Kathleen Stassen Berger
Part II Chapter Seven
The First Two Years: Psychosocial Development
Emotional Development
Theories About Infant
Psychosocial
The Development of Social Bonds
Conclusions in Theory and
Practices
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield
Tattoon, M.A.
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The First Two Years: Psychosocial
Development
• The interaction of infants’ emotions
and their social context is dynamic
• This interplay is seen in a tiny baby
smile at an engaging face or a toddler
flop to the floor, kicking and
screaming
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Emotional Development in Infancy
• “Within the first two years, infants
progress from reactive pain and
pleasure to complex patterns of
social awareness.”
• a period of life with “high emotional
responsiveness…”
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Emotional Development in Infancy
• Specific Emotions
– infants progress from pleasure and pain
• happy and relaxed when fed, then drift off to
sleep
• cry when hurt or hungry, are tired or frightened
or have colic
– social smiles are evoked by a human face,
normally evident about 6 weeks after birth
– anger is evident at 6 months
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Emotional Development in Infancy
• Specific Emotions
– fully formed fear in response to some
person, thing, or situation emerges at
about 9 months
• stranger wariness… infant no longer smiles at
any friendly faces, and cries if an unfamiliar
person moves to close, too quickly
• separation anxiety… expressed in tears,
dismay, or anger when a familiar caregiver
leaves
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Emotional Development in Infancy
• Specific Emotions
– separation anxiety is normal at age 1
– intensifies by age 2, and usually subsides
after that
– 1-year-olds fear not just strangers but also
anything unexpected
– emotions that emerge in the first month
strengthen at about age 1
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Emotional Development in Infancy
• Self Awareness
– ... emotional growth that has the infant
realizing that his or her body, mine,
and actions are separate from those
of other people
• around age 1 an emerging sense of “me” and
“mine”
– self-recognition emerges at about 18
months
• pretending and using first person pronouns
– I, me, mine, myself, my
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial
Development
• Psychoanalytic Theory
– connects biosocial and psychosocial
development
• emphasizing the need for response
maternal care
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Freud: Oral and Anal Stages
– the first year is the oral stage
• the mouth is the young infant’s primary
source of gratification
– the second year is the anal stage
• the infant’s main pleasure comes from
the anus… sensual pleasure of bowel
movement… the pleasure of controlling
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Erikson: Trust and
Autonomy
– first psychosocial crisis…
infants learn basic trust if
the world is a secure place
where their basic needs
(for food, comfort,
attention, etc.) are met
– second stage crisis of
psychosocial development
… toddlers either succeed
or fail in gaining a sense of
self-rule over their own
actions and bodies
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Behaviorism
– emotions and personality are molded as
parents reinforce or punish the child’s
spontaneous behaviors
– Infants experience social learning… learning
by observing others
• apparent in families… from giggling to cursing…
much like their parents
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Cognitive Theory
– holds that thoughts and values determine a
person’s perspectives
• early experiences are important
– beliefs, perceptions and memories
– infants use early relationships to develop a
working model
• a set of assumptions that the individual uses to
organize perceptions and experiences
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Epigenetic Theory
– holds that every human characteristic is
strongly influenced by each person’s unique
genotype… inborn predispositions
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Temperament
– Inborn differences
between one person and
another in emotions,
activity, and self-control.
Temperament is
epigenetic, originating in
genes but affected by
child-rearing practices.
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• The Parents’ Role
– infant temperament often changes with adult
guidance
– interaction between culture influences and
inherited traits tend to shape behavior
– parents need to find a goodness of fit
• goodness of fit is a similarity of temperament
and values that produces a smooth interaction
between an individual and his or her social
context, including family, school, and
community
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Sociocultural Theory
– “…human development
occurs in a cultural context.”
– sociocultural theorists
argue culture:
• has a substantial
influence on infants
• has a major impact on
infant-caregiver
relationships, thus the
development of the infant
So the is question…
How much influence does culture have?
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
• Ethnotheories
• ethnotheory
– a theory that underlies the values and
practices of a culture and that becomes
apparent through analysis and comparison of
those practices, although it is not usually
apparent to the people within the culture
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
– Proximal and Distal Parenting
• proximal parenting
– parenting practices that involve close
physical contact with the child’s entire
body, such as cradling and swinging
• distal parenting
– parenting practices that focus on the
intellect more than the body, such as
talking with the baby and playing with an
object
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Synchrony
– is a coordinated
interaction between
caregiver and infant,
an exchange in
which they respond
to each other with
split-second timing
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Attachment
– according to Ainsworth, “is an affectional
tie” that an infant forms with the
caregiver—a tie that binds them
together in space and endured over time
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Secure and Insecure Attachment
– secure attachment
• relationships in which an infant obtains both
comfort and confidence from the presence
of his or her caregiver
– insecure-avoidant attachment
• a pattern of attachment in which an infant
avoids connection with the caregiver, as
when the infant seems not to care about the
caregiver’s presence, departure, or return
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Secure and Insecure Attachment
– insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment
• a pattern of attachment in which anxiety and
uncertainty are evident, as when an infant is
very upset at separation from the caregiver
and both resists and seeks contact on
reunion
– disorganized attachment
• a type of attachment that is marked by an
infant’s inconsistent reactions to the
caregiver’s departure and return
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Secure and Insecure Attachment
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Measuring Attachment
– strange situation
• developed by Ainsworth
• a laboratory procedure for measuring
attachment by evoking infants’ reaction to
stress
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Measuring Attachment
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Insecure Attachment and Social Settings
– infants shift in attachment status between
one age and another
– most trouble children may be those who
are classified as type D (table 7.4)
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Social Referencing
– seeking information
about how to react to
an unfamiliar
ambiguous object or
event by observing
someone else’s
expressions and
reactions—that other
person becomes a
social reference
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Referencing Mothers
– most social referencing occurs with mothers
– infants heed their mother’s wishes, expressed
in tone and facial expression
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Referencing Fathers
– increases in maternal
employment have expanded
the social references
available to infants
– fathers now spend
considerable time with their
children
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The Development of Social Bonds
• Infant Day Care
– more than ½ of all 1-year-olds in the U.S. are in
“regular scheduled” nonmaternal care
– family day care
• child care that occurs in another caregiver’s home—
usually the caregiver is paid at a lower rate than in
center care, and usually one person shares of
several children of various ages
– center day care
• child care in a place especially designed for the
purpose, where several paid providers care for
many children. Usually the children are grouped by
age, the day care center is licensed, and providers
are trained and certified in child development
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