longer without maternal assistance. The male infants also showed a higher amount of time sitting up during

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