The Developing Person
Through the Life Span 8e
by Kathleen Stassen Berger
Chapter 7 – The First Two Years:
Psychosocial Development
PowerPoint Slides developed by
Martin Wolfger and Michael James
Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington
Reviewed by Raquel Henry
Lone Star College, Kingwood
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
• Sadness
– Indicates withdrawal and is accompanied by increased
production of cortisol
– Stressful experience for infants
Emotional Development
• 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
• Anger and fear become less frequent and more
focused
• Laughing and crying become louder and more
discriminating
• 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.
• First 4 months: Infants have no sense of self;
may see themselves as part of their mothers.
• 5 months: Begin to develop an awareness of
themselves as separate from their mothers.
Emotional Development
Mirror Recognition
• Classic experiment (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 selfawareness by touching their own
noses with curiosity.
Social Impulses
• Emotional Self-regulation
– Directly connected to maturation of the anterior
cingulate gyrus
• 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.
Stress
• Hypothalamus
– Regulates various bodily functions and hormone
production
– May grow more slowly if an infant is often
stressed
• Abuse (form of chronic stress)
– Potential long-term effects on a child’s
emotional development
– Excessive stress in infants must be prevented
Stress
Stress can be avoided by:
• supporting new mothers
• involving new fathers in the care of the
infant
• strengthening the parents’ relationship
Brain Maturation and the Emotions
• Synesthesia
– When one sense triggers another in the brain
– Common in infants because boundaries between
sensory parts of the cortex are less distinct.
• Cross-modal perception
– Infant associates textures with vision, sounds with
smells, own body with the bodies of others
– Basis for early social understanding
• Synesthesia of emotions
– Infant’s cry can be triggered by pain, fear, tiredness, or
excitement; laughter can turn to tears.
– Emotions are difficult to predict because of the way
infants’ brains are activated.
Brain Maturation and the
Emotions
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
The N.Y. Longitudinal Study
Findings
• Found 4 categories of temperament
–
–
–
–
Easy (40%)
Difficult (10%)
Slow to warm up (15%)
Hard to classify (35%)
Additional findings:
• Parenting practices are crucial, temperament
can change or be changed
Goodness of Fit
• A similarity of temperament and values that
produces a smooth interaction between an
individual and his or her social context
– includes family, school, and community.
• With a good fit
– parents of difficult babies build a close relationship
– parents of exuberant, curious infants learn to protect
them from harm
– parents of slow-to-warm-up toddlers give them time to
adjust
Theories of Infant Psychosocial
Development
Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud: Oral and Anal Stages
• Oral stage (first year): The mouth is the young infant’s primary
source of gratification
• Anal stage (second year): Infant’s main pleasure comes from
the anus (e.g. sensual pleasure of bowel movements and the
psychological pleasure of controlling them)
Potential conflicts:
• Oral fixation: If denied the infant urge to suck, may become an
adult who is stuck (fixated) at the oral stage (e.g. eats, drinks,
chews, bites, or talks excessively)
• Anal personality: Overly strict or premature toilet training may
result in an adult with an unusually strong need for control,
regularity and cleanliness
Theories of Infant Psychosocial
Development
Erikson: Trust and Autonomy
• Trust versus mistrust
– Infants learn basic trust if the world is a secure place
where their basic needs are met
• Autonomy versus shame and doubt
– Toddlers either succeed or fail in gaining a sense of
self-rule over their actions and bodies
• Early problems can create an adult who is
suspicious and pessimistic (mistrusting) or who
is easily shamed (insufficient autonomy)
Theories of Infant Psychosocial
Development
Behaviorism
• Parents mold an infant’s emotions and personality
through reinforcement and punishment
• Social learning
– The acquisition of behavior patterns by observing the
behavior of others
– Demonstrated in the classic Bobo Doll study by Albert
Bandura
Theories of Infant Psychosocial
Development
Cognitive Theory
• Working model: a set of assumptions used to
organize perceptions and experiences
– A person might assume that other people are
trustworthy and be surprised by evidence that this
working model of human behavior is erroneous.
– The child’s interpretation of early experiences is more
important than the experiences themselves.
– New working models can be developed based on new
experiences or reinterpretation of previous
experiences.
Theories of Infant Psychosocial
Development
Ethnotheory
• A theory that underlies the values and practices
of a culture but is not usually apparent to the
people within the culture.
• Example:
– Culture’s ethnotheory includes the belief in
reincarnation
– Children are not expected to show respect for adults,
but adults must show respect for their reborn
ancestors  indulgent child-rearing
– Perceived as extremely lenient by Western cultures
Proximal and Distal Parenting
• Proximal parenting
– Caregiving practices that involve being
physically close to the baby, with frequent
holding and touching
• Distal parenting
– Caregiving practices that involve remaining
distant from the baby, providing toys, food,
and face-to-face communication with minimal
holding and touching
Proximal and Distal Parenting
Synchrony
• A coordinated, rapid, and smooth
exchange of responses between a
caregiver and an infant
• Synchrony in the first few months
– Becomes more frequent and more
elaborate
– Helps infants learn to read others’
emotions and to develop the skills of
social interaction
– Synchrony usually begins with
parents imitating infants
When Synchrony Disappears
• Experiments using the still-face technique
– An experimental practice in which an adult keeps his
or her face unmoving and expressionless in face-toface interaction with an infant
– Babies are very upset by the still face and show signs
of stress
• Conclusions:
– A parent’s responsiveness to an infant aids
psychological and biological development
– Infants’ brains need social interaction to develop to
their fullest
Attachment
• Attachment is 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 proximityseeking (i.e. approaching caregiver) and
contact-maintaining (i.e. touching, holding)
Attachment
Secure and Insecure Attachment
1. Secure attachment: An infant obtains both
comfort and confidence from the presence of
his or her caregiver.
2. Insecure-avoidant attachment: An infant
avoids connection with the caregiver, as when
the infant seems not to care about the
caregiver’s presence, departure, or return.
Secure and Insecure Attachment
3. Insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment:
An infant’s anxiety and uncertainty are evident,
as when the infant becomes very upset at
separation from the caregiver and both resists
and seeks contact on reunion.
4. Disorganized attachment: A type of
attachment that is marked by an infant’s
inconsistent reactions to the caregiver’s
departure and return.
Secure and Insecure Attachment
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 to observe:
– 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
Measuring Attachment
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.
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
Comparing Fathers and Mothers
• Selected research findings:
– Teenagers are less likely to lash out at friends and
authorities if they experienced a warm, responsive
relationship with their fathers as infants (TrautmannVillalba et al., 2006).
– Close father–infant relationships can teach infants
(especially boys) appropriate expressions of emotion
(Boyce et al., 2006).
– Close relationships with their infants reduce fathers’ risk of
depression (Borke et al., 2007; Bronte-Tinkew et al.,
2007).
– Mothers tend to engage in more caregiving and
comforting, and fathers tend to engage in more highintensity play (Kochanska et al., 2008).
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 day-care
center is licensed, and providers are trained and
certified in child development.
Infant Day Care
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.