This study examines the cultural concept of grandmothers as caregivers and potential attachment f... more This study examines the cultural concept of grandmothers as caregivers and potential attachment figures for their grandchildren in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Specifically, we examined the influence of the grandmaternal co‐residence with grandchildren on their caregiving involvement and on the dyad's relationship formation. Semi‐structured interviews with 19 grandmothers of 14–28 months old infants were conducted. Findings revealed close grandmother–grandchild relationships and high grandmaternal involvement in child care, ranging from regular babysitting to functional parent roles. Co‐residing grandmothers shared most caregiving responsibilities with mothers and can represent important attachment figures for their grandchildren. Non‐co‐residing grandmothers were less involved and reported distributed responsibilities between grandmother and parents with clearly defined caregiving tasks and times. The results demonstrate the importance of the context when defining children's caregiving and attachment networks.
The Cultural Nature of Attachment: Contextualizing Relationships and Development, 2017
Attachment Theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United S... more Attachment Theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of "intensive mothering." Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate influence on a wide range of professions concerned with children (family therapy, education, the legal system, and public policy, the medical profession, etc.) inside and outside the United States. This chapter looks critically at how attachment theory has been applied in a variety of contexts and discusses its influence on parenting. It examines the distortion that often results when research findings are translated into actual applications or programs, ignoring any particularities of cultural context, It describes how attachment theory has been used as the basis for child-rearing manuals and has influenced programs and policies more directly, to form legal decisions that affect families, as well as to develop public policy and programs - all without requisite evidence to support such application and, more importantly, without regard to cultural context. Because child-rearing practices vary among cultures, the value systems that motivate these different practices must be recognized and accounted for when applications are developed and implemented. It concludes with a call for researchers to become proactive in rectifying misuses of attachment theory and holds that doing so is a matter of social responsibility.
Attachment studies mostly follow the Western middle-class model in theory and methods. To demonst... more Attachment studies mostly follow the Western middle-class model in theory and methods. To demonstrate that the assessment of children's caregiving context is an often neglected, but crucial prerequisite for attachment studies, we (a) conducted a literature analysis of attachment research in non-Western contexts and (b) empirically investigated the caregiving arrangements and cultural concepts of attachment figures in three cultural groups in Costa Rica: rural Guanacaste, urban San José, and rural indigenous Bribri. All persons involved in caring for 65 infants (7-20 months) participated in the study, resulting in a total of 179 semistructured interviews. The samples showed differences in caregiving practices, with the urban sample resembling Western middle-class contexts emphasizing the maternal importance; the two rural samples showing extensive caregiving networks; however, differently composed. Moreover, the three samples revealed culturally specific concepts of potential attachment figures. The study emphasizes the need for culturally sensitive conceptual and methodological approaches in attachment research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United S... more Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of “intensive mothering.” Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate and wide-ranging influence on a wide range of professions concerned with children (family therapy, education, the legal system, and public policy, the medical profession, etc.) inside and outside the United States. This chapter looks critically at how attachment theory has been applied in a variety of contexts and discusses its influence on parenting. It examines the tension distortion that often results when research findings are translated into actual applications or programs, ignoring any particularities of cultural context. It describes how attachment theory has been used as the basis for child-rearing manuals and has influenced programs and policies more directly, to form legal decisions that affect families, as well as to develop public policy and p...
This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities... more This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) with rural, subsistence lifestyles. Many of these interventions foster “positive parenting practices” to improve children’s chances of fulfilling their developmental potential. The practices are derived from attachment theory and presented as the universal standard of good care. But attachment-based parenting is typical primarily of people living Western lifestyles and runs counter to the different ways many people with other lifestyles care for their children given what they want for them. Thus, such parenting interventions involve encouraging caregivers to change their practices and views, usually with little understanding of how such changes affect child, family, and community. This undermines researchers’ and practitioners’ ability to honor promises to uphold ethic codes of respect and beneficence. Support for this claim is provided by comp...
Resumen. En el presente artículo se discute sobre la perspectiva y la experiencia que niños y niñ... more Resumen. En el presente artículo se discute sobre la perspectiva y la experiencia que niños y niñas, tienen ante el conflicto interparental posdivorcio desde un enfoque de Psicología del Desarrollo culturalmente sensible. A partir de la producción del autor, se pasa revista de los principales constructos teóricos que contextúan culturalmente la discusión del tema del parentaje (crianza) en familias posdivorcio. Seguidamente se profundiza en la actualidad de la investigación sobre el tema de las relaciones con las figuras parentales, particularmente con las no residentes y se enlaza tanto con una perspectiva del desarrollo individual como de las relaciones de parentaje. Las reflexiones apuntan a un acercamiento de la experiencia relacional y subjetiva, así como a elementos propios de la investigación y de aspectos a tomar en cuenta en una eventual intervención clínica con niños y niñas de dichos contextos.Palabras clave: Creencias y prácticas parentales, parentaje y conflicto posdivo...
Developmental psychologists have often found it difficult to take cultural factors seriously in t... more Developmental psychologists have often found it difficult to take cultural factors seriously in their research. This is in part because the holistic notion of culture appeared to have global effects that are difficult to model as variables in research designs, and anthropologists have not been able to agree on a viable unit of culture. This paper proposes that treating culture
This article examines the parent intervention program evaluated by Weber et al. (2017) and argues... more This article examines the parent intervention program evaluated by Weber et al. (2017) and argues that there are scientific and ethical problems with such intervention efforts in applied developmental science. Scientifically, these programs rely on data from a small and narrow sample of the world's population; assume the existence of fixed developmental pathways; and pit scientific knowledge against indigenous knowledge. The authors question the critical role of talk as solely providing the rich cognitive stimulation important to school success, and the critical role of primary caregivers as teachers of children's verbal competency. Ethically, these programs do not sufficiently explore how an intervention in one aspect of child care will affect the community's culturally organized patterns of child care.
Este articulo ofrece una sistematizacion sobre la tematica del “parentaje” (crianza). Se describ... more Este articulo ofrece una sistematizacion sobre la tematica del “parentaje” (crianza). Se describen las principales investigaciones, locales e internacionales, relacionadas con dos temas en la Psicologia del desarrollo en el contexto costarricense: las metas y las practicas del parentaje y los principales resultados que permiten caracterizar los estilos de interaccion madre-infante predominantes. Con fundamento segun evidencia de investigaciones de los ultimos 30 anos, la linea de investigacion desarrollada por el autor y a partir del constructo de la orientacion socialcultural a la interrelacionalidad y la independencia, se discuten estudios culturales e interculturales en torno al tema; ambos se analizan a partir de una revision y critica de los enfoques teoricos tradicionales en la Psicologia intercultural aplicada al desarrollo, se analiza su aplicabilidad, alcance y pertinencia en los estudios sobre estilos de interaccion y las metas parentales de socializacion desde una persp...
This study examines the cultural concept of grandmothers as caregivers and potential attachment f... more This study examines the cultural concept of grandmothers as caregivers and potential attachment figures for their grandchildren in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Specifically, we examined the influence of the grandmaternal co‐residence with grandchildren on their caregiving involvement and on the dyad's relationship formation. Semi‐structured interviews with 19 grandmothers of 14–28 months old infants were conducted. Findings revealed close grandmother–grandchild relationships and high grandmaternal involvement in child care, ranging from regular babysitting to functional parent roles. Co‐residing grandmothers shared most caregiving responsibilities with mothers and can represent important attachment figures for their grandchildren. Non‐co‐residing grandmothers were less involved and reported distributed responsibilities between grandmother and parents with clearly defined caregiving tasks and times. The results demonstrate the importance of the context when defining children's caregiving and attachment networks.
The Cultural Nature of Attachment: Contextualizing Relationships and Development, 2017
Attachment Theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United S... more Attachment Theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of "intensive mothering." Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate influence on a wide range of professions concerned with children (family therapy, education, the legal system, and public policy, the medical profession, etc.) inside and outside the United States. This chapter looks critically at how attachment theory has been applied in a variety of contexts and discusses its influence on parenting. It examines the distortion that often results when research findings are translated into actual applications or programs, ignoring any particularities of cultural context, It describes how attachment theory has been used as the basis for child-rearing manuals and has influenced programs and policies more directly, to form legal decisions that affect families, as well as to develop public policy and programs - all without requisite evidence to support such application and, more importantly, without regard to cultural context. Because child-rearing practices vary among cultures, the value systems that motivate these different practices must be recognized and accounted for when applications are developed and implemented. It concludes with a call for researchers to become proactive in rectifying misuses of attachment theory and holds that doing so is a matter of social responsibility.
Attachment studies mostly follow the Western middle-class model in theory and methods. To demonst... more Attachment studies mostly follow the Western middle-class model in theory and methods. To demonstrate that the assessment of children's caregiving context is an often neglected, but crucial prerequisite for attachment studies, we (a) conducted a literature analysis of attachment research in non-Western contexts and (b) empirically investigated the caregiving arrangements and cultural concepts of attachment figures in three cultural groups in Costa Rica: rural Guanacaste, urban San José, and rural indigenous Bribri. All persons involved in caring for 65 infants (7-20 months) participated in the study, resulting in a total of 179 semistructured interviews. The samples showed differences in caregiving practices, with the urban sample resembling Western middle-class contexts emphasizing the maternal importance; the two rural samples showing extensive caregiving networks; however, differently composed. Moreover, the three samples revealed culturally specific concepts of potential attachment figures. The study emphasizes the need for culturally sensitive conceptual and methodological approaches in attachment research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United S... more Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of “intensive mothering.” Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate and wide-ranging influence on a wide range of professions concerned with children (family therapy, education, the legal system, and public policy, the medical profession, etc.) inside and outside the United States. This chapter looks critically at how attachment theory has been applied in a variety of contexts and discusses its influence on parenting. It examines the tension distortion that often results when research findings are translated into actual applications or programs, ignoring any particularities of cultural context. It describes how attachment theory has been used as the basis for child-rearing manuals and has influenced programs and policies more directly, to form legal decisions that affect families, as well as to develop public policy and p...
This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities... more This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) with rural, subsistence lifestyles. Many of these interventions foster “positive parenting practices” to improve children’s chances of fulfilling their developmental potential. The practices are derived from attachment theory and presented as the universal standard of good care. But attachment-based parenting is typical primarily of people living Western lifestyles and runs counter to the different ways many people with other lifestyles care for their children given what they want for them. Thus, such parenting interventions involve encouraging caregivers to change their practices and views, usually with little understanding of how such changes affect child, family, and community. This undermines researchers’ and practitioners’ ability to honor promises to uphold ethic codes of respect and beneficence. Support for this claim is provided by comp...
Resumen. En el presente artículo se discute sobre la perspectiva y la experiencia que niños y niñ... more Resumen. En el presente artículo se discute sobre la perspectiva y la experiencia que niños y niñas, tienen ante el conflicto interparental posdivorcio desde un enfoque de Psicología del Desarrollo culturalmente sensible. A partir de la producción del autor, se pasa revista de los principales constructos teóricos que contextúan culturalmente la discusión del tema del parentaje (crianza) en familias posdivorcio. Seguidamente se profundiza en la actualidad de la investigación sobre el tema de las relaciones con las figuras parentales, particularmente con las no residentes y se enlaza tanto con una perspectiva del desarrollo individual como de las relaciones de parentaje. Las reflexiones apuntan a un acercamiento de la experiencia relacional y subjetiva, así como a elementos propios de la investigación y de aspectos a tomar en cuenta en una eventual intervención clínica con niños y niñas de dichos contextos.Palabras clave: Creencias y prácticas parentales, parentaje y conflicto posdivo...
Developmental psychologists have often found it difficult to take cultural factors seriously in t... more Developmental psychologists have often found it difficult to take cultural factors seriously in their research. This is in part because the holistic notion of culture appeared to have global effects that are difficult to model as variables in research designs, and anthropologists have not been able to agree on a viable unit of culture. This paper proposes that treating culture
This article examines the parent intervention program evaluated by Weber et al. (2017) and argues... more This article examines the parent intervention program evaluated by Weber et al. (2017) and argues that there are scientific and ethical problems with such intervention efforts in applied developmental science. Scientifically, these programs rely on data from a small and narrow sample of the world's population; assume the existence of fixed developmental pathways; and pit scientific knowledge against indigenous knowledge. The authors question the critical role of talk as solely providing the rich cognitive stimulation important to school success, and the critical role of primary caregivers as teachers of children's verbal competency. Ethically, these programs do not sufficiently explore how an intervention in one aspect of child care will affect the community's culturally organized patterns of child care.
Este articulo ofrece una sistematizacion sobre la tematica del “parentaje” (crianza). Se describ... more Este articulo ofrece una sistematizacion sobre la tematica del “parentaje” (crianza). Se describen las principales investigaciones, locales e internacionales, relacionadas con dos temas en la Psicologia del desarrollo en el contexto costarricense: las metas y las practicas del parentaje y los principales resultados que permiten caracterizar los estilos de interaccion madre-infante predominantes. Con fundamento segun evidencia de investigaciones de los ultimos 30 anos, la linea de investigacion desarrollada por el autor y a partir del constructo de la orientacion socialcultural a la interrelacionalidad y la independencia, se discuten estudios culturales e interculturales en torno al tema; ambos se analizan a partir de una revision y critica de los enfoques teoricos tradicionales en la Psicologia intercultural aplicada al desarrollo, se analiza su aplicabilidad, alcance y pertinencia en los estudios sobre estilos de interaccion y las metas parentales de socializacion desde una persp...
Se presentan los resultados de un estudio exploratorio descriptivo con 40 figuras parentales (20 ... more Se presentan los resultados de un estudio exploratorio descriptivo con 40 figuras parentales (20 de ESE medio y 20 de ESE bajo) que tienen bebés de un mes y medio a dos meses y medio de edad, pertenecientes al Gran Área Metropolitana de Costa Rica. A través de entrevistas, cuestionarios autoadministrados y 12 horas de observación naturalista, se describe la ecología del cuido, prácticas y creencias parentales relativas a la socialización temprana. Los datos muestran diferencias a nivel de creencias y prácticas según ESE, así como algunas diferencias según género de las figuras parentales, como en cuanto a expectativas según género de los niños.
Uploads
Papers by Mariano Rosabal-Coto