1-030 - Biocultural Approaches to Parenting Research

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The biological and cultural underpinnings of parenting behavior are well known. Biological predisposition influences parenting behaviors, but parents are also influenced by the circumstances and expectations of their culture. Furthermore, culture and biology interact in various ways. For example, evolved biological propensities create behavioral tendencies that may be modified to fit with the cultural milieu, and likewise cultural expectations may promote certain behaviors that then have biological implications (e.g., hormonally, or in terms of survival). Despite transdisciplinary acknowledgment of the importance of biology and culture for several decades (e.g., Keller, 2008; Lamb, Pleck, Charnov & Levine, 1989; Hewlett & Lamb, 2002; LeVine, 1989), parenting research that considers biological and cultural contexts in confluence is somewhat rare. Interdisciplinary mixed-methods approaches are needed in order to examine biological and cultural factors with nuance and to provide integrated biocultural approaches. This symposium brings together international perspectives of parenting from the fields of anthropology, psychology, and child development. The presentations provide recent empirical research that considers cultural and biological determinants of parenting using mixed-methods approaches. The symposium highlights parenting in an array of cultures from three continents: Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America. One presentation focuses on fathering in the Congo Basin rainforest, one on mothering in Ethiopia, and one provides a cross-cultural longitudinal view of mother-infant interactions in Germany, Cameroon, and Ecuador. The discussant will highlight overarching as well as culturally specific themes of the presentations to provide insights for biocultural approaches to studying parenting.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Hillary Fouts, University of Tennessee

Discussant

• Gilda Morelli, Boston College

Individual Presentations

• Biocultural perspectives on family systems: Parental psychobiology among Bantu-speaking farmers in the Republic of the Congo - Presenting Author: Adam H Boyette, Duke University; Lee T Gettler, University of Notre Dame

• A Biocultural Perspective of Beliefs and Responses to Infant Emotions among the Gamo in Southern Ethiopia - Presenting Author: Lauren R Bader, University of Tennessee; Hillary Fouts, University of Tennessee; Julia Jaekel, Department of Child and Family Studies, The University of Tennessee Knoxville

• Cultural models and the dynamics of early mother-infant interaction - Presenting Author: Helen Wefers, University of Münster; Joscha Kärtner, University of Münster