Slide 1
7
Socioemotional
Development in Infancy
John W. Santrock
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 2
Socioemotional
Development in Infancy
• How Do Emotions and Personality Develop
in Infancy?
• How Do Social Understanding and
Attachment Develop in Infancy?
• How Do Social Contexts Influence
Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 3
Images of Children
• The story of Darius’s fathering
– Work-at-home father
– Extensive father-child interactions
– Introduction of Child Care Center
– Coordinated careers and child care
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 4
Emotional Development
• Emotion: feeling or affect
– Physiological arousal
– Conscious experience
– Behavioral expression
– Positive or negative
– Varies in intensity
– Influenced by one’s perceptions
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 5
Biological Foundations and
Experience
• Emotions
– Involve early-developing regions of human
nervous system, limbic system, brain stem
– Emotional responses in infancy result from
developmental changes
– Role of relationships
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 6
A Functionalist View of
Emotion
• Cannot separate emotional responses
from evoking situation or context
– Signals attempts to adapt to specific roles
– Emotions are relational
– Linked with an individual’s goals
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 7
Early Emotions
• Two broad types of emotions
• Primary: present in humans, animals
• Appear within first 6 months of life
• Include surprise, anger, joy, sadness, fear
• Promote caregiver-infant interactions
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 8
Early Emotions
• Two broad types of emotions
•Self-conscious: requires cognition
• Empathy, jealousy, embarrassment can
appear about 6 months
• Pride, shame, guilt first appear about 1
to 1½ years
• Enables child to use social standards
and evaluate own behavior
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 9
Crying
Basic Cry
Rhythmic pattern usually consisting
of cry, briefer silence, shorter
inspiratory whistle, and brief rest
Anger Cry
Similar to basic cry, with more excess
air forced through vocal chords
Pain Cry
Sudden loud, long initial cry followed
by extended period of breath
holding; without preliminary moaning
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 10
Smiling
• Reflexive smile
– Not a response to external stimuli
– Happens during first month after birth,
usually during sleep
• Social smile
– Appears about 2 to 3 months of age
– Response to external stimulus, faces
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 11
Fear
• First appears about 6 months of age
• Stranger anxiety: fear and wariness of
strangers
– Intense from 9 to 12 months
– Less intense reaction to children, smiling
strangers
• Separation protest: distress at being
separated from caregiver
– peaks at about 15 months in U.S. infants
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Separation Anxiety in Four Cultures
Slide 12
African
Bushman
Antiguan
Guatemala
Guatemalan
Indian
Israeli
Kibbutzim
100
80
60
40
20
0
5
10
15
20
25
Age (in months)
30
35
Fig. 7.3
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 13
Emotional Regulation and
Coping
• Emotional regulation: effectively
managing arousal to adapt, reach goal
• Infants move from caregiver soothing
to self-soothing strategies, redirected
attention, self-distraction
• Context can affect regulation
– Swaddling: Middle East, Navajo in U.S.
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 14
Describing and
Classifying Temperament
• Temperament: one’s behavioral style
and characteristic emotional response
• Chess and Thomas: three basic types
– Easy: positive mood, adapts easily
– Difficult: negative, cries, adapts slowly
– Slow-to-warm-up: low activity level, low
adaptability and intensity of mood
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 15
Kagan’s Behavioral
Inhibition
• Focus on shy, subdued, timid child
• Inhibition to the unfamiliar
• Inhibition shows considerable stability
from infancy through early childhood
• Continuity shown for both inhibition
and lack of inhibition
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 16
Rothbart and Bates’s
Classification
• Extraversion/surgency:
– positive affect, impulsivity, sensation seeking
(Kegan’s uninhibited here)
• Negative affectivity:
– easily distressed (Kegan’s inhibited here)
• Effortful control (self-regulation): high
efforts to control affect
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 17
Biological Foundations
and Experience
• Biological influences:
– Physiological characteristics associated
with different temperaments
• Gender, culture, and temperament
• Goodness of Fit and Parenting
– Goodness of fit: match between child’s
temperament and environmental demands
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 18
Parenting and the
Child’s Temperament
• Attention to and respect for individuality
• Structuring the child’s environment
• The “difficult child” and packaged
parenting programs
– Flexible caregiver responses
– Avoid “labeling” and self-fulfilling prophecy
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 19
Personality Development
• Trust versus mistrust: Erikson’s
first stage of development
– Infants experience world as either
positive or negative outcomes
– Continuity not guaranteed
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Emotions and Personality Develop in Infancy?
Slide 20
The Developing Sense of Self
• The Self
– Separation and individualization process
– Visual self-recognition
• Independence
– Erikson’s 2nd stage: Autonomy versus
shame and doubt
– Self-determination and pride or overcontrol
creates shame and doubt
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Amsterdam study
Lewis and BrooksGunn study
100
Percent of infants who recognized
themselves in a mirror
Slide 21
80
Development of
Self-Recognition
in Infancy
60
Two studies on infants
and children able to
recognize themselves
in mirror
40
20
0
9-12
21-24
15-18
Age (in months)
Fig. 7.4
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Understanding and Attachment Develop in Infancy?
Slide 22
Social
Orientation/Understanding
• Infants motivated to understand the world
– Social orientation: perceptions,
interpretations
• Face-to-face play with caregiver and objects
– Locomotion (crawl, walk, run)
– Intention, Goal-directed behavior,
cooperation (e.g., joint attention)
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Understanding and Attachment Develop in Infancy?
Slide 23
Social
Orientation/Understanding
• Infants motivated to understand the world
– Social referencing:
• Reading emotional cues from others
• Influences exploration of unfamiliar environment
• Ability improves after age 2
– Attachment: close emotional bond formed
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Understanding and Attachment Develop in Infancy?
Slide 24
Attachment Development
• Freud: Infants become attached to
person or object giving oral satisfaction
– Disproved by Harlow’s research: regardless
of which mother fed monkeys, both
preferred physical comfort of cloth mother
– Erikson: First year is key for attachment,
physical comfort plays role here
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mean hours per day
24
18
.
.
.
.
. .
.
12
.
6
0
Fed by cloth mother
Fed by wire mother
Slide 25
Hours per day spent
with cloth mother
Harlow’s Results:
Contact time with
wire and cloth
surrogate mothers
.
.
.. . .. .. . Hours
per day spent
with wire mother
.
.
1-5
11-10
21-25
6-10
16-20
Age (days)
Fig. 7.6
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Understanding and Attachment Develop in Infancy?
Slide 26
Attachment Development
• Bowlby’s ethological view:
– Biological predisposition
– increases chances of survival
– Develops in series of phases; preference
for humans evolves into partnership with
primary caregivers
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Bowlby’s 4 Phases
Slide 27
• Phase 1: birth to 2 months
– Responds equally to parents, strangers, siblings;
infant cries or smiles
• Phase 2: 2 to 7 months
– Selective focus and attachment; gradual learning
to distinguish familiar from unfamiliar
• Phase 3: 7 to 24 months
– Specific attachment; actively seeks contact
• Phase 4: 24 months on
– Considers others’ feelings when forming actions
– Formation of internal working model of attachment
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Understanding and Attachment Develop in Infancy?
Slide 28
Measuring Attachment
• Ainsworth’s Strange Situation:
measures infant’s attachment to
caregiver
– Requires infant to move through a series of
introductions, separations, and reunions
• Securely attached
• Insecure resistant
• Insecure avoidant
• Insecure disorganized
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 29
Avoidant
Secure
Resistant
70
Percentage of infants
60
Cross-Cultural
Comparison of
Attachment:
50
40
30
Ainsworth’s
strange situation
applied to infants
in three countries
in 1988
20
10
0
U.S.
Germany
Japan
Fig. 7.7
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Understanding and Attachment Develop in Infancy?
Slide 30
The Significance of
Attachment
• Some
• Others believe too
developmentalists
much emphasis is
believe secure
placed on attachment
attachment in first
bond in infancy
year provides
– Ignores diversity of
socializing agents and
important foundation
contexts
for psychological
– Lab not reflective of
development
natural environment
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Understanding and Attachment Develop in Infancy?
Slide 31
Caregiving Styles
and Attachment
Baby attachment
Caregiver behaviors
Securely attached
Sensitive to signals,
consistently available
Unavailable, rejecting
Inconsistent responses
Neglect, physical abuse
Avoidant
Resistant
Disorganized
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 32
The Family
• The Transition to Parenthood
– New parents must adapt to new
demands on time, finances, and roles
• Babies affect parents’ marriage
– Most less satisfied after child is born
– Almost 1/3 happier, more interested in
relationships, more efficient
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 33
The Family
• Reciprocal Socialization is bidirectional
– Scaffolding: positive parental behavior
supports children’s efforts
– Children’s skills increase
– Support modified to suit children’s level of
development
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 34
The Family
• The family as a system
– Made up of subsystems defined by gender,
generation, and role
– Indirect and direct influences from marital
relations, parenting, and infant behavior
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 35
The Family
• Infant caregiving
– Mothers and fathers both competent
caregivers, but behave differently
– Mothers: center on child-care activities
– Fathers: more likely to center on play,
rough-and-tumble activities
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 36
Child Care Policies
Around the World
• Five types of parental leave
– Maternity leave
– Paternity leave
– Parental leave
– Child-rearing leave
– Family leave
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How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 37
Child Care
• Variations in child care
– Type and quality:
• Large centers, elaborate facilities, private
homes
• Commercial; nonprofit by churches, employers
• Professional providers; mothers earning
additional monies
• Quality linked to stress level, individual child
temperament has impact
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 38
Child Care
• Variations in child care
– Child care type varies by ethnicity
• African American and Latino
– More reliance on family-based care
– Grandmothers most important
• Latinos least likely to use child care centers
• Use of center-based care by African American
mothers is substantially increasing
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 39
Longitudinal Study
of Child Care
• Patterns of Use:
– High reliance and early entry
• By 4 months, nearly 3/4 of infants have had
some non-maternal child care
– Socioeconomic factors affect amount
and type of care
• Income level, education
• Dependence on mother’s income
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 40
Longitudinal Study
• Quality of Care
– Small group sizes
– Low child-adult ratios
– Teachers: specialized training, formally
educated, experienced
– Caregiver sensitivity to children
– Children linked to higher competence
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 41
Longitudinal Study
• Amount of child care
– High-quality care and fewer hours in
care lead to positive outcomes
• Family and parenting influences
– Influence not weakened by extensive
child care; parents significant influence
in children regulating emotions
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
How Do Social Contexts Influence Socioemotional Development in Infancy?
Slide 42
Longitudinal Study
• Strategies for child care
– Recognize quality of parenting on your
child’s development
– Make good parenting decisions
– Monitor your child’s development
– Take time to find best child care
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 43
7
The End
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.