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were those in which the economy placed a high premium on strength and motor skills, such as the hunting of large animals, keeping of large rather than small domestic animals, and nomadic rather than stable residence. Addition- ally, cultural communities with large, extended families showed greater dif- ferences in the raising of boys versus girls than cultures with small, nuclear families. The authors speculated that in small, nuclear families men must be prepared to take on women’s roles, and vice versa, if either member is absent or unable to carry through with their duties. Thus, sex differences in such situations cannot be too great. Larger extended families, in contrast, permit other women (or men) to take over the responsibilities of one another, and so sex-based differences in expectations are large. Such influential anthropological studies show that cultural differences across a range of areas—from distribution of labor, family structure, beliefs, and practices—influence how children are raised and affect their gender identity. In later chapters we elaborate on cultural influences on children’s gender and identity formation. CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING 7.25 1. Describe Margaret Mead’s observations of cultural differences in gender roles. ✓

Developmental Cascades

Infants differ from one another in all areas of emotional and social development, spanning emotional reactivity, the regulation of emo- tions, temperament, attachment to caregivers, and prosocial behav- iors. Do these early differences foreshadow a child’s destiny? Of course not. Infants have a lifetime of experiences ahead of them that will influence what they do and when, how, and why they engage in different behaviors. Still, the principle of developmen- tal cascades suggests that all things being equal, early differences among infants can have rippling effects across domains and time. Here we show that emotional and social development in the first years of life can cascade to language learning, school readiness, academic achievement, and social functioning. Emotion Regulation and Language Learning The popular parental refrain “use your words” captures the idea that children must learn to calm themselves down when distressed to be able to effectively communicate their needs. Indeed, emotional development spills over to learn- ing language. Infants who have developed some control over their emotions have more time and attention to devote to learning words, whereas infants who are often highly aroused by emotions take longer to develop language skills (Bloom, 1993; Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010). Developmental researcher Lois Bloom was the first to track how emo- tional expressions related to the language development of toddlers (Bloom & Capatides, 1987). The more time toddlers spent in neutral affect while playing with their mothers—that is, displaying neither positive nor negative emotions— the younger they were in acquiring first words, experiencing a rapid growth in vocabulary, and combining words into simple sentences. Neutral emotions may facilitate word learning by enabling toddlers to stay focused on what they are hearing and doing so that they can connect words to meaning. As expected, negative emotions can be especially problematic for language development. Toddlers rated as difficult in temperament by their caregivers, PROPERTY OF OXFORD

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