Factors affecting infant toy preferences: Age,gender, experience,motor development,and parental attitude

In contrast to the anecdotal claim that “male infants like cars and female infants like dolls,” previous studies have reported mixed findings for gender‐related toy preferences in infancy. In Experiment 1, we explored the emergence of gender‐related preferences using face–car pairs (Experiment 1a, n = 51, 6–20 months) or face–stove pairs (Experiment 1b, n = 54, 6–20 months). In Experiment 2 (n = 42, 14–16 months), we explore the effect of toy properties, infants' past toy exposure, activity levels, and parental attitudes on such preferences using a wider range of toys. For both studies, infants demonstrated a general preference for faced stimuli over other objects, except for male infants who showed no preference between dolls and cars at around 15 months. Infants' prior experience participating in motor‐intensive activities, with wheeled toys and parental attitudes appeared to relate to female infants' preferences for dynamic toys. These results indicate a range of factors influence gendered toy preferences and suggest that nurture plays an important role.     

Perception of Multisensory Gender Coherence in 6‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants

One of the most salient social categories conveyed by human faces and voices is gender. We investigated the developmental emergence of the ability to perceive the coherence of auditory and visual attributes of gender in 6‐ and 9‐month‐old infants. Infants viewed two side‐by‐side video clips of a man and a woman singing a nursery rhyme and heard a synchronous male or female sound track. Results showed that 6‐month‐old infants did not match the audible and visible attributes of gender, and 9‐month‐old infants matched only female faces and voices. These findings indicate that the ability to perceive the multisensory coherence of gender emerges relatively late in infancy and that it reflects the greater experience that most infants have with female faces and voices.     

Contribution of Motion Information to Maternal Face Discrimination in Infancy

The contribution of motion and feature invariant information in infants' discrimination of maternal versus female stranger faces was assessed. Using an infant controlled habituation–dishabituation procedure, 4‐ and 8‐month‐old infants (N = 62) were tested for their ability to discriminate between their mother and a female stranger in 4 different conditions varying whether motion or feature information about the faces was available. The faces were presented in a still or dynamic video image with either a positive or a negative contrast. In each condition, infants habituated to a stranger's face and then viewed, in 3 pairs of alternating novelty test trials, either a new stranger or their mother's face. Results show that motion information contributes to the 8‐month‐old infants', but not the 4‐month‐old infants' discrimination of maternal faces. These results are interpreted in relation to recent findings and models in the adult literature suggesting that there is an enhanced contribution of dynamic information in face recognition when the face is familiar. Our data confirm that from the outset, there is a complex interplay of feature and motion information in the discrimination of the mother's face when the viewing condition is not optimal.     

Linguistic and developmental influences on superordinate facial configuration categorization in infancy

Humans perceive emotions in terms of categories, such as “happiness,” “sadness,” and “anger.” To learn these complex conceptual emotion categories, humans must first be able to perceive regularities in expressive behaviors (e.g., facial configurations) across individuals. Recent research suggests that infants spontaneously form “basic-level” categories of facial configurations (e.g., happy vs. fear), but not “superordinate” categories of facial configurations (e.g., positive vs. negative). The current studies further explore how infant age and language impact superordinate categorization of facial configurations associated with different negative emotions. Across all experiments, infants were habituated to one person displaying facial configurations associated with anger and disgust. While 10-month-olds formed a category of person identity (Experiment 1), 14-month-olds formed a category that included negative facial configurations displayed by the same person (Experiment 2). However, neither age formed the hypothesized superordinate category of negative valence. When a verbal label (“toma”) was added to each of the habituation events (Experiment 3), 10-month-olds formed a category similar to 14-month-olds in Experiment 2. These findings intersect a larger conversation about the nature and development of children's emotion categories and highlight the importance of considering developmental processes, such as language learning and attentional/memory development, in the design and interpretation of infant categorization studies.     

The Other‐Race Effect in a Longitudinal Sample of 3‐, 6‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants: Evidence of a Training Effect

We investigated the development of the other‐race effect “ORE” in a longitudinal sample of 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐old Caucasian infants. Previous research using cross‐sectional samples has shown an unstable ORE at 3 months, an increase at 6 months and full development at 9 months. In Experiment 1, we tested whether 9‐month‐olds showed the ORE with Caucasian and African faces. As expected, the 9‐month‐olds discriminated faces within their own ethnicity (Caucasian) but not within the unfamiliar ethnicity (African). In months. In Experiment 2, we longitudinally tested infants at 3, 6, and 9 months by presenting either the Caucasian or the African faces used in Experiment 1. In contrast to previous cross‐sectional studies and Experiment 1, we found that infants discriminated between all stimuli. Hence, we did not find the ORE in this longitudinal study even at 9 months. We assume that the infants in our longitudinal study showed no ORE because of previous repetitive exposure to African faces at 3 and 6 months. We argue that only a few presentations of faces from other ethnic categories sufficiently slow the development of the ORE.     

Gendered stories of parental caregiving among siblings

Using data from in-depth interviews with eight pairs of male and female siblings, we investigate the influence of gender on the division of responsibility among adult children who are providing care to their elderly parent and how parental caregiving provides an opportunity for the explicit (re)negotiation of gender dynamics across household boundaries. We explore the ways that “helper brothers” and “co-provider brothers” divide care with their sisters, and the impact of this division of care on the sisters' roles as coordinators of care and their future plans for their parents' care. “Specialized knowledge” also emerges as an important factor in the gendered division of care among the respondents. Finally, we examine the consequences of our findings with regards to gender relations and discuss the limitations of this exploratory study.     

Effects of Familiarity and Feeding on Newborn Speech–Voice Recognition

Newborn infants preferentially orient to familiar over unfamiliar speech sounds. They are also better at remembering unfamiliar speech sounds for short periods of time if learning and retention occur after a feed than before. It is unknown whether short‐term memory for speech is enhanced when the sound is familiar (versus unfamiliar) and, if so, whether the effect is further enhanced by feeding. We used a two‐factorial design and randomized infants to one of four groups: prefeed‐unfamiliar, prefeed‐familiar, postfeed‐unfamiliar, and postfeed‐familiar. Memory for either familiar or unfamiliar speech (the infant's mother saying “baby” versus a female stranger saying “beagle”) was assessed using head turning to sound in an habituation–recovery paradigm and a retention delay of 85 sec either before or after a typical milk feed. Memory for the familiar speech–voice was enhanced relative to the unfamiliar speech–voice, expressed by significantly less head turning toward the habituated sound stimulus when it was re‐presented after the delay. Memory for familiar or unfamiliar speech was not significantly enhanced from pre‐ to postfeeding, nor was there a significant interaction. This is the first demonstration in newborns that familiarity enhances short‐term memory for speech–voice sound.     

Infants' Rapid Learning About Self‐Propelled Objects

Six experiments investigated 7‐month‐old infants' capacity to learn about the self‐propelled motion of an object. After observing 1 wind‐up toy animal move on its own and a second wind‐up toy animal move passively by an experimenter's hand, infants looked reliably longer at the former object during a subsequent stationary test, providing evidence that infants learned and remembered the mapping of objects and their motions. In further experiments, infants learned the mapping for different animals and retained it over a 15‐min delay, providing evidence that the learning is robust and infants' expectations about self‐propelled motion are enduring. Further experiments suggested that infants' learning was less reliable when the self‐propelled objects were novel or lacked faces, body parts, and articulated, biological motion. The findings are discussed in relation to infants' developing knowledge of object categories and capacity to learn about objects in the first year of life.     

Premarital sexual standards for different categories of individuals

A survey study of 666 undergraduate students was conducted to examine how standards for a target depend on the target's personal relevance, gender, and age. Whether male and female students have different sexual attitudes was also examined. Respondents were randomly assigned to complete a sexual permissive scale for one type of target. No evidence was found for a double standard, but age and personal relevance of the target affected the standards endorsed. Less permissiveness was endorsed for younger targets and targets who were “personal” (e.g., “sister” or “brother”) to the respondent. Furthermore, female respondents were less permissive than male respondents. Whether this gender difference reflects women's greater sexual conservatism or women's lack of power in the social structure is also discussed.     

Sociological Social Psychology and Intersectionality: A Synergistic Relationship

Sociological social psychology developed out of interdisciplinary knowledge growth. Despite this positive progress, critics have argued that sociological social psychologists need to “step up their game”. In this paper, I review the three “faces” of sociological social psychology and propose a potential avenue to address this critique by incorporating ideas from intersectionality research into sociological social psychology's paradigms. To accomplish this integration, I also discuss the background and current debates of intersectionality research. Intersectionality scholarship originated in the gender studies area and has always been multidisciplinary. However, notions from intersectionality have not spread widely within the field of sociological social psychology. I propose a true synergy between sociological social psychology and intersectionality with the hope of advancing both fields.     

The effect of masks on the visual preference for faces in the first year of life

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, face masks were mandatory in many public spaces around the world. Since faces are the gateway to early social cognition, this raised major concerns about the effect face masks may have on infants' attention to faces as well as on their language and social development. The goal of the present study was to assess how face masks modulate infants' attention to faces over the course of the first year of life. We measured 3, 6, 9, and 12-month-olds’ looking behavior using a paired visual preference paradigm under two experimental conditions. First, we tested infants' preference for upright masked or unmasked faces of the same female individual. We found that regardless of age, infants looked equally long at the masked and unmasked faces. Second, we compared infants' attention to an upright masked versus an inverted masked face. Three- and 6-month-olds looked equally long to the masked faces when they were upright or inverted. However, 9- and 12-month-old infants showed a novelty preference for the inverted masked face. Our findings suggest that more experience with faces, including masked faces, leads to efficient adaptations of infants' visual system for processing impoverished social stimuli, such as partially occluded faces.     

I Don't Like the Tone of Your Voice: Infants Use Vocal Affect to Socially Evaluate Others

Infants can make social judgments about characters by visually observing their interactions with others (e.g., Hamlin, Wynn & Bloom, Nature, 2007, 450, 557). Here, we ask whether infants can form similar judgments about potential social partners based solely on their tone of voice. In Experiment 1, we presented 10.5‐month‐olds with two visually neutral puppets. One puppet spoke in a positive affect and the other spoke in a negative affect. When the puppets were placed within reach of the infants, infants selected the formerly positive puppet. This preference disappeared when the voices were paired with nonsocial objects (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, 10.5‐month‐olds were once again exposed to the same emotionally negative and positive voices. However, no visual characters were present. At test, infants’ visual orientation controlled how long they heard the neutral versions of each voice. Here, infants listened longer to the neutral voice of the formerly positive speaker. That is, just as in Experiment 1, infants’ preferences for the emotionally neutral test stimuli were shaped by their earlier exposure to emotionally charged recordings of that voice. Our findings provide convergent evidence to suggest that infants possess sophisticated social evaluation abilities, preferring to interact with prosocial over antisocial others.     

Attention during Visual Preference Tasks: Relation to Caregiving and Face Recognition

This research examined how caregiver experience (female primary caregiver or distributed caregiving with mom and dad) influenced 10‐, 14‐, and 16‐month‐olds’ visual preferences and attention toward internal facial features of female–male face pairs, and how these behaviors related to novelty preferences in a face recognition task and speed and accuracy on a visual search task. In the visual preference task, infants visually preferred male faces, regardless of caregiver experience. Despite similarities in visual preferences, infants’ attention toward females and males’ internal facial features was related for infants with distributed caregiving only. Infants’ performance across face processing tasks most often correlated for those with female primary caregivers. Results further our understanding of how infants with female primary caregivers display specialized processing of female faces, and how infants with distributed caregiving show similarities in their attention to female and male facial features.     

Four‐Month‐Olds' Discrimination of Voice Changes in Multimodal Displays as a Function of Discrimination Protocol

Past studies have found equivocal support for the ability of young infants to discriminate infant‐directed (ID) speech information in the presence of auditory‐only versus auditory + visual displays (faces + voices). Generally, younger infants appear to have more difficulty discriminating a change in the vocal properties of ID speech when they are accompanied by faces. Forty 4‐month‐old infants were tested using either an infant‐controlled habituation procedure (Experiment 1) or a fixed‐trial habituation procedure (Experiment 2). The prediction was that the infant‐controlled habituation procedure would be a more sensitive measure of infant attention to complex displays. The results indicated that 4‐month‐old infants discriminated voice changes in dynamic face + voice displays depending on the order in which they were viewed during the infant‐controlled habituation procedure. In contrast, no evidence of discrimination was found in the fixed‐trial procedure. The findings suggest that the selection of experimental methodology plays a significant role in the empirical observations of infant perceptual abilities.     

Infant-Mother Attachment in Separated and Married Families

Abstract

Two contrasting predictions about the effects of parental marital separation on infants' attachment to their mothers are considered. The “early adversity” hypothesis suggests that infants will be adversely affected by negative life events and thus will develop anxious attachments to their mothers. The “protective” hypothesis claims that infants are resistant to stressors because of their limited cognitive ability, and therefore will be no more likely to develop anxious attachments than other infants. Results from 76 mother-child pairs in the “strange situation” procedure (assessing infantmother attachment) supported the “protective” hypothesis in that there were no significant differences between infants in two marital status groups. The role of marital status versus unfavorable life events in affecting children's development was discussed.     

Swear(ING) ain't play(ING): The interaction of taboo language and the sociolinguistic variable

Swearwords influence social evaluation of a speaker in a variety of ways depending on social context (Jay & Janschewitz (2008), The pragmatics of swearing. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 4(2), 267–288). Little attention has been paid to the role of linguistic variation in social perceptions of swearing, however. This paper presents two experiments that test the role of sociolinguistic variation in the social evaluation of swearing. Experiment 1 is a variant categorization task, in which participants categorized acoustically ambiguous swearwords and phonetically matching neutral and nonwords as ending in either “-ing” or “-in.” Results suggest that swearwords led participants to hear “-ing” on ambiguous items. Experiment 2 is a matched-guise task in which listeners heard a passage featuring a mix of swearwords and neutral “-ing” words in one of four conditions: fully velar (All-ing), fully alveolar (All-in), only swearwords as velar (Swear-ing), or only neutral words as velar (Swear-in). Participants rated speakers on Likert scales (Schleef et al. (2017), Regional diversity in social perceptions of (ING). Language Variation and Change, 29(1), 29–56). Participants again displayed a tendency towards hearing “-ing” on swearwords. As a result, responses to the Swear-in guises were similar to those for the All-ing guises. The consequences for our understanding of swearing, sociolinguistic perception and cognition, and style, are discussed.     

The Underrepresentation of Women in Leadership Positions in Rural Russia

Numerous studies have documented the persistence of gender inequality in rural Russia, including the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions. A survey (N = 169) conducted in two rural Russian regions examined residents' explanations of gender inequality and their support for various remedies to ameliorate this situation. Both male and female respondents downplay outright discrimination in accounting for gender‐based occupational inequalities. Instead, respondents are more likely to agree with explanations that are embedded in cultural notions of a traditional gender‐based division of labor, in which the home responsibilities for women and a “natural” advantage of masculinity make it less likely that women become leaders. With respect to strategies for encouraging women to be leaders, both men and women support “more training” and “more husband help at home,” with women being slightly more positive on the latter item.     

Transfer of Social Learning Across Contexts: Exploring Infants' Attribution of Trait‐Like Emotions to Adults

We explored whether 15‐month‐olds expect another person's emotional disposition to be stable across social situations. In three observation trials, infants watched two adults interact. Half the infants saw one of the adults (“Emoter”) respond negatively to the other adult's actions (Anger group); half saw the Emoter respond neutrally to the same actions (Neutral group). After a change in social context, infants participated in novel tasks with the (now‐neutral) Emoter. Infants in the Anger group were significantly more likely to relinquish desirable toys to the Emoter. We hypothesize that, in the initial observation trials, infants learned that the Emoter was “anger‐prone” and expected her to get angry again in a new social situation. Consequently, infants readily gave the Emoter what she wanted. These findings reveal three key features of infants' affective cognition: (1) infants track adults' emotional history across encounters; (2) infants learn from observing how people interact with others and use this to form expectations about how these people will treat them; and (3) more speculatively, infants use appeasement to cope with social threat. We hypothesize that infants form “trait‐like” attributions about people's emotional dispositions and use this to formulate adaptive responses to adults in novel social contexts.     

Faces Attract Infants' Attention in Complex Displays

Infant's face preferences have previously been assessed in displays containing 1 or 2 faces. Here we present 6‐month‐old infants with a complex visual array containing faces among multiple visual objects. Despite the competing objects, infants direct their first saccade toward faces more frequently than expected by chance (Experiment 1). The attention‐grabbing effect of faces is not selective to upright faces (Experiment 2) but does require the presence of internal facial elements, as faces whose interior has been phase‐scrambled did not attract infants' attention (Experiment 3). On the contrary, when the number of fixations is considered, upright faces are scanned more extensively than both inverted and phase‐scrambled faces. The difference in selectivity between the first look measure and the fixation count measure is discussed in light of a distinction between attention‐grabbing and attention‐holding mechanisms.     

Voices in the Adjudication of Compulsory Adoption in Israel: The Hegemonic Voice of the Professional Expert and the Unheard Voice of the Biological Parents

Ambiguity in the definitions of “parental incapability” and “child's best interests” in the Israeli law of adoption allows for different “voices” to determine their meaning. With regard to compulsory adoption, findings from texts of the judicial discourse in Israel portray the voice of the professional expert as hegemonic and that of the biological parents as unheard, revealing the nature of the practices that lead to the deligitimization of the parents’ voice. To bring about a balanced representation of the different voices, the article proposes a moralization of the legal procedure of adoption that stresses its rehabilitative rather than condemnatory character.