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American conceptions of infant development from 1955 to 1984: what the experts are telling parents
1Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520.
Insights
Scientific knowledge on infant development reaches parents unevenly. Biological aspects like perception and cognition are well-communicated, but social factors are influenced by culture and societal shifts.
Area of Science:
- Child Development Studies
- Developmental Psychology
- Parenting Research
Background:
- The child development movement aims to understand infant development and its influencing factors.
- This involves scientific study and disseminating knowledge to parents.
- Effective communication of research findings to parents is crucial for applying developmental science.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess how psychological theories and research on infant development were communicated to parents.
- To analyze the content of popular parenting publications from 1955 to 1984.
- To identify discrepancies between expert knowledge and parental information.
Main Methods:
- Content analysis of two popular publications: the Infant Care manual and Parents magazine.
- Examination of information dissemination from 1955 to 1984.
- Comparison of communicated information with scientific advances in infant psychology.
Main Results:
- A disconnect exists between expert knowledge and information received by parents.
- Scientific advances in infant biological development (perception, cognition, temperament) were accurately conveyed.
- Information on mother-infant relationships, child care, feeding, and fathers reflected cultural and demographic changes.
Conclusions:
- The communication of infant development research to parents is not uniform.
- Scientific findings related to biological aspects of development are more readily transmitted than those concerning social and relational factors.
- Parenting theories and practices are shaped by an interplay between scientific understanding and evolving cultural contexts.
Abstract:
The efforts of the child development movement to understand development and the factors influencing it have been the basis of 2 interrelated tasks: the scientific study of children, and the dissemination of this knowledge to parents. Content analysis is used to assess the extent to which psychological theories and research about infants have been communicated to parents from 1955 to 1984 in 2 popular publications, the Infant Care manual and Parents magazine. Results indicated that there is not a singular relation between what experts know and what is communicated to parents. Information reflecting scientific advances about the biological components of infant development (perception, cognition, and temperament) have been most accurately communicated to parents, whereas discussions of the mother-infant relationship, child care, feeding, and fathers appeared to be related to the broader cultural context and demographic changes over the past thirty years. This study reveals an interaction between science and culture in our theories of infant development and child rearing.