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
1
Emotional Development
• Within the first two
years, infants
progress from
reactive pain and
pleasure to complex
patterns of social
awareness.
2
Smiling and Laughing
• social smile: smile evoked
by a human face, normally
evident in infants about 6
weeks after birth
• Typical 6-month-old laughs
loudly upon discovering
new things.
3
Anger and Sadness
• Anger evident at 6 months
– usually triggered by frustration
– healthy response
• Sadness indicates withdrawal
– accompanied by increase of cortisol, a stress
hormone
4
Fear
• emerges at about 9 months
– rapidly becomes more frequent and
apparent
• stranger wariness: infant no
longer smiles at any friendly
faces
– cries if an unfamiliar person moves
too close
• separation anxiety: tears,
dismay, or anger when familiar
caregiver leaves
5
Mirror Recognition
self-awareness: person’s
realization that he or she
is a distinct individual
self-recognition: in the
mirror test as well as in
photographs usually
emerges at about 18
months
6
Stress
• Excessive stress impairs the brain.
– children of teenage mothers experience
more stress
– older children who had been maltreated
respond abnormally to:
• stress
• photographs of frightened people
7
Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development
Psychoanalytic Theorists
Freud
– oral stage: mouth is young infant’s primary source of
gratification
• first year
– anal stage: main pleasure comes from the anus.
• sensual pleasure of bowel movement
• pleasure of controlling them
• second year
8
Erikson: Trust and Autonomy
– trust versus mistrust: Infants learn basic trust if
the world is a secure place where their basic
needs are met.
• first psychosocial crisis
– autonomy versus shame and doubt: infants
succeed or fail in gaining sense of self-rule
over their own actions and bodies
• second crisis of psychosocial crisis
9
Behaviorism
• Emotions and personality molded as
parents reinforce or punish the child’s
spontaneous behaviors.
• social learning: learning by observing
others
– Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment
10
Cognitive Theory
• Thoughts and values determine a person’s
perspectives.
– early experiences are important because of:
• beliefs
• perceptions
• memories
• working model: set of assumptions that
individual uses to organize perceptions and
experiences
11
Temperament
• Temperament: Inborn differences between one
person and another in:
– emotions
– activity
– self-regulation
12
The New York Longitudinal Study
(NYLS)
• recognized each newborn has distinct
inborn traits
• laboratory studies found that by 3 months,
infants can be classifies into four
categories.
•
•
•
•
Easy- laugh
Difficult- cry
slow to warm up- quiet
Hard to Classify
• NYLS also found that temperament often
changes, but becomes stable by age 3.
13
The Big Five
• Openness:
– imaginative, curious, welcoming new experiences
• Conscientiousness:
– organized, deliberate, conforming
• Extroversion:
– outgoing, assertive, active
• Agreeableness:
– kind, helpful, easygoing
• Neuroticism:
– anxious, moody, self-critical
14
Ethnotheories
• ethnotheory: values and
practices of a culture that
becomes apparent
through analysis and
comparison of those
practices
– not usually apparent to the
people within the culture
15
Proximal and Distal Parenting
proximal parenting:
parenting practices that
involve close physical
contact with the child’s
entire body
distal parenting: parenting
practices that focus on the
intellect more than the
body
16
17
Goodness of Fit
• goodness of fit: similarity of
temperament and values that
exists between an individual
their social context
– family
– school
– community
• synchrony: coordinated,
rapid, smooth exchange of
responses between a caredescribed giver and infant
18
Attachment
• attachment: “tie” infant forms with the
caregiver
– secure attachment: infant obtains both
comfort and confidence from the presence
of caregiver
– insecure-avoidant attachment: infant
avoids connection with the caregiver
19
• insecure-resistant/ambivalent
attachment: pattern of attachment
in which anxiety and uncertainty
are evident
• disorganized attachment: type of
attachment marked by an infant’s
inconsistent reactions to the
caregiver’s departure and return
20
Strange Situation: Laboratory procedure for
measuring attachment by evoking infants’
reactions to stress.
–
exploration of the toys
•
–
secure toddler plays happily
reaction to caregiver’s departure
•
–
secure toddler misses caregiver
reaction to caregiver’s return•
secure toddler welcomes caregiver’s
reappearance
21
22
Social Referencing
social referencing: seeking information
about how to react to unfamiliar
ambiguous object or event by observing
someone else’s expressions and
reactions
23
Infant Day Care
• Worldwide, most infants are cared for
primarily by their mothers.
– most of the rest provided by relatives, particularly
grandmothers
• On average, only about 15% of infants under
age 2 receive care from a nonrelative who is
both paid and trained to provide it.
• More than half of all 1-year-olds in the U.S.
are in regularly scheduled nonmaternal care.
24
Types of Nonrelative Care
• family day care: child care that occurs in the
home of someone to whom the child is not
related
• center day care: place especially designed
for the purpose, where several paid adults
care for many children
– children are grouped by age
– Facility is licensed
– providers are trained and certified
25
26
The Effects of Infant Day Care
• good preschool
education beneficial
for young children
• disagreements about
the wisdom of
nonmaternal child
care for the very
young
27