Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults

Infants universally elicit in adults a set of solicitous behaviors that are evolutionarily important for the survival of the species. However, exposure, experience, and prejudice appear to govern adults' social choice and ingroup attitudes towards other adults. In the current study, physiologic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Esposito, Gianluca, Nakazawa, Jun, Ogawa, Shota, Stival, Rita, Kawashima, Akiko, Putnick, Diane L., Bornstein, Marc H.
Other Authors: Senju, Atsushi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84157
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41648
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-84157
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-841572022-02-16T16:29:08Z Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults Esposito, Gianluca Nakazawa, Jun Ogawa, Shota Stival, Rita Kawashima, Akiko Putnick, Diane L. Bornstein, Marc H. Senju, Atsushi School of Humanities and Social Sciences Infants Face Infants universally elicit in adults a set of solicitous behaviors that are evolutionarily important for the survival of the species. However, exposure, experience, and prejudice appear to govern adults' social choice and ingroup attitudes towards other adults. In the current study, physiological arousal and behavioral judgments were assessed while adults processed unfamiliar infant and adult faces of ingroup vs. outgroup members in two contrasting cultures, Japan and Italy. Physiological arousal was investigated using the novel technique of infrared thermography and behavioral judgments using ratings. We uncovered a dissociation between physiological and behavioral responses. At the physiological level, both Japanese and Italian adults showed significant activation (increase of facial temperature) for both ingroup and outgroup infant faces. At the behavioral level, both Japanese and Italian adults showed significant preferences for ingroup adults. Arousal responses to infants appear to be mediated by the autonomic nervous system and are not dependent on direct caregiving exposure, but behavioral responses appear to be mediated by higher-order cognitive processing based on social acceptance and cultural exposure. Published version 2016-11-29T07:01:47Z 2019-12-06T15:39:29Z 2016-11-29T07:01:47Z 2019-12-06T15:39:29Z 2014 Journal Article Esposito, G., Nakazawa, J., Ogawa, S., Stival, R., Kawashima, A., Putnick, D. L., et al. (2014). Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults. PLoS ONE, 9(10), e106705-. 1932-6203 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84157 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41648 10.1371/journal.pone.0106705 25353362 en PLoS ONE This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. 8 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Infants
Face
spellingShingle Infants
Face
Esposito, Gianluca
Nakazawa, Jun
Ogawa, Shota
Stival, Rita
Kawashima, Akiko
Putnick, Diane L.
Bornstein, Marc H.
Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults
description Infants universally elicit in adults a set of solicitous behaviors that are evolutionarily important for the survival of the species. However, exposure, experience, and prejudice appear to govern adults' social choice and ingroup attitudes towards other adults. In the current study, physiological arousal and behavioral judgments were assessed while adults processed unfamiliar infant and adult faces of ingroup vs. outgroup members in two contrasting cultures, Japan and Italy. Physiological arousal was investigated using the novel technique of infrared thermography and behavioral judgments using ratings. We uncovered a dissociation between physiological and behavioral responses. At the physiological level, both Japanese and Italian adults showed significant activation (increase of facial temperature) for both ingroup and outgroup infant faces. At the behavioral level, both Japanese and Italian adults showed significant preferences for ingroup adults. Arousal responses to infants appear to be mediated by the autonomic nervous system and are not dependent on direct caregiving exposure, but behavioral responses appear to be mediated by higher-order cognitive processing based on social acceptance and cultural exposure.
author2 Senju, Atsushi
author_facet Senju, Atsushi
Esposito, Gianluca
Nakazawa, Jun
Ogawa, Shota
Stival, Rita
Kawashima, Akiko
Putnick, Diane L.
Bornstein, Marc H.
format Article
author Esposito, Gianluca
Nakazawa, Jun
Ogawa, Shota
Stival, Rita
Kawashima, Akiko
Putnick, Diane L.
Bornstein, Marc H.
author_sort Esposito, Gianluca
title Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults
title_short Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults
title_full Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults
title_fullStr Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults
title_full_unstemmed Baby, You Light-Up My Face: Culture-General Physiological Responses to Infants and Culture-Specific Cognitive Judgements of Adults
title_sort baby, you light-up my face: culture-general physiological responses to infants and culture-specific cognitive judgements of adults
publishDate 2016
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84157
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41648
_version_ 1725985595151351808