Studies conducted in Western countries document the special role of mother--infant face-to-face exchanges for early emotional development including social smiling. A few cross-cultural studies have shown that the Western pattern of face-to-face communication is absent in traditional rural cultures, without identifying other processes that promote…

Compared everyday infant experiences among central Africa's Aka hunter-gatherers and Ngandu farmers. Found that Aka were more likely to be held, fed, and asleep or drowsy. Ngandu were more likely to be alone and to fuss or cry, smile, vocalize, or play. Crying, soothing, feeding, and sleeping declined over time for both; distal social interaction…

Discussing psychology for Africa, particularly rural Kenya, this paper presented two implications for the country and people interested in its affairs. First, although urbanization and "Westernization" are perhaps the most salient aspects of modern Africa, there is little understanding of how family relationships and child care are…

This paper reports on a followup study of the long-term effects of infant care patterns among the Logoli people of East Africa. In the original study, 12 infants, ages 7-13 months, were observed to obtain a measure of the frequency with which the infant was held by the mother and others, latency of response to the infant's crying, and the number…