Mothers’ tone of voice depends on the nature of infants’ transgressions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15407002 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A Dahl (0000-0002-1528-4347, University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author), Briana R Sherlock (University of California, Berkeley), Joseph J Campos (University of California, Berkeley), Frédéric E Theunissen (0000-0001-8980-0650, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 651-665 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Emotion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1528-3542 • E-ISSN: 1931-1516 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1037/a0036608 |
| PMID | 24866527 |
| OpenAlex | W2314110575 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 6 |
Emotional vocal signals are important ways of communicating norms to young infants. The second year is a period of increase in various forms of child transgressions, but also a period when infants have limited linguistic abilities. Two studies investigated the hypothesis that mothers respond with different vocal emotional tones to 3 types of child transgressions: moral (harming others), prudential (harming oneself), and pragmatic (creating inconvenience, e.g., by spilling) transgressions. We used a combination of naturalistic observation (Study 1) and experimental manipulation (Study 2) to record, code, and analyze maternal vocal responses to child transgressions. Both studies showed that mothers were more likely to use intense, angry vocalizations in response to moral transgressions, fearful vocalizations in response to prudential transgressions, comforting vocalizations in response to pragmatic and prudential transgressions, and (in Study 2) playful vocalizations in response to pragmatic transgressions. Study 1 showed that this differential use of vocal tone is used systematically in everyday life. Study 2 allowed us to standardize the context of the maternal intervention and perform additional acoustical analyses. A combination of principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis applied to pitch and intensity data provided quantitative measures of the differences in vocal responses. These differentiated vocal responses are likely contributors to children's acquisition of norms from early in life
Context (archaeology · Developmental psychology · Linguistics · Tone (literature · Vocal communication · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Communication · Infant Health and Development · Language Development and Disorders · Psychology
New Beginnings
Current research on parenting styles, dimensions, and beliefs
Moral Reasoning Enables Developmental and Societal Change
When do caregivers begin to view their child as a moral agent? Comparing moral and non-moral reactions to young children’s moral transgressions
Adults’ perceptions of childhood transgressions
Associations among child temperament, parenting, and young children's moral and conventional understanding
Domain‐general or specific
Caregivers' everyday moral reasoning predicts young children's aggressive, prosocial, and moral development
Using naturalistic recordings to study children’s social perceptions and evaluations
Caregivers’ Social Conformity Predicts Their Judgments of Toddlers’ Moral Agency
Lonely but not alone
| Citations per year | 1.22 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2026 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |