The effects of mothers' teasing: Do Japanese infants read their mothers' play intention in teasing?
✍ Scribed by Nakano, Shigeru ;Kanaya, Yuko
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1993
- Weight
- 919 KB
- Volume
- 2
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1057-3593
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The focus of this study was whether an infant can understand the playful intention in the mother's teasing behaviour. The mother's teasing behaviour can elicit playful interaction with the infant on the one hand, or can result in the infant's dietnee. In other words, teasing may function as the turnins-point in mother-infant interaction. Thus it was hypothesized that the consequence of mothers' teasing behaviour would be positive or negative depending on the success or failure in communication of both mothers' play intention with play signs and infante' inteqmtation of the play signs. Subjects were 20 mothers and their infanta aged from 10 to 13 months W111 months) who were observed during 10 minutes of free play with toys that evoke minor surpriee andlor fearfulness. Results showed that about one-lhlrd of mothae' teasing behaviour elicited the infant's enjoyment. Especially, mothers' playful teasing accompanied by a smile or laugh led most successfully to infant enjoyment. In contrast, mothers' pretence teasing elicited no particular response from infante. Thew data suggest that vound their firet birthday infante develop some understanding of the play intention latent in mothers' teasing behaviour.