Place of origin likely to influence your baby's behaviour, says study

Mar 20, 2020

New Delhi, Mar 20 (ANI): Infants who are from a rural family background tend to display negative emotions, such as anger or frustration more frequently than their urban counterparts, suggests a recent study in the Journal of Community Psychology. The study has shown that babies who are born in big cities are less likely to be fussy and are not as bothered by the limits set by their caregivers. The study examines differences in infant temperament, parent-child interactions and parenting stress between families of similar socioeconomic and racial composition in the Inland Northwest and the San Francisco Bay Area. Mothers used a questionnaire to record the frequency of 191 different behaviors their child displayed at 6 and 12 months after birth. The researchers then analyzed babies along 14 different dimensions that ranged from cuddliness to vocal reactivity. Parent-child interactions, where mothers were instructed to engage their infants in play in a typical fashion, were also video-recorded in the laboratory for analysis. The team has not found statistically significant differences in levels of parenting stress between urban and rural caregivers.