Gartstein Infant Temperament Lab – Cross-Cultural
Cross-Cultural Differences
So much of the social-emotional development literature has been based on the assumption that discerned effects could be easily generalized to people/populations around the world. More recently, cross-cultural differences in the development of temperament and behavior problems have been identified, with noted variability attributed to differences in the “developmental niche”, which represents a set of factors related to the settings available to the child, caregivers’ characteristics, and daily activities, that are culturally influenced and shape the developmental process. The Gartstein laboratory continues to study cultural influences on social emotional development, most recently in the context of the Joint Effort Toddler Temperament Consortium (JETTC) that involves 14 sites around the world: US, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Russia, Finland, Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, China, South Korea, Turkey, and Chile.