This essay focuses on herding and agricultural societies. who are needy and vulnerable should learn to be self-reliant and take care of themselves
42% of herding and agricultural societies, the husbands and wives slept in separate rooms. The third most important principle for Americans was the autonomy ideal, a belief that young children who are needy and vulnerable should learn to be self-reliant and take care of themselves. In sum, with the exception of a shared concern about avoiding potentially incestuous situations. This is different cultural values guided the Indians and the Americans in deciding about sleeping arrangements. Americans strive to protect the privacy of the married couple and encourage the development of independence among their children.
Indians pref er to keep their young children and postpubescent 180 CHAPTER 5 � DEVELOPMENT AND SO CIALIZATI ON daughters from being alone and try to offer older boys the deference of not having to sleep with their parents or younger siblings. A simple decision about sleeping arrangements can tell us a lot about a culture’s values. North American children and children from many other cultures would thus appear to have very different early experiences. How do you think these different sleeping arrangements affect children’s socialization? It would seem that North American children live in an environment. This where they are by themselves from a very early age and must cry out.
when they have needs to be take care of. Children from many other cultures, in contrast, may live in an environment where their mother is always around, as in many cultures, the children are literally carry by their mother throughout the day. Mothers do not need to be call to, as they are always present to respond to the child’s needs. Furthermore, the cultural variability in children’s social worlds is not just limit to the nearness of their mothers. In many cultures around the world, children are raised in far closer proximity. This is to various other people than Western children are.
For example, whereas Scottish children spend more time with physical objects. This is than they do with people, the precise opposite pattern is evident among Nigerian children (Agiobu-Kemmer, 1984). The social worlds of young children differ dramatically around the globe, and children are thus learning very different ideas about how to perceive themselves and their relations with others (see Rothbaum, Weisz, Pott, Miyake, & Morelli, 2000).