I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Broadly, I study early social-cognitive development in infants and young children across highly contrasted cultures to determine universals and potential variations in early social cognition. Specifically, I explore the impact of variations in the social environment in the first year of life by investigating early caregiving behaviors and caregiver-infant interactions in Fiji Islands, Kenya and US. I am collaborating on a variety of projects investigating the impact of culture on social cognition. You can read more about these specific projects on my 'research' page.
My interests in early social cognition began with an eight month youth internship in 2001 funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and supported by the COADY International Institute. I was placed in Kenya, working on development issues under the supervision of CREADIS, a local NGO. At that time, I developed an interest in the effects of differing social environments on social and cognitive development. Since then, I have been working under the supervision of - and in collaboration with - Philippe Rochat. Together we have been investigating a variety of topics in developmental psychology in various regions around the world.
Other long-term research collaborations include: Joseph Henrich, University of British Columbia; Melvin Konner, Emory University; Greg Bryant, UCLA; and Culture and the Mind Project. The Culture and the Mind Project is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK, directed by Stephen Laurence. It brings together top scholars in a variety of disciplines - anthropology, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and economics to investigate the philosophical consequences of the impact of culture on the mind and cognitive and evolutionary foundations of culture.
My primary research objective is to identify features of the early social environment that may be common across diverse settings as well as determine the impact variations may have on early social cognition. Ethnographic reports indicate significant variations in the early social environment of infants and young children, but very few exam specific micro-level caregiving behaviors (Chisholm, 1983; Whiting & Whiting, 1975). Since the work on Attachment by Bowlby (1988) and Ainsworth (1979), developmental psychologists have investigated the nature of the early parent-child relationship to determine which features aid in healthy social development (Field, 1994; Harkness & Super, 2002). More recently, researchers have found evidence in industrial societies suggesting that micro-level behaviors such as emotional mirroring, contingent responding, and infant directed speech are key components in early social experience (Bigelow, 1999; Gergely & Watson, 1996). The goal of my research is to bridge the gap between psychological theories of development and anthropological observations in various social contexts by exploring these questions in more traditional societies.
I apply western methods of observation, coding and analysis to quantify the amount and kind of maternal and paternal responsiveness to infants in three different societies in Fiji, Kenya and US. Specifically, I have found evidence across societies for emotional mirroring and contingent responding; however, significant variation exists in the amount of these behaviors as well as the parents preferred modality (tactile, facial, vocal) in each region. The universality of parental responsiveness suggests that an adaptive mechanism may have evolved yet the cultural specific features indicate that it may be tailored to meet the cultural and cognitive demands of a particular society.
A second objective of my research is to understand the developing infant in her cultural context. One of the mechanisms that may be driving universal caregiving behaviors such as affect mirroring, infant directed speech and contingency is social learning. If early interaction is a form of socialization specific to each culture, it is necessary to understand the cultural models shaping children's socialization. Researchers have proposed a universal cognitive mechanism that enables social learning through natural pedagogy or non-verbal, subtle teaching behaviors that draw an infant, child, or adult's focus onto a specific event for a learning opportunity (Gergely & Csibra, 2008). Ethnographic reports claim that direct teaching is absent across cultures (Lancy, 1996). These findings challenge the proposal that that teachingí is universal. The goal of this project was to explore whether natural pedagogical teaching cues exist across cultures. I am the lead on a project involving several anthropologists, psychologists and philosophers, funded by the AHRC Culture and the Mind project, investigating this question through an experimental paradigm in five distinct regions of the world (China, USA, Ukraine, Fiji and Kenya). We presented adults with a situation in which they would be motivated to teach in order to examine their use of non-verbal teaching cues. The data is currently being coded for analysis, yet one preliminary result for the Fijian and Kenyan regions indicates that these teaching cues are present but to a much lesser extent than in a North American setting.
Lastly, I have also begun investigating cultural models of development. The goal of this project is to aid interpretation of the variations in parental behaviors that exist across different societies. Although I have found significant variations in the age at which children are expected to attain cognitive milestones, such as understanding language or thinking, I have found consensus across cultures on physical milestones, such as smiling, crawling and walking. These results suggest that different cultural models of development exist and that these models begin to shape cognition from a very early age.
For more details, feel free to contact me.
Broesch, T., Callaghan, T. C., Henrich, J., Murphy, C., & Rochat, P. (2010). Cultural variations in children's mirror self-recognition. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Rochat, P., Dias, M., Liping, G., Broesch, T., Passos-Ferrera, C., Winning, A. & Berg, B. (2009). Fairness in distributive justice by 3- and 5-year-olds across seven cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 416-442.
Callaghan, T. C., Rochat, P., MacGillivray, T. & MacLellan, C. (2004). Modeling referential actions in 6- to 18-month-old infants: A precursor to symbolic understanding. Child Development, 75, 1733-1744.
Suanda, K., Meyer, K., Broesch, T., Kolkin, L., & Namy, L. (submitted). Two-year-olds failure to learn gestures as object labels: A problem of association or symbolic interpretation? Language Learning and Development.
Broesch, T. & Bryant, G. (in prep). Cultural variations in infant directed speech in Fiji, Kenya and USA.
Broesch, T., Henrich, J & Rochat, P. (in prep). Recognition of emotion in Fiji, Vanuatu and USA.
Tracy, J., Shariff, A., Zhao, W., Broesch, T. & Henrich, J. (in prep) Pride displays and status in Fiji.
Rochat, P., Broesch, T., Itakura, S. (in prep). Cultural variations in selective request for help in 2- to- 5-year-olds in US and Japan.
Rochat, P. & Broesch, T. (in prep). Normative conformity in mirror self-recognition.
Child Development - Symbolic Development
Tanya Broesch
Department of Psychology
Emory University
36 Eagle Row
Atlanta, GA 30322
Ph: 404.513.1716
Email: tmacgil_emory.edu
Yasawa Islands, Fiji
Teci Village, Fiji
Totoya Island, Fiji
Totoya, Fiji
Kenya 2009
Yasawa, Fiji 2008
2008
2009
