Behavior Patterns of Mother and Child in Separation and Greeting at a Japanese Day Nursery

Abstract

An one-year ethological observation was conducted at a day nursery in a suburb of Tokyo in order to reveal the repertoire and frequency of social behavior patterns which the child and the mother showed in the situations of separation and greeting at each age group from zero to five years. Main findings were that there were developmental changes in some behavior patterns of both mother and child, that the mother hugged the female child much more than the male child during the child's age of one to three years at greeting and that insight into one aspect of the relationship between mother and child could be gained using the physical contact data. A schematic model of the relationship between mother and child is proposed as a measurement for comparative studies.