Further hypothesis will include the following: 3. That infants who have indicate a greater tendency to use handrails will indicate expanded broadmindedness in other areas of life too, specifically in curiosity of environment and people and, conversely, that, 4: Infants in more confined environments will indicate reduced interest in environment and social instances that infants growing up in more expansive immediate home environments.
To test this proposition, I intend to conduct a cross-sectional observational study with a sample of closely matched infants, between the ages of 12 and 24 months, who originate from a similar socio-economic and cultural, background with their parents having similar educational levels and providing infants with similar levels of stimulation. A measure will be used to assess that the latter is indeed the case. I, then intend to enroll assistants in the project and to spend several weeks in the natural home environment, where, with handrails...
Our focus will be on investigating whether there are differences in the quantity and intensity of periods that handrails are used between infants living in houses that contain broad space and between infants living in more constricted apartment buildings. The outcome will be analyzed via a 2-sampel t-test and Cohen's test will be used to measure effect.
Ethical precautions will involve clearly explaining conditions to parents and having them sign a form enabling us to proceed with our experiment. We will ensure that we will not infringe on parents privacy and that our presence is inconspicuous. In this manner, too, infants will be enabled to act as natural as possible.
Source
Berger, S.E., & Adolph, K.E. (2003). Infants Use Handrails as Tools in a Locomotor Task. Developmental Psychology, 3, 594-605
