Socioemotional Development in Infancy

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Socioemotional Development in Infancy

• Chapter 6

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EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• Basic emotions, such as happiness, interest,
  surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust, are
  directly inferred from facial expressions.
• An emotion or affect that can involve
  physiological arousal, conscious experience, or
  behavioral expression

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What is the emotional state of this baby?Carroll
Izards MAX System can be used to code
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Emotions emerge in sequence

• Social smile
• Evoked by the stimulus of the human face
• First appears between 4 and 6 weeks
• Anger, surprise, sadness
• First appears around 3 to 4 months in response to
  active stimuli.
• Shame 6 to 8 months
• Contempt 2 years

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Negative Emotions

• Anger is expressed during the first months when
  babies cry in response to unpleasant experiences
  (4-6 months).
• Expressions of sadness are usually less frequent
  than anger.
• Fear rises during the second half of the first
  year.
• cause and effect
• stranger anxiety

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Why is this baby crying?

• Could be out of anger, pain, or unknown reasons

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Can babies imitate emotions? (Meltzoff)
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Understanding and Responding to the Emotions of
Others

• Emotion Contagion (birth)
• Social referencing (1 year)
• Infant relies on a trusted person's emotional
  reaction in an uncertain situation.
• By toddlerhood, children use emotional signals to
  infer others internal states and guide their own
  actions.

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Emergence of Self-Conscious Emotions

• At the end of the second year (18-24 months)
• Child needs to have a self-concept
• Injury to or enhancement of the sense of self
• Embarassment, guilt, envy, pride
• Helps children to acquire values of society

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Beginnings of Emotional Self-Regulation

• Emotional self-regulation refers to the
  strategies used to adjust emotional states to a
  comfortable level of intensity.
• Infants have only limited capacity to regulate
  their emotional states.
• By the end of the first year, babies ability to
  move around permits them to regulate feelings
  more effectively by approaching or retreating
  from various stimuli.

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End of lecture 1
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TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

• Temperament
• stable individual differences in quality and
  intensity of emotional reaction, activity level,
  attention, and emotional self-regulation.
• New York Longitudinal Study (Thomas Chess,
  1956) indicates
• Temperament predicts adjustment.
• Parenting can modify emotional styles.

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Structure of Temperament

• Easy child (40)
• Quickly establishes regular routines in infancy,
  is generally cheerful, and adapts easily to new
  experiences
• Difficult child (10)
• Irregular in daily routines, is slow to accept
  new experiences, and tends to react negatively
  and intensely
• Slow-to-warm-up child (15)
• Inactive, shows mild reactions to stimuli, is
  negative, and adjusts slowly to new experiences

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Measuring Temperament

• Assessed through
• Parent interviews and questionnaires
• Behavior ratings by medical professionals or
  caregivers
• Direct researcher observation
• Physiological measures supplement these
  techniques.
• Heart rate, hormone levels, and EEG waves in the
  frontal cortex differentiate children with
  inhibited and uninhibited temperamental styles.

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Genetic Influences

• Twin studies reveal that identicals are more
  similar than fraternals.
• About half the individual differences among us
  can be traced to differences in our genetic
  make-up.
• Ethnic and sex differences in early temperament
  exist, implying a role for heredity.

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Environmental Influences

• Differences in temperament are encouraged by
  cultural beliefs and practice.
• Parents encourage infant sons to be physically
  active and daughters to seek help and closeness.
• When one child in a family is viewed as easy,
  another is perceived as difficult.

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Temperament and Child Rearing The
Goodness-of-Fit Model

• The goodness-of-fit model
• Goodness-of-fit is an effective match between
  child-rearing environments and a childs
  temperament, leading to healthy adjustment.
• Difficult infants are less likely than easy
  babies to receive sensitive care.

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Goodness-of-fit person X environment interaction
Irritable Baby
Parenting Unstable Stable
Baby More Fussy Less Fussy
Parent Poor coping Good coping
Toddler Negative Happy
Fussy Calm
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Personality Development

• Erikson
• Basic trust versus mistrust
• Dilemma is resolved positively if caregiving is
  sympathetic and loving.

• Erikson
• Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt
• Resolved positively if parents provide suitable
  guidance and appropriate choices

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Personality Development

• Development of the Self
• Emergence of the I-Self and the Me-Self
• I-selfthe sense of self as subject, or agent,
  who is separate from but acts on other objects
  and people.
• me-selfa reflective observer that considers the
  self an object of knowledge and evaluation
  (during 2nd year).
• Development of the me-self permits toddlers to
  compare themselves to other people.
• Self-awareness is accompanied by empathy

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Watson, 1972 The Game
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What is a relationship like in which the other
person completely ignores you?

• What about completely obeys you?

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Emergence of Self-Control

• Self-control is the capacity to resist an impulse
  to engage in socially disapproved behavior.
• The first signs of self-control appear as
  compliancevoluntary obedience to adult requests
  and commands.

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ATTACHMENT THEORY
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Harry Harlow Rhesus Monkeys
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Attachment theory

• Emotional bonds between people have adaptive
  significance, develop through an interactional
  history, and influence personality development
• History Spitz and WWII orphans Harry Harlow
  and rhesus monkeys Lorenz and his ducks Genie
  and deprivation sabre-tooth tigers
• Bowlby Attachment, Separation, and Loss
• The nature of emotional bond between the infant
  and the caregiver

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John Bowlby Self and other as a secure base
http//www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/
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Young infants need caregivers for contact,
security, and distress resolution

• Separation anxiety distress when left alone
• Distress when strangers or other threats are
  around
• Social referencing
• Categories of infant caregiver relationships can
  be described from how children depend on and act
  within relationships

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Development of Attachment

• Preattachment phase (birth to 6 weeks)
• Signals such as smiling and crying bring the baby
  into close contact.
• Attachment-in-the-making phase (6 weeks to 6-8
  months)
• Respond differently to a familiar caregiver than
  to a stranger

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Development of Attachment

• Clearcut attachment (6 to 8 months to 18 months
  to 2 years)
• Attachment to caregiver is evident.
• Separation anxiety Upset at the departure of a
  familiar caregiver
• Caregivers provide secure base from which they
  can explore.

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Mary Ainsworth Self, sensitivity, and security
Strange Situation Measures attachment between 1
and 2 years Involves short separations from and
reunions with the parent
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Patterns in Infancy Ainsworths Strange
Situation

• Insecure-Avoidant (A) No distress or
  proximity-seeking, no distinction between mother
  and stranger, Detached
• Secure (B) Distress resolved, proximity-seeking
• Insecure-Resistant (C) Distress not resolved,
  ambivalent proximity-seeking, Clingy babies
• Insecure-Disorganised (D) Dazed, confused, and
  fearful (e.g., maltreated toddlers)

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Maasi in africa Attachment theory is
cross-cultural
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Development of Attachment

• Formation of a reciprocal relationship (18 months
  to 2 years and on)
• Separation anxiety decreases.

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Cultural Variations

• German parents encourage infants to be
  independent.
• German infants show more avoidant attachment.
• Japanese mothers rarely leave babies in the care
  of strange people.
• Japanese infants display more resistant
  attachment responses.

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Quality of Caregiving

• Secure infants mothers respond promptly to
  infants, are positive, and handle babies
  tenderly.
• Insecure infants mothers dislike contact, handle
  them awkwardly, and are insensitive.
• Avoidant infants receive caregiving that is
  overstimulating and intrusive.
• Child abuse and neglect are associated with all
  three forms of insecure attachment.
• Quality of Daycare (Howe Jacobs, 1995)
• Well trained stable staff, small group size/high
  adultchild ratio, structured day, high emphasis
  on interaction

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Attachment in context

• Parental work status does not predict attachment
• Emotional adjustment of the parent (e.g., family
  stress and conflict) is important
• Quality of non-parental care is important
• Relationship quality becomes internalizes and
  influences later adult and romantic relationships
• AAI Dismissing, Autonomous, Preoccupied