O Envelope Narrativo e o Desenvolvimento do Self: Um Estudo Longitudinal com Mães e Bebês nos Seis Primeiros Meses de Vida

Mother-infant interactions have its dynamics defined by culture and by the value attributed to personal distance and autonomy. Mothers are responsible for establishing different socialization trajectories. In this study we focus on one of the parental systems, the narrative envelope of mother-infant interactions of two dyads with babies from birth to six months. Dyads were visited at their homes and video-taped, mothers speech directed to babies was analyzed. We observed a double tendency. Mothers speech is marked by expressions of statements of needs and mental states attributed to the baby, and by a significant presence of social rules. Evidence can be interpreted as a tendency both toward autonomy and toward interdependency. Those results contribute to the literature about mother-infant interactions and development of the self in specific cultural contexts.