Chapter 4
Socioemotional
Development in Infancy
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)
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)
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 guilt
 these have been called self-conscious emotions or
other-conscious emotions
▫ Example: Don’t cry over spilled milk?, glass for Mommy,
his toy is better – always!
(Lewis, 2007; Saarni & others, 2006)
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
▫ “Synchrony”
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 cry
▫ pain cry
 the pain cry may be stimulated by physical
pain or by any high-intensity stimulus
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
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 often occurs in response to a
caregiver’s voice
(Campos, 2005)
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 fear
 usually emerges gradually
 depends on the social context and the characteristics
of the stranger
▫ Examples: Quivering lip, Santa Claus/Easter Bunny
(Campos, 2005; Emde, Gaensbauer, & Harmon, 1976)
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
▫ Example: Babysitters, daycare
(Bretherton, Stolberg, & Kreye, 1981)
Social Referencing
• Social referencing -- reading emotional cues in
others to help determine how to act in a
particular situation
▫ Examples: Falling? Thunder?
▫ helps 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
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 may 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)
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)
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
▫ Example: no birthday party
(Thompson, 2010)
Describing and Classifying
Temperament
• Researchers have described and classified the
temperament of individuals in three different
ways
 “Individual differences in emotion, motor, and
attentional reactivity and self-regulation” (Rothart &
Bates, 1998)
• Chess and Thomas’ Classification
▫ Easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up child
• Kagan’s Behavioral Inhibition
▫ Inhibition to the unfamiliar
• Effortful Control (Self-Regulation)
Effortful Control (Self-Regulation)
• Effortful control (self-regulation) is an
important dimension of temperament
▫ Infants 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)
Biological Foundations and Influences
• Physiological characteristics have been linked
with different temperaments (nature)
• Inhibited temperament is associated with a
unique physiological pattern
▫ high and stable heart rate
▫ high level of the hormone cortisol
▫ high activity in the right frontal lobe of the brain
(Kagan, 2010)
Personality Development
• Personality -- the enduring personal
characteristics of individuals
▫ Emotions and temperament form key aspects
• Trust
▫ Erikson -- first year of life is characterized by the
trust versus mistrust stage/crisis
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 features
▫ emerges in the second year
 Examples: Hats, Rouge, floor image
(Pipp, Fischer, & Jennings, 1987; Thompson, 2006)
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
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
▫ Attachment, fear, exploration
• Four phases based on Bowlby’s
conceptualization of attachment
▫
▫
▫
▫
Phase 1: From birth to 2 months
Phase 2: From 2 to 7 months
Phase 3: From 7 to 24 months
Phase 4: From 24 months on
Theories of Attachment
• Bowlby -- belief in an internal working model of
attachment, keep the caregiver near
▫ a simple mental model of the caregiver, their
relationship, and the self as deserving of nurturant
care
• Mary Ainsworth (1979) created the Strange
Situation
▫ the degree to which the caregiver’s presence
provides the infant with security and confidence
(Thompson, 2006; Ainsworth, 1979)
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
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 adaptive
▫ they 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)
Reciprocal Socialization
• Socialization that is bidirectional
▫ children 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 efforts
▫ caregivers provide a positive, reciprocal
framework for interaction
Maternal and Paternal Caregiving
• Mothers spend considerably more time in
caregiving with infants and children than do
fathers
▫ Mothers 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 beneficial
▫ Leads to more success in school
(Lamb, 2010; Parke & Buriel, 2006)
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
Variations in Child Care
• Factors that influence the effects of child care
▫ the age of the child
▫ the type of child care
▫ the quality of the program
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 vary
▫ Professionals
▫ Untrained adults who want to earn extra money
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)
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)