The development of mirror self recognition in different sociocultural contexts The goal of the study was to trace the development of mirror self recognition (MSR) as an index of toddlers sense of themselves and others as autonomous intentional agents in different sociocultural environments...[They] hypothesized that the onset of MSR would be earlier in sociocultural contexts in which mothers value and support their toddlers development of autonomy. Also considered were three factors that covary with culture that may compromise the cross cultural validity of MSR as a behavioral measure of toddlers sense of themselves as independent agents: familiarity with mirrors culture specific norms of expressive behavior and motivation for tactile exploration. Finally [they] analyzed toddlers reactions to their specular image (e.g. pointing playmate and experimenting behavior) across time and culture as well as their relation to MSR. The results indicate that MSR increased with age in all sociocultural contexts. from abstract