I. Theories, Emotions, Social Referencing

• Father of Psychoanalysis
• Stage Model
– Psychosexual Personality Development
• Tripartate Personality: Id, Ego, Superego
• Infancy seen as the focus of bodily pleasure in the mouth region (Oral Stg) and anus (Anal) as the infant learns to suck, bite and control elimination in the context of parental restrictions of desires
(crises)

• Student of Freud’s
• Claims cultural forces are important, hence,
Psychosocial model of personality develop
• Main theme of life is search for identity, which is seen as the core of the personality
• Identity is the concept of self and how it is related to the social world
• Each stage has a crisis related to the aspect of self that is being developed at that stage and how the individual’s development is being constrained by the demands of parents and significant others

• Stages of Infancy and Toddlerhood
– Basic Trust vs. Mistrust (B-1yr)
• Feeding central to the crisis, quality of maternal care will determine outcome of the weaning crisis
– Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (1-2 yrs)
• Contexts where infant is trying to gain control over actions and experiences, as in toilet training, dressing self, feeding self, sensitive support of attempts at independence will result in healthy resolution of crisis (self efficacy), over- or undercontrolling parenting will result in infant who doubts her competence

• Theory focuses on developing sense of self and how it emerges from the strongly bonded mother-infant unit from birth
• Two stage theory
– I. Symbiosis - Infant interacts with the world as a unit with the mother, no distinction between self and other
– II. Separation/Individuation - Around 4-5 mos infant pulls away from mother to explore the world, develops further as the infant independently moves about the world, new perspective gained through her own action, initially infant may try to regain unity state, gradually independence is gained through sensitive parenting as infant moves toward independence

• Freud challenged for his focus on
Psychosexual forces
• Psychoanalytic view challenged in general for a lack of empirical support
• Mahler challenged by recent findings showing a sense of self as a separate entity from birth

• Emotions play a powerful role in organizing relationships with others in the infants’ world and in the development of a sense of self
• Early cross cultural work with adults suggested a universal set of basic emotions exist (Ekman)
• Infant research suggests either 1) generalized postive/negative emotional states at birth vs. 2) 7 basic emotions felt - happy, sad, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, interest (Izard, Campos)
• Adults judge positive emotional expressions well, but not negative, possibly due to right brain lag in infant brain development

• Happy
– Different experiences associated with hapiness at different points in infancy
• B: when full, being rocked, massaged,
• 2 mos: interesting objects or events, smile in others,
• 3-4 mos: laughter in response to active interesting stimuli, later at surprising events,
• 18 mo: laugh more to familiar people,
• 24 mos: smile used as a social signal as when infant turns toward adult and smiles

• Anger and Fear
– Both increase during second half of first year
– Anger expressed in a variety of situations from having toy removed to restraining arms
• May mobilize infant to defend self or remove obstacles
• Rise of intentional behavior at 12 mos gives direction to anger
– Common expression of fear is stranger anxiety, also shown in response to danger as in the height of a visual cliff (this linked to motor development)
• May keep the drive for exploration in check
• Improvement in memory helps to distinguish familiar from strange

• Social, Self-Conscious, Emotions
– Directly linked to a developing sense of self
– Appear around end of 2nd year (18-24 mos) as children start to show embarassment, pride
– Guilt, envy, remorse appear around 36 mos
– Social emotions helpful in acquiring socially valued goals and behaviors as parents begin socializing in these domains

• Has to do with comprehension of emotions, and responding to the emotions of others
• Measured by looking at whether infants guide behavior by reading the meaning inherent in the emotional cues from others
• Social referencing refers to the situation where an infant uses information from others to appraise events and regulate behavior
– Cues can be emotional expressions or instrumental actions
– Occurs in situations of uncertainty
– Onset is sometime around 9 mos
– Message can be directly delivered, or indirectly
– Infants more sensitive to cues from significant person

• Empirical Studies
– Feinman & Lewis
• 10 mo olds approached by stranger, mom showed pos, neg or neutral affect in either direct or indirect messages to infant
• Find infants friendlier to stranger when mom gave direct pos cues to infant
– Sorce et al
• 12 o olds on a visual cliff, mom gave pos or neg facial expression on deep side
• Find for deep cliff infants would not cross regardless of mom, for shallow would cross only for pos expression
– Klinnert et al
• 12 and 18 mo olds presented with 3 toys, mom showed pos, neg, neutral expression
• Find infants moved closer to mom for neg, intermediate for neutral, and far for pos expressions

• Along with joint attention, imitation, social referencing is a powerful social tool for infants to understand messages from the culture
• Infants’ development in the social domain is constrained by and constrains their development in the cognitive domain

II. Temperament, Attachment and
Understanding of Self

• Refers to relatively stable individual differences in the quality and intensity of emotional reactions
• Classic Study - Thomas & Chess 1984
– Longitudinal - followed 141 infants until adulthood
– Found temperament can predict likelihood of vulnerability or resilience to stress

• Measured temperament and outcome using a variety of techniques
– Interviews, questionnaires, observations, peer and teacher ratings, physiological measures
• Nine dimensions on which behavior is measured to yield the classification
– Activity level, Rhythmicity, Distractibility, Approachwithdrawal, Adaptability, Attention span/persistence,
Responsiveness, Quality of mood

• Three major patterns identified
– Easy (40%) - regular routines, easy to soothe
– Difficult (10%) - irregular routines, difficult to soothe
– Slow-to-warm-up (15%) - slow to adjust to change, negative mood, mild reactions to stimulation
– Unclassified (35%) - blends of the above

• Kagan’s Research
– Physiological correlates of shy and outgoing temperaments measured in a longitudinal study
– Stability appears restricted to the extreme classifications
– Finds characteristic physiological profiles for extremely shy individuals, suggesting a genetic component

• Temperamental differences partly determined by cultural beliefs as in how to attend to young infants when they cry, what to expect of girls and boys, whether dependence or independence is fostered, co-sleeping arrangements, etc
– E.g., Japan where moms encourage dependence vs. US where moms foster independence, or US where independence fostered for boys more so than girls. Cosleeping associated with milder temperaments, found in majority of cultures. These average differences, not across all individuals

• Thomas & Chess talked about goodness of fit between certain temperaments and certain parenting styles
– Recent research shows inactive toddlers benefit from high level of interaction and verbal stimulation from moms, whereas active toddlers benefit from moms who were less interfering
– Infants and toddlers at risk are those of parents who have a harsh parenting style, difficult infant behaviors increase in this case, spiraling into abusive, harsh parental behaviors.

• Relatively enduring emotional bond with a specific other person
• Relationships are reciprocal, study of attachment must focus on the role of the other as well as the role of the infant
• Question of interest is whether there is any transfer of the quality of attachment in the initial relationship to later relationships formed in life

• Behaviorist
– Drive reduction explains attachment
– Primary drive is hunger, t his drive is reduced by parent who feeds infant, so feeding plays a central role in attachment
– Problem is that infants will attach strongly to individuals who don’t feed them
• Empirical support for this comes from Harlow’s classic experiment

• Psychoanalytic
– Stress the quality of mother-infant interaction as being important - sensitive mothering will lead to secure attachments
– Primary context for attachment is feeding
– Problem with approach is the overemphasis on the role of the mother as compared to other significant individuals in the infant’s life, as well as neglecting the role that the infant plays in this development

• Ethological (Bowlby)
– Most widely respected position
– Survival function of attachment behaviors
– Infant endowed with behaviors to keep caregivers close (cry, smile, etc)
– Contexts include feeding, play, distress relief and contact comfort
– Infant develops through stages in the development of attachment which corresponds to a developing model of the attachment figure, and this model guides future relationships

• Preattachment (B-6 wks)
– Indiscriminate sociability, development of a repertoire of signals to bring the caregiver closer, recognition of the caregiver’s style of interaction
• Attachment in the Making (6 wks - 6 mos)
– Begin to show preference for caregiver, learning about reciprocity, effectance, trust in relationships
• Clear Cut Attachment (6 mos - 18 mos)
– Mobility allows for more initiative on part of infant for getting closer if necessary, shows anxiety on separation from caregiver, joy on reunion, secure base for exploration, language allows infant to handle more distance
• Goal Corrected Partnerships ( 2 yrs on)
– Child takes other’s needs into account, negotiates the relationship

• Primary Measure is Ainsworth’s Strange
Situation Test
– Based on the premise that a secure infant would use the caregiver as a secure base for exploration and will show anxiety when separated from caregiver
– A series of 7 episodes of separation and reunion, with and without the presence of a stranger

• Classifications that emerge from the Strange Situation test
– Secure
• Explore actively in pre-separation, show distress at separation, joy at reunion
– Insecure-Resistant
• Explore little, distress at stranger, intense distress at separation, difficult to settle at reunion, reveal ambivalence at reunion
– Insecure-Avoidant
• No secure base behavior, not distressed when mom leaves, turn away from mom at reunion, but other HR measures show distress
– Disorganized/Disoriented
• Bizarre behaviors like freezing, parent flips between warmth and hostility, sometimes upset by separation, others show relief, often found in abused children

• Maternal deprivation
– Orphanage studies show drastic effects of lack of emotional bond in infancy- excessive attention seeking, indiscriminate friendliness
• Quality of care
– Secure infants have moms who are positive and reliable in responding to needs, insecure have moms who are inconsistent and show negative affect, disorganized have abusive, neglectful moms. Overintrusive associated with avoidant, understimulating with resistant

• Infant characteristics
– Prematurity coupled with lack of support for mom correlated with insecurity, prematurity alone not correlated
– Temperament not clearly related, depends on measures of both, and on whether the parenting style is matched with temperament or not
– Family stability correlated with attachment stability

• Secure babies show increase ability to solve problems and better success at peer relationships
• However the results are correlational and could be other factors causing these effects like continuity of sensitive parenting

• Concept of self includes
– Self recognition: knowledge that image of self represents self
– Self efficacy: knowledge of what self can do
– Self awareness: knowledge of self as intentional agent in the world of others who also have intentions

• Concentrated on self recognition alone as a measure of self concept
– Mirror recognition technique
– Dixon finds 5-9 mos show playful interest to image,
12 mos look toward image when asked ‘where are you?’
– Amsterdam put rouge on nose and infants notice at
20 mos
– Lewis shows live and delayed video of self, find more smiling and interest in live than delayed, and more in video of self than other infant. Shows importance of contingency cues to self

• Rochat
– Argues that the process of developing self awareness is scaffolded onto early social interactions
– Self efficacy acquired in learning what the body can do: 5-7 mos reached for objects that varied in distance. Infants who did not have control over posture did not attempt reaches beyond their limit, those who did leaned forward to reach.
When weights put on infants’ wrists reaching decreased in all infants
– Self awareness acquired in interactions in the social and object world. Infants given pacifiers that make rising tone or falling tone depending on whether infant sucks more or less than baseline. Infants detected contingency in sucking and auditory output.

• Emergent sense of self reliant on development of
– Sense of what the body can do
– Sense of the nature of internal states and how these are reflected by their actions on objects in the world
– Appreciation of how their mental states are reflected by the impact their actions have on other people