Abstract
Patterns of interactional synchrony were compared in mother-child and father-child dyads during dyadic and triadic interactions. Forty-two dual-earner families from the French province of Québec, Canada, participated in the study with their 32 months-old child. Parent–child interactions were coded using a taxonomy including the social partners’ physical proximity, visual and body orientation, and dyadic involvement. Analyses show similar patterns of interactional synchrony in mother-child and father-child dyads in the dyadic context while father-child dyads presented less interactional synchrony than mother-child dyads when interacting in triad. Discussion focuses on the impact of the context and on the factors that could explain the changes in father-child patterns of interaction from one context to another.
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Acknowledgements
This study is part of the dissertation research of the first author. This research was supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to Francis F. Strayer and by a doctoral scholarship granted to the first author from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil,“National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development” (CNPq). The authors wish to thank the families who generously participated in the project and Jean Bégin for his suggestions in data analyses.
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de Mendonça, J.S., Cossette, L., Strayer, F.F. et al. Mother-Child and Father-Child Interactional Synchrony in Dyadic and Triadic Interactions. Sex Roles 64, 132–142 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9875-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9875-2