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Psychological autonomy and hierarchical
relatedness as organizers of
developmental pathways
Heidi Keller
Research
Cite this article: Keller H. 2016 Psychological
autonomy and hierarchical relatedness as
organizers of developmental pathways. Phil.
Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150070.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0070
Accepted: 13 July 2015
One contribution of 16 to a theme issue
‘Understanding self and other: from origins
to disorders’.
Subject Areas:
behaviour, developmental biology,
neuroscience
Keywords:
developmental pathways, infancy,
psychological autonomy,
hierarchical relatedness
Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, 49069 Osnabrück, Germany
The definition of self and others can be regarded as embodying the two dimensions of autonomy and relatedness. Autonomy and relatedness are two basic
human needs and cultural constructs at the same time. This implies that they
may be differently defined yet remain equally important. The respective
understanding of autonomy and relatedness is socialized during the everyday
experiences of daily life routines from birth on. In this paper, two developmental pathways are portrayed that emphasize different conceptions of autonomy
and relatedness that are adaptive in two different environmental contexts with
very different affordances and constraints. Western middle-class children are
socialized towards psychological autonomy, i.e. the primacy of own intentions, wishes, individual preferences and emotions affording a definition of
relatedness as psychological negotiable construct. Non-Western subsistence
farmer children are socialized towards hierarchical relatedness, i.e. positioning
oneself into the hierarchical structure of a communal system affording a definition of autonomy as action oriented, based on responsibility and obligations.
Infancy can be regarded as a cultural lens through which to study the different
socialization agendas. Parenting strategies that aim at supporting these different socialization goals in German and Euro-American parents on the one
hand and Nso farmers from North Western Cameroon on the other hand
are described. It is concluded that different pathways need to be considered
in order to understand human psychology from a global perspective.
1. Conceptions of self and others
Author for correspondence:
Heidi Keller
e-mail: [email protected]
The conceptions of self and others are organized along two basic dimensions that
represent universal human needs and culturally defined constructs at the same
time: autonomy and relatedness. Autonomy refers to self-government and
responsible control for one’s life. Relatedness refers to the social nature of
human beings and the connectedness with others. Both can be considered as
being part of the panhuman psychology and both are intrinsically intertwined.
The nature of their interrelationship has been the subject of various conceptualizations over the last decades from different points of view. From a cultural, more
precisely a societal or country point of view, the conceptions of individualism
and collectivism have become pervasively prominent [1,2]. In this conception,
individualism relates to autonomy, whereas collectivism relates to relatedness.
Based on large-scale questionnaire studies [3], individualism has been defined
as the opposite of collectivism on a bipolar unidimensional scale. This view
expresses that the more emphasis being put on the one diminishes automatically the emphasis being put on the other. These conceptions have been
transferred also to the individual level to describe individuals and personality
[4]. The corresponding terms that Harry Triandis, one of the pioneers of this
research, uses, are idiocentrism and allocentrism [5]. Idiocentrism and allocentrism
are personality attributes that are conceived of as orthogonal to each other.
Idiocentrism describes an emphasis on self-reliance, competition, uniqueness,
hedonism and emotional distance from others. Allocentrism describes an emphasis on interdependence, sociability and close relationships with others. Although
it is possible in this conception to be high or low in both dimensions, they are
& 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
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Humans are biologically prepared for developing competence in all possible environments with a universal
repertoire of predispositions and propensities. Depending
on the particular environmental information, some of these
propensities are strengthened, whereas others disappear.
Thus, humans are prepared to acquire different modes of
autonomy and relatedness, which will constitute eventually
different ways of experiencing and defining themselves as
a person. The conception of the self always includes the
definition of oneself in relation to others.
The proposal of redefining autonomy and relatedness
is based on the necessity to adapt to different environmental
conditions. As Kağitcibaşi [14], Markus & Kitayama [15] and
other have already pointed out, different conceptions of the
self are prevalent in different environments. There is consensus in the literature that the independent self is mostly to be
found in Western urban middle-class contexts. Western urban
middle-class individuals have usually a high degree of formal
education/schooling, often university degrees. The level of
formal schooling is linked to the reproductive history and
thus family patterns. The higher the formal education, the
later is the birth of the first child and the smaller the
number of offspring. Western urban middle-class individuals
mainly live in nuclear two-generation families comprising the
parents and their few children. The psychological make-up
preparing for competence in the Western middle class is
rooted in principles stemming from Western philosophical
tradition. It is a core assumption that human behaviour
and experience rely on personal preferences and choice,
embodying the individual right of freedom, self-realization,
self-determination and self-governance [16 –18]. Moreover,
it is assumed that human behaviour and inner experience
are primarily driven by mental states that are intrinsic, autonomous and independent. These conditions are assumed to
establish the basis for health and well-being [19]. The emphasis on a self-definition rooted in independent mental states
with a focus on choice, individual preferences, self-maximization and self-fulfilment is best captured as psychological
autonomy. Psychological autonomy enacts a self-reflective
way of being centring on the exploration and reflective
awareness of personal desires, wishes and intentions. This
conception represents what is usually defined as autonomy
or agency in most of the present literature. This mode of
defining autonomy has consequences for the definition of
relatedness. Relatedness in this worldview must mean that
separate, self-contained individuals establish self-selected
relations with others that are defined and negotiated from
the point of view of individual psychological autonomy.
Thus, the conception of relatedness is in the service of
psychological autonomy. Psychological autonomy is therefore the leading principle for the embodiment of relatedness
and the resulting definition of the self. This does not imply
that relatedness is less important for the psychological functioning and well-being of the individual than autonomy.
It may even become dominant in the psychological experience, because the individual freedom of all social partners
to establish and negotiate relationships may also become a
source of uncertainty and stress. In clinical counselling, the
term relationship work or effort is very popular describing
the investment that individuals have to make in order to
establish and maintain rewarding personal relationships.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150070
2. Autonomy and relatedness revisited
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usually conceived of as mutually exclusive. Arising from multiple conceptual and methodological criticisms [6] claims were
formulated that autonomy and relatedness can coexist and
need to coexist because they are both human needs. Particularly prominent became Kağitcibaşi’s four-field scheme with
variations in the dimensions of agency and interpersonal distance [7]. Agency can be defined in terms of autonomy or
in terms of heteronomy, interpersonal distance in terms of
closeness or separateness. Through the combination of these
categories, four different types can be derived, originally formulated for families but soon transferred to the definition
of selves. The independent self combines separateness with
autonomy, the interdependent self combines heteronomy
with closeness and the autonomous related self combines
autonomy with closeness. The fourth type, the separated heteronomous self represents more a pathological condition and is
largely neglected in consequent research. Kağitcibaşi’s proposal was driven by different socioecological profiles, where the
independent self stands for Western middle-class individuals,
the interdependent self for the rural farming community and
the autonomous related self for the formally highly educated
non-Western urban families and individuals. The contrast
between the Western and particularly the East Asian self
has become the focus of another very prominent conception
starting with the seminal paper by Markus & Kitayama [8]
on independent and interdependent selves. They reviewed
research on various dimensions of personality and social behaviour and came to conclude that the Euro-American self
functions as an independent, self-reliant and competitive
agency, emphasizing the separate individual with desires,
intentions and wishes, whereas the Japanese, Korean or
Chinese self functions as an interdependent agency that takes
the wishes and intentions of the social others into the own
executive functioning. Both conceptions address obviously
urban educated individuals, because research has mainly
concentrated on college and university students. Following
this, different variations of the interdependent self were proposed such as the conjoint agency [9], communal mastery
[10] or relationally autonomous self [11].
All these conceptions have in common that autonomy/
agency/mastery is referring to the intentional, mental world
of wishes, desires, cognitions and control of individual options
and choices. Relatedness on the other hand is assumed to
cover the need for closeness with others and any social actions
in the service of a social system. It is usually argued that
these conceptions are valued and develop to different degrees
depending on the cultural/geographical context like EuroAmerica or East Asia. However, as I have argued elsewhere,
both needs are equally important to everybody, yet they
must manifest differently in different cultural/contextual
environments. Accordingly, there must be different ways and
modes to define autonomy and different ways and modes
of defining relatedness without tackling the individual and
communal importance of the conceptions [12,13]. In the
following, a reconceptualization of autonomy and relatedness
will be developed. Because it can be assumed that the respective understanding of autonomy and relatedness will be
acquired during socialization processes, two different developmental pathways will be highlighted emphasizing different
conceptions of self and relationships: Western middle-class
and subsistence-based farmers. This does not exclude that
other conceptualizations of autonomy and relatedness exist
as related to other contextual demands.
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3. The socialization of self-ways
The conception of self and self in relation to others is acquired
during ontogeny through processes of construction and coconstruction of individuals with their social as well as
physical environment. These processes start with birth and
possibly also before. Human infants are equipped with an
enormous array of possibilities that become shaped and differentiated along developmental pathways. Humans are
also equipped with an intuitive behavioural repertoire to
care for babies and children. Healthy male and female
adults, parents as well as non-parents, but also children as
young as 3 years of age display spontaneous soothing/comforting to fussing babies, provide them with stimulation, and
enjoy interacting with them in different behavioural channels
[24]. These experiences provide babies with the essence of
cultural models prevalent in their environment. Although
the predispositions that babies bring with them as well
as the parenting repertoire can be regarded as universal,
socialization contexts nevertheless vary tremendously. It is
obvious that the self-ways of psychological identity and hierarchical relatedness cannot be primed and supported through
the same socialization experiences. Nevertheless, humans
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Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150070
exclusive views on human behaviour and experience. This
exclusiveness, however, does not mean that these concepts
are one-dimensional, bipolar or monolithic as the conceptions
of individualism/collectivism or ideocentrism/allocentrism
briefly described earlier. Beyond the two prototypical contexts, many other configurations are possible. Non-Western
highly educated urban middle-class families are an especially
well-studied group of ecosocial contexts that gave rise to the
definition of autonomous relatedness or interdependent
agency referred to earlier [14,25,26]. Autonomous relatedness
reflects adaptive changes given a global pattern of urbanization and socioeconomic development [7,25,27]. High levels
of formal education and participation in a modern market
economy led these families to adopt autonomous values
and the associated system of shared meanings and practices.
At the same time, strong social cohesion and family orientation clearly organize, orient and dominate the more
private spheres of life. As briefly mentioned before, it can
also be assumed that migrants with a hierarchical relational
background coming into Western societies with a dominant
psychological autonomous mode of functioning develop combinations that are recently considered as modes of collective
identity [28]. More generally, it has to be stated that cultures
cannot be conceived of as static units, but as changing and
developing organisms. Cultural values, attitudes and behavioural codes change constantly, because environments also
change with respect to their constituent parameters. However,
cultural environments differ with respect to the pace of change.
Environments where the living conditions from generation to
generation remain similar, as is often the case in subsistencebased farming villages, embody only small changes, whereas
Western middle-class life from generation to generation differs
substantially. However, change is not a one-dimensional
process, it may vary across domains [29].
In order to understand combinations and syntheses,
knowledge about the two prototypes is extremely helpful
because it allows the recognition of dimensions underlying
behavioural and mental expressions/appearances.
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This particular self-way helps individuals to function in
a complex world which is characterized by daily multiple
encounters with strangers, uncertainty and unpredictability of
life circumstances related to technological and societal change,
necessitating mobility in a competitive labour force. Selfcenteredness and flexibility are therefore crucial in order to
define and establish the individuals’ own position in society.
However, one has to keep in mind that these environments
characterize the life and associated self-ways of only about 5%
of the world’s population. The majority of the world’s population lives under quite different conditions with substantially
different sociodemographic parameters. Traditionally living
rural farmers, for example, make-up for about 30–40% of the
world’s population. This is an interesting group to address
because the industrialized and post-industrialized information-based societies evolved out of farming communities
[20]. Moreover, the vast majority of migrants wandering into
Western societies come from rural traditional farming villages
in diverse countries. The knowledge of the psychological
make-up of this cultural model is therefore crucially important
for coexistence in modern multicultural societies.
Subsistence-based farmers in non-Western societies
usually have a relatively low level of formal education,
around 0 and 7 years of schooling at most. It has to be
noted, however, that this qualification relates exclusively to
formal school education and does not express the degree of
education in general, especially not the acquisition of informal local expertise. Related to the lower level of formal
education is a relatively early age at first birth, usually
during the late teenage years. The number of offspring is
higher, and the organization of family life is within multigenerational households with fluid boundaries. Daily
chores such as farming and household responsibilities are
managed through communal efforts where each individual
has assigned tasks that are integrated into a hierarchical
family system. The social organization is small scale, faceto-face with high degrees of familiarity and predictability,
including only little change from generation to generation.
The communal tasks can only be solved through the embodiment of communal goals replacing largely personal choices
and preferences and behavioural obligations replacing largely
mental state reflections. These emphases lead to the primacy
of hierarchical relatedness.
Anthropologists have described states of mind that are
different from the reflective theory of mind as discussed in
the Western literature [21]. For example, the South Sea Kaluli
rainforest dwellers assert that they do not know what others
think or feel or what is in the minds of others. Their conception
of mind has been described as expressing opacity by Schieffelin
& Ochs [22]. Similarly, Everett [23], in his observations of the
Amazonian Piraha Indians, describes a principle of ‘immediacy of experience’ that excludes reference to experiences
beyond the here and now. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied
that the South Sea Kaluli people or Amazonian Piraha Indians
exert agency and autonomy in their lives; otherwise, they could
not survive in harsh and demanding environments. This state
of mind has also been observed in Cameroonian Nso farmers
and Indian Rajput farmers in Gujarat [24].
We have described these two self-ways as prototypical.
Prototypical means that the respective modes of autonomy
and relatedness are consistent across most if not all spheres
of life. In part, comparing the two prototypical ecosocial contexts and associated self-ways implies contrasting mutually
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From birth on, infants experience not only intensive and
exclusive attention, but also substantial amounts of time
that they are expected to spend alone. Their social encounters
occur during care situations, when they are fed, diaper changed, bathed, play situations and alone. Social situations are
structured dyadically, so that face-to-face exchange, which
is considered as the major communication channel, can be
performed. A typical free play situation is demonstrated in
figure 1.
The baby is usually placed on the back with mother, father
or, more seldom, a grandmother/grandfather bending over the
baby. Caretakers intuitively bring their face to the distance
where baby can focus, so that they have a clear vision, which
is around 30 cm [31], allowing for facial exchange. At the
same time, an array of toys is displayed, which can stimulate
the baby with colour, shape, sound and movement. The caretaker, usually the mother, accompanies the whole scenario
with a continuous flow of verbal comments. Babies’ signals
are commented on, questions are formulated and assumed
states, wishes and intentions are interpreted. The verbalizations are structured as quasi-dialogues, involving the baby
in a patterned conversation. The interactional set-up is
distal, because the distant senses dominate with vision and
audition. Body contact, tactile and body stimulation play a
minor role.
Face-to-face exchange represents a frame for more subtle
but nevertheless significant cultural messages. One of these
messages is the acquisition of control beliefs, i.e. infants learn
that they can control the behaviour of others and that makes
the social environment predictable at the same time. This is
achieved with the contingency detection mechanism. During
the first months of life, babies have a very limited memory
span of about 1 s [32]. If events occur during this time span,
they can be perceived as belonging together. Therefore, a tendency to respond to infants’ signals faster than a second has
Figure 1. The daily experience of a Western middle-class baby.
obviously evolved as part of the intuitive parenting repertoire.
This allows infants to experience themselves as agents in the
social world. At the same time, infants perceive themselves
as separated from others, which also is a cornerstone in the
development of psychological autonomy [31,33].
Toys are not only a medium for cognitive stimulation,
they also prepare infants to spend time on their own, without
others. Therefore, mothers try to direct the attention of their
babies to toys from early on and ask ‘what do you see?,
Tell me, what do you see? What do you see?’
At the same time, they give babies the choice to concentrate on them or on the object: ‘She is looking at their
toy. This is more interesting than mom. This is ok! She can
do this!’
Supporting the interest in toys opens the avenue for the
socialization agenda of functioning separately from others,
i.e. being able to spend time alone, which constitutes another
dimension of independence. A mother in her mid-thirties,
whose baby has just become three months of age, expresses
this philosophy quite clearly:
M: And they don’t require having someone there constantly.
‘Cause sometimes they get so clingy and whiny, and
that’s just cause they don’t know how to be alone. And
it’s important for kids, for humans to having a relationship
with themselves that they can be alone.
I: Mhm. When they are older?
M: Uhm—even when they are babies, they need to be able to
just not have constant—constantly somebody there.
I: Mhm
M: Helps them develop some self-identity.
In an ongoing study with German middle-class families,
we found that three-month-old babies spend as much time
alone as they spend in exclusive dyadic attention, i.e. 28% [34].
Another early expression of individuality is the display of
positive emotions. Showing positive emotions initiates the separate individual self [35]. Babies are expected to smile, especially
when others are around. ‘You enjoy life, I know!’ can be heard
from middle-class mothers responding to their infants smiling
face. The urge for the display of positive emotions can even be
pronounced quite directly: ‘You should smile, you have to
smile’ is contrary to other conversations not giving a choice
but a clear command. Mothers can become quite desperate if
the baby does not want to smile: ‘My sweetheart, what is the
matter? Are you bored or what? Is it so difficult to make a
friendly face?’
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150070
4. The psychologically autonomous pathway
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maintain enough flexibility over their lifespan in order to
acquire new strategies. However, the younger the organism
is, the easier is cultural learning and early acquired knowledge
is more resistant to change. Acculturation research has
therefore demonstrated over recent years that assimilation,
i.e. giving up the cultural identity of origin and replacing
it with a new identity, is a condition that leads to stress,
unfavourable developmental achievements and maladaptation. Collective identity, for example, assumes additive/
multiple and interactive dimensions of identity [30].
Socialization goals, parenting ideas and ethnotheories as
well as behavioural strategies displayed and estimated are
meaningfully different. In the following sections, the different
developmental pathways across the early years will be portrayed. These reports are largely based on our own research
programme with volunteering families in different cultural
contexts. Families representing these different sociodemographic profiles were contacted owing to local customs, e.g.
directly in middle-class families or through local authorities
in non-Western villages. Observations of interactional patterns
were made in the natural family environments. In order to
grasp the cultural meanings of behavioural strategies, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted (for more
details of the research methodology, see Keller [24,28]).
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Another cornerstone of individuality is praise:
M: Could you please bring the cloth to me? Do you know
where the cloth is? Hm? Where is the cloth?
The boy scans different parts of the chair and tries to climb
up. He seemingly does not pay attention to what his mom
is saying.
M: What is it with which mom does the dishes? The sponge,
do you know where the sponge is? Hm? Can you please
bring the sponge to me?
The mother bends closer to the boy. The boy hugs the chair
and scans the kitchen.
M: Hm? Little mouse. With what does Fabian (name) do the
dishes? Where is the water, Fabian, hm?
The mother grasps the arm of the boy. The boy looks up, they
This example clearly demonstrates that the structure of
the early conversations is continued during the following
year. The mother is completely child-centred, very positive
and supportive, using a highly elaborated speech register.
She embeds her request in numerous questions, gives
prompts and finally accepts that her boy is not interested in
following her plea and does not grant much attention to
her. She wants her boy to comply unforced, out of his own
will and his own decision and accepts that he does not. The
presence of the camera may have supported her behaviour,
however, it is not probable that she would have acted qualitatively differently without the presence of the camera. Social
desirability concerns may make culturally valued forms of
behaviour even more pronounced.
This structure remains the same over the preschool years
as the following short transcript of a conversation between a
Berlin middle-class mother and her 3-year-old boy demonstrates. They are talking about the boy’s birthday, which
dates back about a week.
M: It was cool, your birthday?
C: Mhm.
M: Already in the morning?
C: Yes, I wanted . . . red presents, not blue ones.
M: Red wrappings you wanted for your presents?
C: Mhm, yeah.
M: And you did not like the blue ones?
C: Mhmmhm.
M: Yes, but you liked the presents, right? Yes?
C: But not this blue one with the fishes.
The little dialogue centres around the boy’s colour
preferences. The mother clearly accepts that he wanted red
wrappings and not blue ones. She reaffirms his preferences.
She uses mental language with ‘liking’, ‘wanting’. The boy
expresses the same mental language, he clearly articulates
his preferences and talks about his wishes and wants [38].
The vast majority of children in Western middle-class families
visit out of home care institutions, daycare, nursery school,
kindergarten. The higher the level of parental formal education, the earlier children attend out of home care and the
more time they spend there [39,40]. The curricula reflect
to a large extent the essentials of home care: self-selected
activities, choice, emphasizing individuality, agency and
dyadic interactions as much as possible. Children thus
develop within a consistent cultural milieu and acquire
the tools that are adaptive to this milieu. This is how the
self-way of psychological autonomy and the associated
conception of relationships emerge.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150070
This is a short bout of conversation from a middle-class
mother in Los Angeles with her three-month-old baby boy.
These short transcripts exemplify that the narrative envelope of social interactions is obviously very important. These
embellished conversations introduce the baby to his or her
inner, mental world. They centre around inner states (‘Are
you bored? You do not like this any more?’), cognitions
(‘What do you think about this? Hmm?’, ‘Do you remember
the circular?’), positive emotionality (‘Do you give mommy a
smile?’), intentions (‘O, you want to reach for it now. There
you go.’) and preferences (‘Okay, should I read another
little book to you?’, ‘Want to look at mommy for a second
or are you busy? Busy huh?’). Mentalization is a form of
imaginative mental activity, which allows the perception
and interpretation of human behaviour in terms of intentional mental states (needs, desires, feelings, beliefs, goals,
purposes and reasons) [36]. Moreover, the interpretations
are stated in question format, which involves the baby in a
quasi-dialogue where each of the infant’s even most subtle
signals is treated as a communicative contribution.
During the first year of life, psychological autonomy is
primed with these interactional and conversational mechanisms, which are elaborated and consolidated during the
next years. The cultural messages remain the same in structure and content, but become adapted to the developmental
level of the child. The 2-year-old toddler experiences extensive dyadic and exclusive attention and directs the maternal
behaviour to a large extent. During play episodes, 19-monthold German toddlers from middle-class families have the
lead. Mothers follow their initiatives and play with what
the toddlers start playing [37]. Children from Western
middle-class families usually do not have any social obligations
or responsibilities. They are used to following their intentions,
wishes and preferences.
The following short transcript exemplifies the attempts of
a Berlin mother to convince her 19-month-old son to follow a
simple request. In a study observing compliant behaviours in
toddlers, we asked mothers to give simple orders to their children to bring an item or to put an item away. The requested
items as well as the locations were familiar to the children.
Following is the conversation around this task.
Mother and child are in the kitchen. The mother bends to
her boy who stands close to a chair and watches the seat. She
says in a friendly voice:
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‘Okay, you’re the tallest boy in the world huh? Look how tall you
are. Look at those strong legs. [. . .] look how big that big boy is?
[. . .] Super baby, super baby. Look at that, look.’
look into each other’s faces.
Mom keeps the boy, who wants to move away.
M: Little mouse, where is the water, hm?
The boy mutters something, points to the sink with his arm
and looks at the sink.
M: Can you bring the sponge? The one with which mom
does the dishes?
The boy looks at the camera and moves towards the camera.
M: Do you bring me the sponge, Fabian, hm?
The mother caresses lovingly the hair of the boy.
M: Do you bring me the sponge?
The boy moves on to the camera. He does not follow his
mother’s requests and she gives up eventually.
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5. The hierarchical relational pathway
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Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150070
From birth on, infants are embedded into a dense social
network. They are constantly in close proximity to their caregivers; however, they are never the centre of attention. They
are lying in the laps, attached to the back or hip of their caregivers. Farmer families in rural India and rural sub-Saharan
African countries who were told that in Western countries
infants spend time alone and also sleep alone from very
early on, consider these practices as child maltreatment
[24,41]. Infants usually have several caretakers, often only
little older children, that are organized in a system of alloparental care. The mother may be the main caretaker among
others, but may also not be the main caretaker of her child
(see reference [42] for several examples). There are no extra
appliances for babies, they are just present during the
ongoing activities of women’s everyday routines such as
cooking, cleaning and farm work. Boys (brothers, uncles,
neighbours) also mind babies until they are initiated into
the men’s world, when the lives of men and women
become rather segregated. Children may roam around the village with babies on their backs. Owing to this positioning,
there is little face-to-face contact. Body contact is the major
channel of communication (figure 2).
There is also contingent responsiveness, but not in the
distal channel; there are rather proximal regulations, subtle
bodily adjustments and interventions [43]. Another important parenting dimension is motor stimulation, for example
massage in India or rhythmical movement in the case of
the North West Cameroonian Nso. There are even occasional
bouts of exclusive attention, when Nso babies are held
upright and rhythmically moved up and down. Nso consider
this practice a very important parenting strategy and do not
believe that babies can develop and grow adequately without
this special treatment [44]. Rhythmicity is an important cornerstone of the proximal handling of the infant and verbal/
vocal exchange is also mainly performed rhythmically,
often in synchrony with the motor stimulation. This special
treatment is not intended to provide the infant with experiences of being a separate and independent agent, but quite
on the contrary to induce the baby into a communal act, to
blur ego boundaries and support symbiosis between infant
and caretaker. Because this pattern is performed by several
caretakers, individual relationships are not emphasized but
the perception of oneself as part of a social system is. This
does not exclude the importance of predictability. Infants
learn that there is a reliable and predictable response to
their subtle signals of distress, which is expressed as physical
availability instead of distal responsiveness [45,46].
Toys and objects hardly play any role in this caretaking
system. The reference system is social, not physical. Stimulating and entertaining the baby are also of minor importance.
The emphasis is on reducing or better avoiding distress and
maintaining the baby in a quiet, calm and consoled state.
This coincides with emphasizing emotional neutrality.
The control of emotional expressions is considered a major
developmental achievement during the first years of life.
In fact, Nso babies show less smiling after two months than
German middle-class babies in line with their mothers/
caretakers interactional strategies [47].
Babies are addressed in their social roles often in the third
person, e.g. as child. They may also be addressed as ‘grandmother’, which relates them to the ancestors, whom they may
6
Figure 2. The daily experience of an Nso farmer child.
replace in the cycle of life. Ontogeny is part of a cycle with a
phase of spiritual selfhood and not a linear birth to death
journey as in Western philosophy [48].
The content of speech that is directed to infants is about
others, the ‘we’ instead of the ‘self’ and the ‘I’ that Western
middle-class babies learn to concentrate on. The content
addresses issues of the here-and-now, behaviour and actions
instead of reflections and mentalizing. A great deal of speech
also contains moral messages and refers to behavioural conventions of the community: ‘we do not cry here in Mweh’
(name of the village). There are hardly any questions but statements and instructions, even commands. There is no sign of
praise but rather shaming and teasing is a valued socialization
strategy. ‘Are you a pumpkin leaf’ asks a mother of her threemonth-old boy who is not sitting upright [49]. Teasing and
shaming have been reported also from other relational contexts, e.g. in Asia or Kaluli Island [50]. The caretaker
definitely takes the lead, placing the baby in a more passive
position. Carers know what is good for a baby, so they do
not need to explore their wishes. They stress the importance
of integration into the social system. An Nso grandmother
explains the importance of cooperation and sharing:
And then when you cooperate like that, you see life goes, it
moves. You see days are just running out like that. But when
you tend to have a bad impression and don’t share with
people, you are just in chaos with people, in short you don’t
see days moving. You don’t even live longer. That is one important thing. You don’t live longer when you are angry with
people. But when you share with people, they encourage you
and you see days moving faster.
This 70-year-old woman summarizes her philosophy of
life, of which cooperation and sharing are a vital part as
they are intrinsically intertwined with the flow of time.
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6. Beyond the first year
This dialogue is obviously structured along different principles compared with the conversation between the Berlin
mother and her 3-year-old boy. Also, here the mother –
child dyad was instructed to talk about a recent past event.
The mother asked for particular information with closed
The development of self—and other—knowledge varies from
early on across cultures. It is based on the experience of social
as well as non-social information that is communicated in
the course of daily routines. This information conveys
norms, standards and conventions that have developed in
particular environments as adaptations to contextual
demands. Two prototypical pathways have been portrayed
here. One pathway is adaptive for the way of life in the
highly formally educated Western middle-class milieu. The
preparation for a life in a competitive world of other individual self-contained agencies is primed through individual
psychological autonomy with an early emphasis on subjective wishes, intentions and preferences. It is demonstrated
that infants’ experiences are informed by these socialization
goals from birth on. The other pathway that is described
here is adaptive for the life in a communal network of a hierarchically organized extended family or clan. The preparation
for life in small scale, face-to-face villages is primed through
hierarchical relatedness, where obedience and respect form
the basis for responsible action in the service of the community.
This action autonomy is equally based on individual decisions
and responsibilities (how to care for a younger sibling, how
much water or firewood can be carried, how to sell dumplings
in the market). The preparation for a life in a particular environment does not exclude, however, the human capacity for
lifelong change, including the acquisition of different selfways and different social relationships. Migrants demonstrate
convincingly that these processes are happening and that
they can lead to multiple or collective identities [30]. However,
the results of these processes depend on numerous factors
which are not only located in the individual, but also in the
home community they leave and the new society they join
[53]. The discrepancy between the living context left and the
one joined is certainly an important dimension. Coming from
a prototypical subsistence farming community with a low
degree of formal education and a relationally organized
family pattern into a highly formally educated middle-class
environment, Western as well as non-Western, may be the
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150070
M: We went to Mi’s mother’s compound and she gave what
to you, faay?
C: Who?
M: Mi’s mother. What did she give to you?
C: Puff puff (this is a local staple)
M: Sit on the chair. You went to the house of Sallama and
heard what they were doing?
C: Mmh?
M: You went to the house of Sallama and heard what they
were doing there?
C: Mmh?
M: You went to the house of Sallama and heard what that
they were doing?
C: I did not hear.
M: I am saying that eh? You went to the house of Sallama’s,
heard what that they were doing there?
C: #they#
M: #They were# singing the song that what?
C: They gave puff puff, you gave puff puff.
M: They gave puff puff?
C: You gave puff puff.
M: And you ate.
7. Conclusion
7
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During the first year of life, hierarchical relatedness is primed
with these social/interactional mechanisms, which are
further consolidated during the coming years in the relational
network of the household and the community. Also, this
pathway is characterized by consistency of cultural messages.
Two-year-old children have learned to comply with the situational needs that are defined by the elderly, including older
children. They are able to run errands and they help with
simple chores. Contrary to their Western middle-class peers,
they immediately execute requests and follow instructions
without hesitation [51]. They are also expected to run
chores independently based on prior learning: ‘if he sees
their dish somewhere the child will take it and bring to the
house’, explains a mother about adequate child behaviour.
Running chores independently and without being reminded
is in fact a characteristic of a good memory and an intelligent
child [52]. Being able to contribute to the maintenance and
functioning of the household is the arena for the development
of self-worth and autonomy. Autonomy is already necessary
for learning, because learning is through observation and imitation, not by instruction and didactic offerings. A 40-year-old
Nso woman explains in an interview: ‘you tell the child what
is right by doing that thing. Yes by doing it. She learns faster
when you do it and she sees than just telling her’.
Different from the expressive and rather loud way of
being of the Western middle-class child, the Nso farmer
child is silent, modest and does not want to stick out of the
group. Nso farmer children do not speak out and they have
learned to answer briefly and affirmatively only when they
are asked. The following conversation between a mother
and her 3-year-old boy is an example of culturally highly
valued communicative behaviour (M, mother; C, child).
questions. She wants to hear that one correct answer and
does not leave room for elaborated child contributions. The
conversation is about other people and centres around food
and eating, i.e. concrete behaviours. The child is addressed
in a role: faay, which is a traditional title, that is granted
to children, again, in order to refer to the cycle of life.
Overall, the conversation confirms the communal hierarchical
structure of the Nso farmer worldview [38].
Nso children also visit educational institutions. At 3 years
of age, they attend nursery schools that are widespread in
the villages, run by churches and the communes. Children
are prepared for primary school and trained in numbers,
letters, but also in moral behaviour and communal values.
They wear uniforms and sit in proper order to listen to
the teachers’ commands and instructions. Lots of activities
are performed as a group, singing, repeating, marching. Important is the uniformity of the rhythm not allowing for individual
variation. Thus, Nso farmer children also develop within a consistent cultural milieu and acquire the tools that are adaptive to
this milieu. This is how the self-way of hierarchical relatedness
and the associated conception of relationships emerge.
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from the perspective of application. Programmes and curricula
which aim to improve the life of people in non-Western environments are often based on Western middle-class philosophy,
and often do not have the success that is warranted (see also
references [54,55]). The necessity for embracing cultural sensitivity pertains to all spheres of life in multicultural societies,
healthcare and counselling, education, and well-being.
Competing interests. We have no competing interests.
Funding. Research reported here was supported by grants from the
German Research Council.
Acknowledgements. We are especially grateful to our research assistants
in the different field sites and all the families who permitted us to
share their daily life and answered all our questions.
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