How Usual Is “Play As You Usually Would”? A Comparison of Naturalistic Mother-Infant Interactions with Videorecorded Play Sessions in Three Cultural Communities
This article is part of Special Issue:
Monika Abels,
Zaira Papaligoura,
Bettina Lamm,
Relindis D. Yovsi,
Corresponding Author
Monika Abels
Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Tilburg School of Humanities, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands tilburguniversity.edu
Search for more papers by this authorZaira Papaligoura
School of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece auth.gr
Search for more papers by this authorBettina Lamm
Culture and Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany uni-osnabrueck.de
Search for more papers by this authorRelindis D. Yovsi
Culture and Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany uni-osnabrueck.de
Search for more papers by this authorMonika Abels,
Zaira Papaligoura,
Bettina Lamm,
Relindis D. Yovsi,
Corresponding Author
Monika Abels
Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Tilburg School of Humanities, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands tilburguniversity.edu
Search for more papers by this authorZaira Papaligoura
School of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece auth.gr
Search for more papers by this authorBettina Lamm
Culture and Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany uni-osnabrueck.de
Search for more papers by this authorRelindis D. Yovsi
Culture and Development, Institute of Psychology, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany uni-osnabrueck.de
Search for more papers by this authorAcademic Editor: Nobuo Masataka
Abstract
In developmental research, mothers are frequently asked to “play as you usually would.” In this study, maternal behavior towards their three-month-olds in three cultural communities (Nso, Cameroon; Gujarati, India; Athens, Greece) was compared between videorecorded “play” situations and naturalistic observations. If there is consistency, videorecorded “play” episodes can be used as a proxy for daily behavior. Body contact, body stimulation, face-to-face situations, and object stimulation were coded. While individual mothers showed consistent levels of body contact and face-to-face and object stimulation in both situations, there were also high correlations across the different types of behaviors. Only body contact and object stimulation correlate significantly across behavioral frames but not with each other across or within either observational frame. They can therefore be understood as behaviors with some discriminatory power. Mothers generally show a higher frequency of behaviors in the videorecorded play situations than during the everyday observations across all three communities. However, the samples differ in the extent to which three of the four behaviors are seen more in the videorecorded play sessions. A broader and general understanding of mothers’ ethnotheories and daily activities in each community is required in order to interpret videographed “play as you usually would” situations.
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