A baby from the Netherlands or Finland smiles, laughs and cuddles more than an infant growing up in the United States, according to a study by Bowdoin Professor of Psychology Sam Putnam and his colleagues. U.S. babies tend to be more active and vocal, although they also display more fear, frustration and sadness than Dutch and Finnish infants.
Putnam has for the past eight years been collecting data from different countries on infant temperaments. In two recently published studies, he and his collaborators explore some of the differences they’ve discovered specifically between babies in the Netherlands and Finland and those in the United States. Read more.