MOTHER-INFANT RELATIONSHIPS IN JAPAN - ATTACHMENT, DEPENDENCY, AND AMAE

Dependency and attachment are distinct concepts describing the mother- child relationship in infancy. The Japanese indigenous concept of amae indicates a specific quality of relationships, namely. interdependenc e, which is not captured by the Western concepts of attachment and dep endency. Eight Japanese behavioral scientists were asked to describe a mae using the Attachment Q-Sort. First, this description of amae was c ompared with descriptions of the concepts of dependency and attachment security, as provided by Western experts. Second, the expert descript ions were used to derive scores on each of the three concepts for a sa mple of Japanese infants. Both analyses showed that amae and dependenc y are highly similar and that both concepts are unrelated to attachmen t security. Furthermore, counter to our expectations, it was found tha t Japanese mothers consider attachment security to be the most desirab le of the three concepts, whereas amae is considered the least desirab le.