One of the most important abilities in infancy is the Declarative Pointing Production (DPP), which is the capacity to orient the attention of another person towards a third object or event with the index finger (Camaioni, 1997). Despite its importance in the development of children’s skills of social cognition (Camaioni et al., 2004; Cochet et al., 2017) and communication (Colonnesi et al., 2010), very little is known about the variables that may contribute to DPP individual differences. Furthermore, considering some authors' suggestion that DPP can be best understood in the social view of the development of cooperation and prosociality (Tomasello et al., 2007), whether DPP is a precursor of the emerging prosocial behavior (PB) is still an unanswered issue. Therefore, the current study aimed both at investigating whether the individual (sex and temperament) and cultural factors might relate to DPP individual differences and investigating the relationship between DPP and PB around the first year of life. Fifty-one Italian and Dutch typically developed infants (45% Italian; 35% males) were seen at 12 or 15 months of age and tested for DPP (Camaioni et al., 2004) and a subsample (N=44; 52% Italian, 30% boys) for PB (Warneken & Tomasello, 2007). Also, parents completed via Qualtrics socio-demographics, IBQ-R (Putnam, et al., 2014) or ECBQ VSFs (Putnam et al., 2010), and QPoint (Perucchini et al., 1999) which measures infants DPP in naturalistic environments. First, results displayed no difference in DPP between the two cultural groups. Besides, results revealed that girls showed longer and more frequent negative and neutral pointing rather than boys, and effortful control was significantly related to parent-reported DPP. As to the second aim, we found a significant relationship between parental reported DPP and prosocial behavior. In particular, the more the infants produced pointing gestures, the higher they scored in prosocial behavior and the less in the final latency of prosocial behavior. Overall, findings both endorse the idea of the universality of this skill among cultures (Kita, 2003), in this case, European ones, and provide new proofs about the relationship of declarative pointing production and prosocial behavior.
Pointing Gesture: Sex, Temperament, and Prosocial Behavior. A Cross-Cultural Study with Italian and Dutch Infants
Silletti F;
2021-01-01
Abstract
One of the most important abilities in infancy is the Declarative Pointing Production (DPP), which is the capacity to orient the attention of another person towards a third object or event with the index finger (Camaioni, 1997). Despite its importance in the development of children’s skills of social cognition (Camaioni et al., 2004; Cochet et al., 2017) and communication (Colonnesi et al., 2010), very little is known about the variables that may contribute to DPP individual differences. Furthermore, considering some authors' suggestion that DPP can be best understood in the social view of the development of cooperation and prosociality (Tomasello et al., 2007), whether DPP is a precursor of the emerging prosocial behavior (PB) is still an unanswered issue. Therefore, the current study aimed both at investigating whether the individual (sex and temperament) and cultural factors might relate to DPP individual differences and investigating the relationship between DPP and PB around the first year of life. Fifty-one Italian and Dutch typically developed infants (45% Italian; 35% males) were seen at 12 or 15 months of age and tested for DPP (Camaioni et al., 2004) and a subsample (N=44; 52% Italian, 30% boys) for PB (Warneken & Tomasello, 2007). Also, parents completed via Qualtrics socio-demographics, IBQ-R (Putnam, et al., 2014) or ECBQ VSFs (Putnam et al., 2010), and QPoint (Perucchini et al., 1999) which measures infants DPP in naturalistic environments. First, results displayed no difference in DPP between the two cultural groups. Besides, results revealed that girls showed longer and more frequent negative and neutral pointing rather than boys, and effortful control was significantly related to parent-reported DPP. As to the second aim, we found a significant relationship between parental reported DPP and prosocial behavior. In particular, the more the infants produced pointing gestures, the higher they scored in prosocial behavior and the less in the final latency of prosocial behavior. Overall, findings both endorse the idea of the universality of this skill among cultures (Kita, 2003), in this case, European ones, and provide new proofs about the relationship of declarative pointing production and prosocial behavior.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
