Mother-child emotional availability in ecological perspective: Three countries, two regions, two genders.

Abstract

This study used a cross-national framework to examine country, region, and gender differences in emotional availability (EA), a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Altogether 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. mothers and their daughters and sons from both rural and metropolitan areas took part in home observations when the children were 20 months old. In terms of country, Italian mothers were more sensitive and optimally structuring, and Italian children were more responsive and involving, than Argentine and U.S. dyads. In terms of region, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and boys from metropolitan areas were more responsive than boys from rural areas. In terms of gender, mothers of girls were more sensitive and optimally structuring than mothers of boys, and daughters were more responsive and involving than sons. Understanding how country, region, and gender influence EA exposes forces that shape child development, parent-infant interaction, and family systems.

Video observations of maternal sensitivity in urban and rural Iran

“…There is evidence that parents in rural areas show less sensitive parenting than parents in urban areas, due to a host of factors including more traditional lifestyle and values and less access to socioeconomic resources (Bornstein et al, 2008). The main aim of the current study is to examine sensitivity in rural and urban Iran to investigate whether these findings generalize to a cultural context that has rarely been represented in parenting research, and how other parenting dimensions relate to sensitive parenting in these areas.…”

The Influence of Rurality and Parental Affect on Kindergarten Children's Social and Behavioral Functioning

“…parents' disciplinary practices in natural contexts, this may be a direction worthy of future study (Bornstein et al, 2008). Additional research is also warranted to investigate potential contextually based influences in children's internalizing behaviors.…”

Emotional availability in psychotherapy: The usefulness and validity of the Emotional Availability Scales for analyzing the psychotherapeutic relationship

“…Combining the two perspectives of EA and maternal sensitivity, Biringen and Robinson (1991) conceptualized the EA construct and created the observation rating scale EAS. A number of studies have indicated that EAS captures aspects of attachment security (Bornstein et al, 2008(Bornstein et al, , 2010Ziv, Aviezer, Gini, Sagi, & Koren-Karie, 2000). Ziv and colleagues (2000) studied several hundred mother-child dyads and found that mothers of securely attached infants were more sensitive and more structuring than mothers of insecure infants, and secure infants were more involving and more responsive toward their mothers than insecure children.…”