Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children

Abstract

How parents talk about social events shapes their children’s understanding of the social world and themselves. In this study, we show that parents in a society that more strongly values individualism (the United States) and one that more strongly values collectivism (Japan) differ in how they talk about negative social events, but not positive ones. An animal puppet show presented positive social events (e.g., giving a gift) and negative social events (e.g., knocking over another puppet’s block tower). All shows contained two puppets, an actor and a recipient of the event. We asked parents to talk to their 3- and 4-years old children about these events. A total of 26 parent–child dyads from the United States (M = 41.92 months) and Japan (M = 42.77 months) participated. The principal dependent measure was how much parent talk referred to the actor of each type of social event. There were no cultural differences observed in positive events – both the United States and Japanese parents discussed actors more than recipients. However, there were cultural differences observed in negative events – the United States parents talked mostly about the actor but Japanese parents talked equally about the actor and the recipient of the event. The potential influences of these differences on early cognitive and social development are discussed.

RETRACTED: Do Surrounding People's Emotions Affect Judgment of the Central Person's Emotion? Comparing Within Cultural Variation in Holistic Patterns of Emotion Perception in the Multicultural Canadian Society

“…Recently, cultural psychologists extensively examined the developmental trajectory of attention (e.g., Masuda, 2017 ; Masuda et al, 2019 ). These findings suggest that children internalize culturally unique patterns of attention through interacting with their caregivers, hence parental guidance plays an important role in the development of childrens' patterns of attention (Fernald and Morikawa, 1993 ; Kuwabara and Smith, 2022 ; Senzaki and Shimizu, 2022 ). As for children's performance, some cultural variations in modes of attention can be seen by ages 3–6 when children engage in rudimentary cognitive and perceptual tasks (Duffy et al, 2009 ; Kuwabara et al, 2011 ; Kuwabara and Smith, 2012 , 2016 ; Senzaki et al, 2018 ).…”

Emotion or Evaluation: Cultural Differences in the Parental Socialization of Moral Judgement

“…Furthermore, the United States caregivers directed their moral speech to agents in the event who was acting prosocially or antisocially compared to the recipient of the action, regardless of moral scenarios. This finding replicated a recent previous research with United States and Japanese caregivers (Kuwabara and Smith, 2022). In Japan, caregivers focus to agent and recipient changed depending on moral scenarios.…”

“…Previous cross-cultural research has demonstrated systematic and substantial differences in attentional patterns between members of East Asian and North American cultures (Markus and Kitayama, 1991;Nisbett and Masuda, 2003). Recent studies have further examined socialization practices that foster children to develop culturally unique patterns of attention Shimizu, 2020, 2022;Kuwabara and Smith, 2022). The present research adds to this body of work by demonstrating culturally divergent parental discourses and associated attentional foci in socio-cognitive and moral aspects of development.…”

“…This type of observation allows for a more naturalistic mapping of parents' moral discourse with their children and specifically highlights different types of attentional foci associated with parent-child interaction across cultures. In particular, one study (Kuwabara and Smith, 2022) investigated cultural differences in parental discussions of moral action with children. Parents and children in the United States and Japan witnessed one puppet helping or hurting another puppet, and parents were asked to describe the scenarios to their 3-to 4-year-old children.…”

“…Based on previous research investigating parent-child conversations about interpersonal helping and harming in children and adolescents (Recchia et al, 2014), we first analyzed the content of parents' moral speech focusing on moral action, moral evaluation, and moral emotion. Based on previous cross-cultural research (Kuwabara and Smith, 2022), we also examined the target of attention focusing on the agent (i.e., helper or hinderer) vs. the recipient (i.e., beneficiary of prosocial action or the victim of antisocial action) in parents' speech. It is important to note that we selected stimuli that depicted clear inter-character harm and help; therefore, we predicted that parents in both cultures were expected to engage their children in moral conversations.…”