(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Chapter 4 Socioemotional Development in Infancy PowerPoints developed by Nicholas Greco IV, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL
Dec 31, 2015
(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Chapter 4
Socioemotional Development in Infancy
PowerPoints developed by Nicholas Greco IV, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL
(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
What Are Emotions? Emotion -- feeling, or affect, that occurs when a
person is in a state or an interaction that is important to him or her, especially to his or her well-being
Emotions involve an individual’s communication with the world
In infancy, it is the communication aspect that is at the forefront of emotion
(Campos, 2009)
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Classifying Emotions
Psychologists classify the broad range of emotions in many ways
Almost all classifications designate an emotion as either positive (pleasant) or negative (unpleasant)
Positive emotions include pleasant states such as happiness, joy, love, enthusiasm
Negative emotions include anxiety, anger, guilt, and sadness
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Biological and Environmental Influences
Emotions are influenced both by biological foundations and by a person's experience
Facial expressions of basic emotions such as happiness, surprise, anger, and fear are the same across cultures Display rules—when, where, and how
emotions should be expressed—are not culturally universal
(Shiraev & Levy, 2010)
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Early Emotions
In the first six months, infants may express surprise, interest, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust
Other emotions appear in the second half of the first year and by the second year jealousy, empathy, embarrassment, pride,
shame, and guiltthese have been called self-conscious
emotions or other-conscious emotions
(Lewis, 2007; Saarni & others, 2006)
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Emotional Expressions and Relationships
Emotional expressions -- infants’ first relationships
Infants communicate emotions and this enables coordinated interactions with their caregivers
Parents change their emotional expressions in response to infants’ emotional expressions
Infants also modify their emotional expressions in response to their parents’ emotional expressions
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Crying
Crying -- most important mechanism newborns have for communicating
Babies have at least three types of cries:basic cry
some infancy experts believe that hunger is one of the conditions that incite the basic cry
anger crypain cry
the pain cry may be stimulated by physical pain or by any high-intensity stimulus
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Should Parents Respond to an Infant’s Cries?
Many developmentalists recommend that parents soothe a crying infant, especially in the first year
This reaction should help infants develop a sense of trust and secure attachment to the caregiver
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Smiles
Two types of smiling can be distinguished in infants: Reflexive smile -- does not occur in response
to external stimuli and appears during the first month after birth, usually during sleep
Social smile -- occurs in response to an external stimulus Social smiling occurs as early as four
months of age in response to a caregiver’s voice
(Campos, 2005)
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Fear Fear -- one of a baby’s earliest emotions
first appears at about 6 months and peaks at about 18 months
abused and neglected infants can show fear as early as 3 months
stranger anxiety -- most frequent expression of an infant’s fearusually emerges graduallydepends on the social context and the
characteristics of the stranger(Campos, 2005; Emde, Gaensbauer, & Harmon, 1976)
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Frequency of Stranger Anxiety
Less stranger anxiety when they are in familiar settings
When infants feel secure, they are less likely to show stranger anxiety
Less fearful of child strangers than adult strangers
Less fearful of friendly, outgoing, smiling strangers than of passive, unsmiling strangers
Separation protest -- crying when the caregiver leaves
(Bretherton, Stolberg, & Kreye, 1981)
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Social Referencing
Social referencing -- reading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situationhelps infants to interpret ambiguous situations
more accurately by the end of the first year, a parent’s facial
expression influences exploration of an unfamiliar environment
social referencing improves in the second year of life
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Emotional Regulation and Coping
During the first year of life, infant develops ability to minimize the intensity and duration of emotional reactions
From early in infancy, babies put their thumbs in their mouths to self-soothe
In their second year, they may say things to themselves to help self-soothe
(Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Smith, 2004)
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Emotional Regulation and Coping
Caregivers’ actions influence the infant’s neurobiological regulation of emotions Good strategy to soothe an infant before the
infant gets into an intense, agitated, uncontrolled state
Later in infancy, infants sometimes redirect their attention or distract themselves in order to reduce their arousal
(Laible & Thompson, 2007; de Haan & Gunnar, 2009; Thompson, 2006; Grolnick, Bridges, & Connell, 1996)
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Contextual Adaptation
Contexts can influence emotional regulation
Often affected by fatigue, hunger, time of day, which people are around them, and where they are
Must learn to adapt to different contexts(Thompson, 2010)
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Describing and Classifying Temperament Researchers have described and
classified the temperament of individuals in three different ways
Chess and Thomas’ Classification Easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up child
Kagan’s Behavioral Inhibition Inhibition to the unfamiliar
Effortful Control (Self-Regulation)
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Effortful Control (Self-Regulation)
Effortful control (self-regulation) is an important dimension of temperamentInfants high on effortful control show an ability
to keep their arousal from getting too high and have strategies for soothing themselves
Infants low on effortful control are often unable to control their arousal; they are easily agitated and become intensely emotional
(Bates, 2008)
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Biological Foundations and Influences
Children inherit a physiology that biases them to have a particular type of temperament
Physiological characteristics have been linked with different temperaments
Inhibited temperament is associated with a unique physiological patternhigh and stable heart rate high level of the hormone cortisolhigh activity in the right frontal lobe of the
brain (Kagan, 2010)
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Gender, Culture, and Temperament
Parents may have different reactions to temperament, depending on the sex of the baby
Reaction to temperament may depend in part on culture
Many aspects of a child’s environment can encourage or discourage the persistence of temperament characteristics
)
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Goodness of Fit and Implications for
Parenting Goodness of fit -- the match between
temperament and the environmental demands with which child must cope
Children differ from each other very early in lifedifferences have important implications for
parent-child interactionattention to and respect for individuality structure the child’s environment avoid applying negative labels to the child
(Putnam, Sanson, & Rothbart, 2002)
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Personality Development
Personality -- the enduring personal characteristics of individualsEmotions and temperament form key
aspects Trust
Erikson -- first year of life is characterized by the trust versus mistrust stage/crisis
Identity -- sense of who they are and what makes them different from everyone else
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Self-Recognition Infants begin to develop a rudimentary
form of self-recognition -- being attentive and positive toward one’s image in a mirror as early as 3 months
A more complete index of self-recognition -- the ability to recognize one’s physical featuresemerges in the second year
(Pipp, Fischer, & Jennings, 1987; Thompson, 2006)
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Independence
Erikson (1968) stressed that independence is an important issue in the second year of life Erikson’s second stage of development is
identified as “autonomy versus shame and doubt”
autonomy builds as the infant’s mental and motor abilities develop
when caregivers are impatient and do for toddlers what they are capable of doing themselves, shame and doubt develop
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Social Orientation Infants are captivated by the social world
early in development Face-to-face play characterizes caregiver-
infant interactions at about 2 to 3 months of age
Their interaction with peers increases considerably in the latter half of the second year
Between 18 to 24 months, imitative and reciprocal play increases
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Attachment Attachment -- a close emotional bond between
two people Freud theorized that infants become attached to
the person or object that provides oral satisfaction
Harry Harlow’s classic study Four phases based on Bowlby’s
conceptualization of attachment Phase 1: From birth to 2 monthsPhase 2: From 2 to 7 monthsPhase 3: From 7 to 24 monthsPhase 4: From 24 months on
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Theories of Attachment
Bowlby -- belief in an internal working model of attachmenta simple mental model of the caregiver, their
relationship, and the self as deserving of nurturant care
Mary Ainsworth (1979) created the Strange Situationthe degree to which the caregiver’s presence
provides the infant with security and confidence
(Thompson, 2006; Ainsworth, 1979)
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Individual Differences in Attachment
Based on how babies respond in the Strange Situation securely attached babies use the caregiver as a
secure base insecure avoidant babies show insecurity by avoiding
the mother insecure resistant babies often cling to the caregiver
and then resist fighting against the closeness insecure disorganized babies -- disorganized and
disoriented
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Criticisms of Attachment Theory
Kagan and others believe that too much emphasis has been placed on the attachment bond in infancy
Jerome Kagan sees infants as highly resilient and adaptivethey are equipped to stay on a positive
developmental course Attachment theory ignores the diversity of
socializing agents and contexts in an infant’s world
(Kagan, 1987, 2002)
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Social Contexts: The Family A constellation of subsystems
complex whole made up of interrelated, interacting parts
defined in terms of generation, gender, rolesubsystems have reciprocal influences on
each other marital relations, parenting, and infant
behavior and development can have both direct and indirect effects on each other
(Jay Belsky,1981)
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Reciprocal Socialization
Socialization that is bidirectionalchildren socialize parents just as parents
socialize children Scaffolding -- timing interactions so that
the infant experiences turn-taking with the parents scaffolding involves parental behavior that
supports children’s effortscaregivers provide a positive, reciprocal
framework for interaction
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Maternal and Paternal Caregiving
Mothers spend considerably more time in caregiving with infants and children than do fathersMothers are more likely to have managerial role
Fathers have the ability to act sensitively and responsively with their infants
Typical father behaves differently toward an infant than the typical mother
Father’s presence in a child’s life is beneficialLeads to more success in school
(Lamb, 2010; Parke & Buriel, 2006)
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Parental Leave
More young children are in child care than at any other time in U.S. history
U.S. adults tend not to receive paid leave to care for their young children
The United States allows up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for parents who are caring for a newborn
The European Union has mandated a 14-week maternity leave
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Variations in Child Care Factors that influence the effects of child
carethe age of the childthe type of child care the quality of the program
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Types of Child Care
Large centers with elaborate facilities Private homes Commercial operations or nonprofit
centers run by churches, civic groups, and employers
Child care providers varyProfessionalsUntrained adults who want to earn extra
money
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Quality of Care Makes a Difference
Poor-quality child care is more likely for families with few resources (psychological, social, and economic)
Extensive child care was harmful to low-income children only when the care was of low quality
High-quality care was linked with fewer internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety) and externalizing problems (e.g., aggressive and destructive behaviors)
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Strategies to Follow in Choosing Child Care
Recognize that the quality of your parenting is a key factor in your child’s development
Make decisions that will improve the likelihood you will be good parents
Monitor your child’s development Take some time to find the best child care (Kathleen McCartney, 2003)