Father-Infant Interaction, Paternal Ideas About Early Child Care, and Their Consequences for the Development of Children's Self-Recognition

Abstract

In this longitudinal study, the authors addressed intracultural variation on fathers' interactions with their 3-month-old infants, their ideas about parental care, and the timing of their children's self-recognition at the age of 18-20 months. Participants were 24 middle-class German fathers and their firstborn children. Two behavioral clusters emerged: a more proximal parenting style with extensive body contact and a more distal parenting style with extensive object stimulation. Fathers in the distal cluster had significantly more education than did fathers in the proximal cluster. Children who had experienced more distal parenting were more likely to recognize themselves in a mirror than were children with more proximal parenting. The authors discuss the results with respect to fathers' influence on child development and patterns of intracultural variation.