Chapter 7
Social and Personality Development in Infancy
PageLearning Objectives / 105
Key Terms and Concepts / 105
Chapter Outline / 106
Lecture Suggestions / 110
The Development of Attachment
/ 110Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test
/ 110Should You Let a Baby Cry?
/ 113Class Activities / 114
Supplemental Reading List / 116
Prentice Hall PowerPoints available online / 117
Multimedia Ideas / 117
Handouts / 119
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
122
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
easy babies
difficult babies
slow-to-warm babies
goodness-of-fit
gender
122
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.
1. Infants see others as compliant agents, beings similar to themselves who behave under their own power and respond to the infant’s requests.
2. Children’s capacity to understand intentionality and causality grow during infancy.
3. By age 2, infants demonstrate Empathy, an emotional response that corresponds to the feelings of another person.
4. 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, Disorganized-Disoriented 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.
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-Shame-and-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
(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.
D. 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.
E. 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.
c. 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.
d. 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: Asocial Attachment (0–6 weeks)
Infants show no specific attachment to anyone.
Stage 2: 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.
Stage 3: 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.
Stage 4: 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.