CONTEXTS AS MODERATORS OF OBSERVED INTERACTIONS - A STUDY OF COSTA-RICAN MOTHERS AND INFANTS FROM DIFFERING SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUNDS

Twenty first-born infants from low SES families and 20 first-born infa nts from middle SES families in Costa Rica were observed for 12 hours when they were 14 weeks old. The goals of this study were to: (1) stud y the impact of length of observation and context on our measures of i nteractional engagement; and (2) compare the interactional experiences of the infants in the two groups in various functional (e.g. feeding, object play) and social (e.g. with mother, with mother and others) co ntexts. Attuned and disharmonious interactions, as well as the frequen cy of positive affect, soothing, and vocalisation, varied considerably across the functional contexts. In addition, disharmonious interactio ns increased and interactional engagement decreased when mothers and i nfants were joined by others. Highly unstable measures of individual d ifferences were obtained when observations were limited to 45-minute b locks, but stability increased considerably as the duration of the obs ervations expanded. The groups did not differ with respect to amounts of time spent in various functional and social contexts, in attuned or disharmonious states, or in high levels of interactional engagement. Within some of the functional contexts, however, significant group dif ferences in levels of attuned interactions, infant vocalisation, and m aternal response vocalisation were found. Overall, functional and soci al contexts clearly moderated interactional experiences. SES effects o n verbal and other interactional measures were limited to some context s and may thus represent the infants' overall experiences quite poorly . Consequently, comparisons based on a single context may be inadequat e for studies of subjects from differing socioeconomic backgrounds.