The Developing Person Through
the Life Span 8e
by Kathleen Stassen Berger
Chapter 7 – The First Two Years:
Psychosocial Development
Emotional Development
Infants’ Emotions
Smiling and Laughing
Social smile (6 weeks): Evoked by viewing
human faces
Laughter (3 to 4 months): Often
associated with curiosity
 Anger
First expressions at around 6 months
Healthy response to frustration
Emotional Development
Sadness
Indicates withdrawal
Stressful experience for
infants
Fear
Emerges at about 9 months
in response to people,
things, or situations
Emotional Development
Stranger wariness
Infant no longer smiles at any friendly face
but cries or looks frightened when an
unfamiliar person moves too close
Separation anxiety
Tears, dismay, or anger when a familiar
caregiver leaves.
If it remains strong after age 3, it may be
considered an emotional disorder.
Emotional Development
Toddlers’ Emotions – Year 2
New emotions appear: pride, shame,
embarrassment, guilt
Require an awareness of other people
Emerge from family interactions, influenced
by the culture
Emotional Development
Self-awareness
The realization that one’s body, mind, and
actions are separate from those of other
people.
Birth to 4 months
 Lack self-awareness
5 months
 Begin to develop an awareness of themselves
as separate from their mothers.
15 to 18 months
 Significant development of self as a being
independent of others
Emotional Development
Mirror Recognition
 M. Lewis & Brooks, 1978
 Babies aged 9–24 months
looked into a mirror after a dot
of rouge had been put on their
noses.
 None of those younger than 12
months old reacted as if they
knew the mark was on them.
 15- to 24-month-olds showed
self-awareness by touching their
own noses with curiosity.
Social Referencing
 Social referencing
 Seeking information about
how to react to an
unfamiliar or ambiguous
object or event by
observing someone else’s
expressions and reactions.
 Mothers use a variety of
expressions, vocalizations,
and gestures to convey
social information to their
infants.
Social Impulses
Particular people begin to arouse specific
emotions
 Toddlers get angry when teased by an older
sibling or react with fear when entering the
doctor’s office.
 Memory triggers specific emotions based on
previous experiences.
Social Impulses
Stress
Impairs brain development
Abuse (form of chronic stress)
Potential long-term effects on a child’s
emotional development
Excessive stress in infants must be
prevented
Hypothalamus
Regulates various bodily functions and
hormone production
May grow more slowly if an infant is often
stressed
Temperament
Temperament
• Inborn differences between one person and
another in emotions, activity, and selfregulation
• Temperament is epigenetic, originating in
the genes but affected by child-rearing
practices
• Types
• Easy – Difficult – Slow to warm up
Attachment
Attachment
 A lasting emotional bond that one person has
with another.
Attachments begin to form in early infancy
and influence a person’s close relationships
throughout life
Infants show attachment through
proximity-seeking (i.e. approaching
caregiver) and contact-maintaining (i.e.
touching, holding)
Measuring Attachment
Strange Situation
 A laboratory procedure for measuring
attachment by evoking infants’ reactions to the
stress of various adults’ comings and goings in
an unfamiliar playroom.
Key behaviors
 Exploration of the toys. A secure toddler plays
happily.
 Reaction to the caregiver’s departure. A secure
toddler misses the caregiver.
 Reaction to the caregiver’s return. A secure
toddler welcomes the caregiver’s reappearance.
Measuring Attachment
Types of Attachment
1. Secure attachment
2. Insecure-avoidant attachment
3. Resistant
4. Disorganized/Disoriented
Secure and Insecure Attachment
Measuring Attachment
Factors Affecting
Attachment
Opportunity
Quality of caregiving
Infant characteristics
Parent’s internal working models
Fathers as Social Partners
Fathers usually spend less time with
infants than mothers do and are less
involved parents
Reasons
 Fathers’ own ideas of
appropriate male behavior
 Mothers often limit fathers’
interactions with their children
Quality of marital relationship
is best predictor
 Happier husbands tend to
be more involved fathers
Infant Day Care
Family day care
 Child care that includes several children of various
ages and usually occurs in the home of a woman
who is paid to provide it.
Center day care
 Child care that occurs in a place especially
designed for the purpose, where several paid
adults care for many children.
 Usually the children are grouped by age, the daycare center is licensed, and providers are trained
and certified in child development.
The Effects of Infant Day
Care
The impact of nonmaternal care depends
on many factors.
Psychosocial characteristics, including secure
attachment, are influenced more by the
mother’s warmth than by the number of
hours spent in nonmaternal care.
Quality of care is crucial, no matter who
provides that care.
Psychoanalytic Theories
Freud
 Oral Stage
 1st year
 Anal Stage
 2nd year
Erikson
Trust versus Mistrust
 1st year
 Autonomy versus Shame & Doubt
 2nd year
Behaviorist Theory
Emotions and personality develop
through reinforcement
Social Learning/Modeling
Accomplished by observing
others
Bobo clown
Cognitive & Epigenetic
Theories
Cognitive
Thoughts & values important
Working model
Epigenetic
GENES (and that’s it!)