Chapter 7
Social and Personality Development in Infancy
Page
105
105
106
110
110
110
113
114
116
117
117
119
Learning Objectives
Key Terms and Concepts
Chapter Outline
Lecture Suggestions
The Development of Attachment
Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test
Should You Let a Baby Cry?
Class Activities
Supplemental Reading List
Prentice Hall PowerPoints available online
Multimedia Ideas
Handouts
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading Chapter 7, students will know:














Understand how infants experience emotions.
Explain stranger anxiety and separation anxiety.
Describe smiling in infancy and infants' abilities to understand others' facial and vocal expressions.
Define and explain social referencing.
Understand the development of self in infancy.
Describe children's theory of mind.
Define attachment and how it is measured.
Understand how attachment is developed.
Explain how culture affects attachment.
Understand the processes that underlie the development of relationships during infancy.
Describe how sociable infants are with other children.
Explain Erikson's theory of personality development in infancy.
Understand temperament.
Explain gender and its influence on development.
KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
stranger anxiety
separation anxiety
social smile
social referencing
self-awareness
theory of mind
empathy
attachment
Ainsworth Strange Situation
secure attachment pattern
avoidant attachment pattern
ambivalent attachment pattern
disorganized-disoriented attachment pattern
mutual regulation model
reciprocal socialization
personality
Erikson’s theory
trust-versus-mistrust stage
autonomy-vs.-shame-and-doubt stage
temperament
105
easy babies
difficult babies
slow-to-warm babies
goodness-of-fit
gender
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I.
Forming the Roots of Sociability
A. Across every culture, infants show similar facial expressions relating to basic emotions.
1. The nonverbal expression of emotion, called nonverbal encoding, is fairly
consistent among people of all ages.
a. What mothers see in their children’s nonverbal behavior, almost all
think that by the age of 1 month, their babies have expressed interest
and joy.
b. 84% of mothers think their infants have expressed anger; 75%, surprise,
58%, fear; and 34%, sadness.
c. Maximally Discriminative Facial Movement Coding System (MAX)
finds that interest, distress, and disgust are present at birth, and that
other emotions emerge over the next few months
2. Stranger Anxiety, which begins at around 6 months of age, is the caution and
wariness displayed by infants when encountering a strange person.
a. Due to the increased cognitive abilities of infants, allowing them to
separate whom they know from whom they don’t.
b. Although common, significant differences exist between children.
3. Separation Anxiety is the distress displayed by infants when a customary care
provider departs.
a. Begins about 8 or 9 months.
b. Peaks at 14 months and then slowly decreases.
4. Although infants display similar kinds of emotions, the degree of emotional
expressivity varies among infants.
a. Children in different cultures show reliable differences in emotional
expressiveness, even during infancy.
5. The Social Smile, smiling in reference to other individuals, becomes directed
more toward mothers and other caregivers by the age of 18 months.
6. Infants are able to discriminate facial and vocal expressions of emotion early in
infancy through a process known as nonverbal decoding.
a. After about 8 weeks, infants can begin to discriminate among facial
expressions of emotions and respond to differences in types and
intensity of emotions conveyed by facial expressions.
b. By the age of 4 months, infants may be able to understand the emotions
that lie behind facial and vocal expressions of others.
B. Social Referencing is the intentional search for information about others’ feelings to help
explain the meaning of uncertain circumstances and events.
1. First occurs in infants at about 8–9 months.
2. Infants make particular use of facial expressions in their social referencing.
3. Social referencing is most likely to occur in uncertain and ambiguous situations
as infants look to others to guide their own behavior.
C. The roots of Self-awareness, knowledge about oneself, begin to grow around 12 months.
1. Self-awareness is assessed by the mirror and rouge task.
2. Most infants touch their nose to attempt to wipe off the rouge at 17–24 months.
3. Crying, when presented with complicated tasks, also implies consciousness that
infants lack capability to carry out tasks.
D. Infants have a Theory of Mind, knowledge and beliefs about the mental world, at a fairly
early age.
106
1.
2.
3.
4.
Infants see others as compliant agents, beings similar to themselves who behave
under their own power and respond to the infant’s requests.
Children’s capacity to understand intentionality and causality grow during
infancy.
By age 2, infants demonstrate Empathy, an emotional response that corresponds
to the feelings of another person.
By age 2, children can begin to use deception, both in games of “pretend” and in
outright attempts to fool others.
II. Forging Relationships
A. The most important form of social development that occurs during infancy is Attachment,
the positive emotional bond that develops between a child and a particular individual.
1. Konrad Lorenz studied imprinting in animals, the rapid, innate learning that
takes place during a critical period and involves attachment to the first moving
object observed.
2. Sigmund Freud suggested that attachment grew out of a mother’s ability to
satisfy a child’s oral needs.
3. Harry Harlow showed, with monkeys, that food alone is insufficient to bring
about attachment.
4. The earliest work on humans was carried out by John Bowlby who suggested
that attachment had a biological basis, based on infant’s needs for safety and
security.
a. Since safety and security is provided by the mother this attachment is
different than others.
b. Having a strong, firm attachment provides a safe base from which the
child can gain independence.
5. Based on Bowlby’s work, Mary Ainsworth developed the Ainsworth Strange
Situation, a sequence of 8 staged episodes that illustrate the strength of
attachment between a child and (typically) his or her mother.
a. Children who have a Secure Attachment Pattern (two-thirds of
children) use mother as a safe base, and are at ease as long as she is
present, explore when they can see her, are upset when she leaves, and
go to her when she returns.
b. Children with an Avoidant Attachment Pattern (20 percent of 1-year
old children) do not seek proximity to the mother, and after she has left
they typically do not seem distressed.
c. Children with an Ambivalent Attachment Pattern (12 percent of
1-year olds) display a combination of positive and negative reactions to
their mothers.
d. Recently, a fourth category has been suggested, DisorganizedDisoriented Attachment pattern, where children show inconsistent,
often contradictory behavior and may be the least securely attached
of all.
e. Infant attachment has significant consequences for relationships at later
stages in life, especially adult romantic relationships.
f. Cross-cultural studies suggest that attachment is susceptible to cultural
norms and expectations.
6. Mothers and fathers play different attachment roles.
a. Mothers are most often the attachment figure.
(1) They are sensitive to their infant’s needs.
(2) They are aware of the infant’s moods.
(3) They provide appropriate responses.
(4) Attachment styles are stable from one generation to another.
b. Evidence suggests that there is some relationship between a child’s
temperament and emotional displays and attachment.
107
c.
The nature of attachment between infants and mothers and infants and
fathers is not identical.
(1) Mothers spend a greater proportion of their time feeding and
directly nurturing their children.
(2) Fathers spend more time playing with their infants.
(3) Fathers engage in more rough-and-tumble play; mothers play
traditional games such as peek-a-boo and games with more verbal
elements.
(4) These differences in mother and father play occur in very diverse
cultures.
(5) Recent approaches view attachment as susceptible to cultural
norms and expectations.
B. Infants may development multiple attachment relationships.
1. The development of relationships occurs according to the Mutual Regulation
Model, which states that infants and parents learn to communicate emotional
states to one another and to respond accordingly.
2. Attachment is further increased by the process of Reciprocal Socialization, by
which infant’s behaviors invite further responses from parents and other
caregivers.
C. Infant-Infant Interaction.
1. Infants react positively to the presence of other infants.
a. They laugh, simile, and vocalize.
b. They show more interest in infants than inanimate objects.
c. Infant’s level of sociability generally rises with age.
2. By 1 year they show stronger preferences for familiar people than for strangers.
3. 14-month-olds imitate each other.
4. Infants can learn new behaviors, skills, and abilities from exposure to other
children.
III. Differences among Infants
A. The origins of Personality, the sum total of the enduring characteristics that differentiate
one individual from another, begin in infancy.
B. Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development considers how individuals come to
understand themselves and the meaning of others—and their own—behavior.
1. Infancy marks the time of the Trust-Versus-Mistrust Stage (birth to
18 months) during which infants develop a sense of trust or mistrust, largely
depending on how well their needs are met by their caretakers.
2. In late infancy (1½ to 3 years) children enter the Autonomy-Versus-Shameand-Doubt Stage, during which children develop independence and autonomy
or feel shame and self-doubt depending if parents encourage exploration or
restrict and overprotect.
3. Erikson argues that personality is largely shaped by infant’s experiences.
C. Temperament refers to how children behave, as opposed to what they do or why they do it.
1. Temperament is not fixed and unchangeable
2. Child-rearing practices can modify temperament significantly.
3. Temperament shows stability from infancy through adolescence.
4. There are several dimensions to temperament.
a. Activity level is the degree of overall movement.
b. Irritability reflects the fact that some infants are easy-going while others
are easily disturbed.
5. Alexander, Thomas, and Chess (1984) describe three profiles of temperament.
a. Easy Babies
(1) Positive disposition
(2) Regular bodily functions
(3) Adaptable
(4) Curious
108
D.
E.
(5) Emotions are moderate to low
(6) 40 percent of all infants
b. Difficult Babies
(1) Negative moods
(2) Slow to adapt
(3) Withdraw from novel situations
(4) 10 percent of all infants
c. Slow-to-warm Babies
(1) Inactive, calm
(2) Generally negative mood
(3) Adapt slowly, withdraw from new situations
(4) 15 percent of all infants
d. No temperament is inherently good or bad.
(1) Long-term adjustment depends on the Goodness of Fit between the
baby’s temperament and the environment.
(2) A key determinant is the way parents react to the infant’s behavior.
(3) Culture also has a major influence on the consequences of a
particular temperament.
(4) Buss and Plomin argue that temperament represents inherited traits,
which make up the core of personality.
An infant’s Gender, the sense of being male or female, has effects throughout life.
1. The term “gender” does not mean the same thing as “sex.” Gender is actually a
social construct.
a. Sex typically refers to sexual anatomy and sexual behavior.
b. Gender refers to the perceptions of maleness or femaleness.
c. All cultures prescribe gender roles for males and females, but the roles
differ greatly between cultures.
2. There is a considerable amount of disagreement about the extent and causes of
gender difference, but some differences are clear from the time of birth.
a. Male infants tend to be more active and fussier than female infants.
b. Boys’ sleep is more disturbed than that of girls.
c. There is some evidence that male newborns are more irritable than
female infants.
3. Gender differences emerge more clearly as children age, and become
increasingly influenced by the gender roles that society sets out for them.
a. Infants can distinguish between males and females by the age of 1 year.
b. Boys and girls prefer different toys, a factor that is often reinforced by
their parents.
c. By the age of 2, boys behave more independently and less compliantly
than girls, a difference that can be largely traced to differences in parent
behavior.
d. Differences in behaviors among boys and girls may be related to the
prenatal effects of hormones.
Statistics about family life show that today infants are being raised in stressful
environments.
1. The number of single-parent families has increased dramatically in the last two
decades.
2. Fifty-five percent of women with infants work either in full- or part-time jobs.
3. One in 6 children live in poverty in the U.S., and the rate is higher among
African American, Hispanic, and single-parent families.
4. Many children are cared for outside the home for a portion of the day.
a. Thirty percent of preschool children whose mothers work outside the
home spend their days in day care centers.
b. Overall, more than 80 percent of infants are cared for by people other
than their mothers during the first year of life.
109
c.
d.
High-quality child care outside the home produces only minor
differences from home care in most respects, and some studies have
found clear benefits from day car participation.
Poor-quality day care can contribute to children being less securely
attached, especially if children are cared for by multiple caregivers or if
their mothers are relatively insensitive and unresponsive.
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
SEE TEXTBOOK CD
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATTACHMENT
In 1964, Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson interviewed mothers of babies from early infancy to
18 months of age. The researchers discovered that babies progress through four stages of attachment:
Stage 1:
Stage 2:
Stage 3:
Stage 4:
Asocial Attachment (0–6 weeks)
Infants show no specific attachment to anyone.
Indiscriminate Attachment (6 weeks–7 months)
Infants enjoy interactions with others and play with just about anyone. They prefer
humans to toys and at about 3–6 months are beginning to smile biggest for familiar
people.
Specific Attachment (7–9 months)
Infants now begin to protest when separated from a particular individual, mostly their
mothers. Infants want to be near mother and are beginning to be wary of strangers.
According to Schaffer and Emerson, this is the beginning of true attachment.
Multiple Attachments (9–18 months)
Most infants show additional attachments to other persons after the initial attachment
(which is usually to mother). These additional attachments may be to father, siblings,
grandparents, or regular babysitters. However, the initial attachment seems to be the
strongest one and this is the person infants go to when upset or frightened.
Source:
Schaffer, H. R., & Emerson, P. E. (1964). The Development of Social Attachments in Infancy. Monographs
of the Society for Research in Child Development, 29(3), Serial #94.
AINSWORTH’S STRANGE SITUATION TEST
Mary Ainsworth’s ground-breaking study about infant attachment grew out of the work of scientists in
ethology, developmental psychology, and psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud declared that infants become
attached to their mothers because their mothers feed them and satisfy their oral needs. However, psychoanalyst
Rene Spitz noticed that infants in foundling homes, even when fed adequately, died at an alarming rate. He
hypothesized that they were dying from lack of loving attention and touch. Harry Harlow had read Spitz’s work
and decided to test the theory of “contact comfort” against Freud’s orals needs theory. He used infant rhesus
monkeys. Harlow took monkeys right after birth and put them with “surrogate mothers.” Some “mothers” were
made of wire mesh and had bottles attached for feeding. Other “mothers” were made of terry cloth and had no
bottle. Although the young monkeys went to the wire mesh “mothers” when they were hungry, they spent the
rest of their time clinging to the terry cloth “mothers.” And when Harlow frightened the monkeys, they ran for
safety to the cloth “mothers.” Harlow also found that monkeys separated from their mothers and raised in
110
isolation become antisocial and later became poor mothers themselves. Thus, it seemed, with monkeys at least,
that “mother love” and touch were more important than food.
But what about the human mother-infant bond? In England, John Bowlby studied the affects of early
maternal deprivation on children precipitated by World War II. He proposed that children go through three
stages when separated from their mothers: protest, despair, and finally, detachment. Influenced by Konrad
Lorenz’s work on imprinting, Bowlby hypothesized that early maternal separation is harmful because it
thwarts the infant’s instinctive need for a close bond with its mother. Bowlby maintained that infants inherit
several behaviors that help them to maintain contact with significant others and to elicit caretaking. These
behaviors include signaling, orienting, and contact behaviors such as crying, cooing, smiling, grasping, and
babbling that adults find impossible to ignore. Thus behaviors on the pan of both the infant and caretaker
ensure survival and promote attachment.
Mary Ainsworth worked with Bowlby in the early 1950s analyzing data on the effects of maternal
separation on children under 5. Later, in Uganda, Ainsworth observed infant-mother attachment and devised
her categorization system. When she went to Baltimore in the 1960s, Ainsworth decided to further test these
categories under experimental conditions. She decided to use a “strange situation” after reading Harlow’s
research with monkeys. First Ainsworth and four assistants closely observed 26 infant/mother pairs for over
72 hours in the children’s homes, watching for these interactions: feeding, crying, cuddling, eye contact, and
smiling. Then, when the babies were a year old, they were brought to Ainsworth’s lab and observed during
what came to be called the “strange situation.” The experiment proceeded as follows. (You may wish to use
Handout 7–1 to accompany this part of the lecture.)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Mother and baby are alone in an unfamiliar room with toys.
Mother sits down and baby is free to explore and play with the toys.
An unfamiliar adult enters the room.
Mother leaves the room; the baby stays with the unfamiliar adult.
Mother comes back into the room; the stranger leaves.
Mother leaves baby alone in the room.
Stranger comes back instead of mother.
Stranger leaves and mother comes back into the room.
Of particular concern to Ainsworth and her associates was the baby’s reactions to its mother during #5 and
#8. She found three patterns:
1.
Securely attached
These infants explored the room, keeping an eye on their mothers. They cried when separated from
their mothers but when their mothers returned she was greeted with pleasure, often by the baby’s
wanting to be held. These children were easy to console.
2.
Insecurely attached-ambivalent
These infants were clingy even before the mother left and were afraid to explore the room. They
were extremely anxious and agitated when their mother left the room and cried to be held when she
returned. However, they arched away from her body and refused to be consoled.
3.
Insecurely attached-avoidant
These children explored the room but did not turn around to keep an eye on their mothers. When
mother left, these infants did not get upset and when she returned they avoided her.
111
From the home and laboratory observations, Ainsworth was able to explain the mothering styles that
produced each type of attachment. Mothers of securely attached infants responded to their infant’s feeding
signals and crying promptly. In addition, they smiled a lot with their infants. Mothers of anxiously attached
infants responded in inconsistent, ignoring, or rejecting ways.
Further research has found that patterns of attachment persist past infancy. For example, school-age
children who were insecurely attached to their mothers during infancy exhibited problem behaviors in
school and had poor social skills. In fact, Magid & McKelvey (1987) assert that criminal behavior in adults
and children is a direct result of poor early childhood attachment. The research on attachment also has
implications for infant day care. For example, Belsky and others claim that when an infant spends more than
20 hours a week in day care, the child is at risk of becoming insecurely attached.
Not all developmentalists accept Ainsworth’s interpretations. Chief among her detractors is Jerome Kagan,
who believes another way to interpret infants’ attachment styles is to look at parenting behaviors and infant
temperament. Kagan asserts, for example, that “insecurely attached” infants may merely be temperamentally
less able to cope with maternal separation and strangers. Kagan also claims that cross-cultural research
indicates that some forms of socialization teach infants to suppress their fears in unfamiliar places.
Sources:
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, S. M., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Belsky, J. (1989). Infant-Parent Attachment and Day Care: In Defense of the Strange Situation. In J. S.
Lande, S. Scan, & N. Gunzenhauser (Eds.). Caring for Children: Challenge to America. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Belsky, J. (1992). Consequences of Child Care for Children’s Development: A Deconstructionist View. In
A. Booth (Ed.), Child Care in the 1990s. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Loss: Sadness and Depression. New York: Basic Books.
DeAngelis, T. (June, 1997). When Children Don’t Bond with Parents. APA Monitor, 28(6), 10, 12.
Goleman, D. (June 6, 1989). New Research Overturns a Milestone of Infancy. The New York Times.
Kagan, J. (1984). The Nature of the Child (Chapter 2: The Infant). New York: Basic Books.
Karen, R. (February, 1990). Becoming Attached. The Atlantic Monthly. 35–70.
Magid, K. & McKelvey, C. A. (1987). High Risk: Children without a Conscience. New York: Bantam
Books.
112
SHOULD YOU LET A BABY CRY?
Many developmentalists believe that the discomfort caused by listening to a baby cry is an adaptive
response that assures the helpless baby will get attention from an adult. However, even the experts disagree
on how quickly parents or caregivers should respond to a crying baby. A recent visit to the website
www.parentsoup.com produced the following question from a frantic new parent: “Which is better for my
baby, Ferberization or the attachment theory?” These are modern incarnations of an old dilemma:
Ferberization is based on the views of Dr. Richard Ferber in his book Solving your Child’s Sleep Problems
and advocates letting babies cry themselves to sleep. Attachment theory argues that babies cry for adaptive
reasons and that letting them cry stunts their social and emotional development.
Ferberization: Modern-Day Behaviorism
The first psychologist to advise new parents on whether to allow babies to cry or not was John B. Watson.
Watson argued that when parents respond each time their baby cries they are rewarding the crying and
increasing its happening. In other words, they are spoiling their children. To avoid this, Watson advises,
treat them
. . . as though they were young adults. . . Let your behavior always be objective and kindly
firm. Never hug or kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. . . . Shake hands with them in
the morning. In a week’s time, you will find how easy it is to be perfectly objective. . .
[yet] kindly. You will be utterly ashamed at the mawkish, sentimental way you have been
handling [your child] (1928, 81–82).
Interestingly, a few years later his wife, Rosalie Rayner Watson wrote the following in Children magazine
(the precursor to today’s Parents):
One grave reason why I am a very bad mother, behaviorally speaking, is because I am still
somewhat on the side of the children. I am afraid the scientists tackled me too late in life
to wholly recondition me. I cannot restrain my affection for the children completely. The
respect in which I am the very worst behaviorist is because I too want to break all rules
once in awhile (cited in Parents, August, 1996, p. 50).
By the 1940s, Dr. Spock (in his classic Baby and Child Care) was dispensing very similar advice: when
babies are fussy and won’t sleep, let them cry it out until they fall asleep. Fifty years later, Dr. Richard
Ferber, head of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children’s Hospital in Boston, wrote a bestselling book called Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. After studying babies’ sleep habits for years, Ferber
says that most healthy babies are sleeping through the night by age 3 months. Babies need to “learn” that if
they cry at night parents will not (a) take them out of the crib, (b) feed them, or (c) play with them. Also,
says Ferber, if a baby learns to fall asleep only while being held, rocked, or fed, she’ll insist on those
conditions being met night after night. While it’s normal for babies to wake during the night, Ferber
continues, it is knowing how to go back to sleep that is the problem. Instead, advises Ferber, teach her to
sleep on her own. Give the baby a pat (not a cuddle) and leave the room. If the crying continues, parents
should return and calmly reassure the child. Ferber suggests increasing the intervals between returning to
the child’s room by 5 minutes at first, then 10, then 15. Within a week, claims Ferber, the child will be
“trained” to fall asleep on her own.
113
Many developmentalists disagree with the behaviorist view. John Bowlby (1989) argued that babies’ cries
are “preprogrammed distress signals” that bring caregivers to the baby. The caregivers, too, are
programmed to respond to babies’ cries. The adaptive significance of crying ensures that
the infant’s basic needs will be met;
a sense of trust in others will develop; and
the infant will have sufficient contact with other human beings to form social and
emotional attachments.
Mary Ainsworth believes that you cannot respond too much to an infant’s crying in the first year. She found
that mothers who responded quickly to their infants when they cried at age 3 months had infants who cried
less later (Bell & Ainsworth, 1972). Other researchers have found that quick, soothing responses to infant’s
crying increased subsequent crying (Gewirtz, 1977).
Your students might find this an interesting topic for discussion. Students may even enjoy surveying parents
they know about their views on responding to babies’ crying.
Sources:
Bell, S. M. & Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1972). Infant Crying and Maternal Responsiveness. Child
Development, 43, 1171–1190.
Bowlby, J. (1989). Secure and Insecure Attachment. New York: Basic Books.
Ferber, R. (1989). Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Gewirtz, J. (1977). Maternal responding and the conditioning of infant crying: Directions of influence
within the attachment-acquisition process. In B. C. Etzel, J. M. LeBlanc, & D. M. Baer (Eds.),
New Developments in Behavioral Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gordon, D. (Spring/Summer, 1997). Preventing a Hard Day’s Night. Newsweek Special Issue, 56–7.
Is it wrong to show affection to children? (August, 1996) Parents, 50.
Spock, B. (1957). Baby and Child Care. New York: Pocket Books.
Watson, J. B. (1928). Psychological Care of Infant and Child. New York: W. W. Norton
CLASS ACTIVITIES
OBSERVING ATTACHMENT BEHAVIORS
Arrange to have several infants brought to class with their parents. It’s helpful to have a range of ages from
early infancy to 2 years old. Have your students observe as you approach each infant and interact with him
or her. Your students should write down their observations, paying special attention to emotions, attachment
behaviors, and differences between infants based on age, sex, and perhaps temperament. You can also talk
to the parents about their babies’ personalities. Afterwards, discuss with the class what they discovered
about observing infants. Use Handout 7–2 for this activity.
114
INFANT DAY CARE
In April, the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the biggest and best
designed study to date, released the following data on infant day care:
1.
Children (ages 15 months to 36 months) in high-quality day care—care that provides a stimulating
environment—do as well on cognitive and language tests as children who stay home with their mothers,
regardless of how many hours a day they spend in such care.
2.
Mothers who use higher quality day care are slightly more affectionate and attentive to their children.
3.
Mothers are slightly more affectionate and attentive to their children the less time their children spend
in day care (Azar, 1997).
Have your classroom groups list advantages and disadvantages of putting infants in day care centers.
Choose one representative from each group to argue the “PRO” side, and one representative to argue the
“CON” side. You may want to give your class several days to prepare their arguments. Below are several
resources to help them.
Sources:
Azar, B. (June, 1997). It may cause anxiety, but day care can benefit kids. APA Monitor, 28(6), 13.
Baydar, N. & Brooks-Gunn, J., Vandell, D. L. & Ramanan, J. (1995). Does a mother’s job have a negative
effect on children? In R. L. DelCampo & D. S. DelCampo (Eds.) Taking Sides: Clashing Views on
Controversial Issues in Childhood and Society. Guilford, CT Dushkin
Clark-Stewart, K. A. (1989). Infant Day Care: Maligned or Malignant? American Psychologist, 44(2),
266-273.
Thompson, R. A. (in press). Infant Day Care: Concerns, Controversies, Choices. In J. V. Lerner & N.
Galambos (Eds.), The Employment of Mothers During the Childrearing Years. New York:
Garland.
Wallis, C. (June 22, 1987). Is Day Care Bad for Babies? Time, 63.
CRITICAL THINKING EXERCISES
Students can either discuss in class or write short essays to answer the following questions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Suggest some helpful hints for hospital and day care professionals to help infants and toddlers come to
terms with separation anxiety.
Can fathers provide the same quality of care that mothers provide? How can fathers promote
attachment with their infants?
Using Erikson’s stage of Trust-Versus-Mistrust as a model, explain the seemingly contradictory
behavior of toddlers who gleefully and independently run away when called to eat or go to bed yet
cling to parents when tired or frightened.
Explain why the emotions of embarrassment, guilt, contempt, pride, and empathy are not evident in
infants until they are nearly 2 years old.
115
OBSERVING INFANTS’ EMOTIONS
An article in a recent issue of the APA Monitor suggests that parenting techniques can help (or hinder) an
infant’s ability to regulate his or her emotions. Parents whose children learned to manage their emotions
employ several strategies:
1.
2.
Parents try to soothe fussy or distressed infants under 1½ years old by holding them, talking to them,
and trying to distract their attention from upsetting events.
By the time the child is 2 years old, parents begin to introduce them to novel and unfamiliar events—
often stressful situations. Although forcing their children into uncomfortable circumstances, the parents
remain close by as a safe base for their children to return to if emotions get too difficult to handle
(DeAngelis, 1997).
Your students may enjoy the opportunity to observe several infants and compare their personalities. They
can ask friends, neighbors, or relatives for permission to watch their infants or students can visit a local day
care center. Handout 7–2 can be used, if desired.
Source:
DeAngelis, T. (June, 1997). Consistent Parenting Helps Children Regulate Emotions. APA Monitor,
28(6), 17.
Handout 7.4 What is attachment in infancy, and how does it affect a person’s future
socialcompetence?


Attachment, a strong, positive emotional bond that forms between an infant and one or more significant
persons, is a crucial factor in enabling individuals to develop social relationships.
Infants display one of four major attachment patterns: securely attached, avoidant, ambivalent, and
disorganized-disoriented. Research suggests an association between an infant’s attachment pattern and
his or her adult social and emotional competence.
SUPPLEMENTAL READING LIST
Blum, D. (2003). Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. Cambridge, MA: Perseus
Books. The story of Harlow’s research and his own experience with depression.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss (Vol. 1). London: Hogarth Press.
Bowlby, J. (1989). Secure and Insecure Attachment. New York: Basic Books.
Clark-Stewart, K. A. (1989). Infant Day Care: Maligned or Malignant? American Psychologist, 44(2),
266-273.
Harlow, H. (June, 1959). Love in Infant Monkeys. Scientific American.
Casey, B. J., Giedd, J. N. & Thomas, K. M. (2000). Structural and Functional Brain Development and its
Relation to Cognitive Development. Biological Psychology, 54, pp. 241-257.
116
Cicchetti, D & Rogosch, F. A. (2001). Diverse Patterns of Neuroendocrine Activity in Maltreated Children.
Developmental Psyhopathology, 13, pp. 677-693.
Coll, C. G., Surrey, J., & Weingarten, K. (Eds.). (1998). Mothering Against the Odds: Diverse Voices of
Contemporary Mothers. New York: The Guilford Press.
Comer, R. (2001). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, 3rd edition. New York: Worth Publishers.
Comstock, D. (2005). Diversity and Development: Critical Contexts that Shape Our Lives and
Relationships. Belmont, CA: Thomson: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
De Bellis, M. D., Baum, A., Birmaher, B., Keshavan, M., Eccard, C., Boring, A. Jenkins, F., Ryan, N.
(1999a). Developmental Traumatology Part I: Biological Stress Systems. Biological Psychiatry,
45, pp. 1259-1270.
De Bellis, M. D., Baum, A., Birmaher, B., Keshavan, M., Eccard, C., Boring, A. Jenkins, F., Ryan, N.
(1999b). Developmental Traumatology Part II: Biological Stress Systems. Biological Psychiatry,
45, pp. 1271-1284.
Deckers, L. (2001). Motivation: Biological, Psychological, and Environmental. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
DiPietro, J., Caulfield, L., & Costigan, K. (2004). Fetal Neurobehavioral Development: A Tale of Two
Cities. Developmental Psychology, 40 (3), pp. 445-456.
Dixon, W. E. (2003). Twenty Studies that Revolutionized Child Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
PowerPoints available for download on the Web site for this textbook
MULTIMEDIA IDEAS
Prentice Hall Lecture Launcher: Developmental PsychologyAnd Baby Makes Three (Filmmakers Library,
27 minutes)
How two sets of parents handle having a new baby, whether mother should return to work, and the
interactions between baby and parents.
Day Care and the Preschool Experience (Worlds of Childhood series, University of Nebraska, 30 minutes)
Early Relationships: Habits of the Heart (Insight Media, 1991, 60 minutes)
Discusses attachment and shows Ainsworth’s Strange Situation.
Emotion/Social Development (Concept Media, 22 minutes)
Discusses Erikson’s first two stages of psychosocial development.
First Feelings (Insight Media, 30 minutes)
This video features interviews with Mary Ainsworth, Jerome Kagan, and others, and discusses
various views about emotions, temperament, and attachment in infancy.
117
Mother-Infant Bonding: One More Way to Mislead Women (Films for the Humanities and Sciences,
28 minutes)
A Phil Donahue program that explores whether mothers and infants must be close immediately
after birth in order to bond.
Mother Love (Carousel Films, 26 minutes)
This is a presentation of Harry Harlow’s experiments with infant monkeys using surrogate mothers
made of wire and terry cloth.
Right from Birth: Becoming a Social Being at Four to Six Months (Insight Media, 2001, 15 minutes)
Discusses how a child learns about the principles of cause and effect and develops a distinct
personality.
Right From Birth: People Skills in Infancy (Insight Media, 2001, 15 minutes)
Explains why the social and emotional development of a child is just as important as their
first steps.
Rock-a-Bye-Baby (Time-Life Films, 1971, 28 minutes)
The work of Rene Spitz and John Bowlby is shown presenting the concept of critical period and
maternal separation.
The Stress of Separation (Filmmakers Library, 20 minutes)
Discusses separation anxiety in children in a British day care center.
HANDOUT 7–1
Use this handout to accompany your lecture on attachment.
HANDOUT 7–2
Copy this handout back-to-back. This can be used by your students as a guide to their class activity of
observing infants either in class or outside of class at an infant’s home or in a day care center.
HANDOUT 7–3
This handout can be used, or adapted, to help students think critically, in journal form, about temperament.
HANDOUT 7–4
What is attachment in infancy, and how does it affect a person’s future social competence?
118
HANDOUT 7–1
Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test
EPISODE
DESCRIPTION
BEHAVIORS OBSERVED
1.
Mother, baby, and observer enter experimental room.
Observer leaves. Many attractive toys are scattered
around.
2.
Mother sits and watches while baby is free to explore
the room.
Does baby use mother as a
secure base?
3.
Stranger enters. Stranger is silent for 1 minute. Stranger
talks to mother for 1 minute. Stranger approaches baby.
Mother leaves room unobtrusively.
What are baby’s reactions to
the stranger?
4.
Baby is alone with stranger.
Is there separation anxiety?
5.
Mother comes back into room and greets and comforts
baby. Baby is encouraged to play again.
How did baby react to mother’s
return?
6.
Mother leaves room, says “Bye, bye.” Baby is alone.
Is there separation anxiety?
7.
Stranger enters room and interacts with baby.
Does the baby have the ability to
be comforted by the stranger?
8.
Mother enters room. Greets baby and picks up baby.
How does baby react to reunion
with mother?
Note: Ainsworth tested babies at 12 months of age. All episodes last 3 minutes. Although Ainsworth used
mothers, this test can be used with other caretakers such as fathers or regular babysitters.
Source:
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
119
HANDOUT 7–2
Observing Infants
Observe one infant at a time. Write down your best interpretation of what you see.
Infant #1
age ______
sex ______
What emotional displays did you observe? Describe the situation.
What temperament style do you think the infant has (easy, difficult, slow-to-warm-up). Why?
Describe the infant’s interactions with its parent(s).
Observe another infant. Write down your best interpretation of what you see.
Infant #2
age ______
sex ______
What emotional displays did you observe? Describe the situation.
What temperament style do you think the infant has (easy, difficult, slow-to-warm-up). Why?
Describe the infant’s interactions with its parent(s).
How do you explain the differences between the two infants?
120
HANDOUT 7–3
Reflective Journal Exercise #7
How would you describe your own temperament? If possible, ask your parents or someone who knew you when you
were an infant about your temperament. Were you an easy child, a difficult child, or a slow-to-warm-up child? How
stable has your temperament been over the course of your development? If you had brothers or sisters, how different
or similar were your individual temperaments? Do you think temperament is inherited? How do other individuals
(your parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, teachers, etc.) react to your temperament style? What have been the
advantages and disadvantages of having your temperament? Do you think there is a connection between your
temperament and how your body feels during emotions (for example, if you are shy do certain situations make your
body feel uncomfortable?)
121
HANDOUT 7–4
What is attachment in infancy, and how does it affect a person’s future social competence?
Infants display one of four major attachment patterns:
1.
2.
3.
4.
122