Other Domains of Interaction

Abstract

The individual action verbs coded for child and parents can be broken down in many different ways. Thus, verbs indicating proximity seeking and attention seeking were grouped together to form the attachment system. Any action that also had the attribute of demonstrating compliance or noncompliance with the parents’ wishes was counted as a component of the compliance system. But in addition to these groupings, and partly overlapping with them, an exhaustive superordinate classification system incorporating all actions was also established. This classified child, mother, or father actions on an a priori basis into seven categories (see Table 3). The two categories that this section explores are the child’s positively and negatively toned actions.