PL3104 Lecture 6 notes PDF

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PL3104 Lecture 6 notes: Socioemotional development in Infants Emotion  Feeling, or affect, when a person is in a state or an interaction that is important to him or her o Often classified as positive or negative  Has biological, cognitive, and environmental influences  Function: o Affects behaviours o Plays a role in communication with others and behavioural organization  Influence infant’s social responses and adaptive behaviour as they interact with others in their world  Early emotions o Primary emotions: present in humans and other animals  Appear in first 6 months of life  Eg.: surprise, anger, joy, sadness, fear and disgust o Self-conscious emotions: require self-awareness  Appear after 18 months  Eg.: embarrassment, jealousy, empathy, pride, shame, and guilt

Emotional Expression and social relationships  Crying is the most important mechanism newborns have for communication o Basic cry: a rhythmic pattern, often associated with hunger o Angry cry: a variation of the basic cry, with more air forced through the vocal chords o Pain cry: a long initial loud cry followed by breath holding  Smiling is a key social signal o Reflexive smile: occurs in the first month, and is not a response to external stimuli o Social smile: a response to external stimuli such as faces, occurring as early as 4 to 6 weeks  Emotional expression and social relationships o Fear is one of a baby’s earliest emotions, typically first appearing at about 6 months o Stranger anxiety: fear and wariness of strangers  Intense from 9 to 12 months  Not shown by all  Intensity is affected by the social context and the characteristics of the stranger o Separation protest: distress at being separated from the caregiver  Occurs at 7 to 8 months and peaks at about 15 months o Fear of height appear around 7 months old o Also at this time  See the world in 3D

 Start to crawl o Visual cliff

 Method  2 groups of infants o Beginning crawlers (7 months) o Experienced crawlers (9 months) o 15 each group  Experienced: 15/15 cross shallow, 0/15 crossed deep  Beginning: 15/15 cross shallow, 10/15 cross deep o Inexperienced crawlers have depth perception but no fear of heights  How does fear develop o Falls and near falls experience o Social referencing  Ability to “read” the emotional cues of others to help determine how to act in a specific situation  Helps infants interpret ambiguous situations more accurately  9 month old, visual cliff experiment  No uncertainty o 4 inch drop  ignore mum’s fear o 40 inch drop  ignore mum’s joy  Uncertainty: 12 inch drop o Parent poses fear  don’t cross o Parent poses joy  cross  Emotional regulation and coping o During the first year, the infant gradually develops an ability to inhibit or minimise the intensity and duration of emotional reactions  Self-soothing, such as thumb sucking  By 2 years, toddlers can use language to define their feelings o Caregiver responses matter, but there is debate over whether and how parents should respond

o Important component of self-regulation and executive function Temperament  Individual’s behavioural style and characteristic way of emotionally responding  Characteristics: o Variations in reactivity o Variations in self-regulation o Somehow biologically based  But may learn to modify temperament to some degree o Somewhat stable over time  Physiological and heredity factors are likely involved in continuity  Chess and Thomas’ classification o Easy child: a positive mood, quickly establishes routines, and easily adapts o Difficult child: reactions negatively and cries frequently resists change, and shows irregular behaviours o Slow-to-warm-up child: low mood intensity, low activity level, and somewhat negative  Kagan’s behavioural inhibition model o Focuses on differences between timid and bold o Uninhibited: Sociable, extroverted, bold child o Inhibited: Shy, subdued, timid child  Inhibition to the unfamiliar: beginning at about 7 to 9 months, react to unfamiliarity with avoidance, distress, or subdued affect  Inhibition intensity varies o Inhibited temperament can persist into later childhood  Developmental links o Children who had an easy temperament at 3 to 5 years of age are likely to be well adjusted as young adults o Individuals with an inhibited temperament in childhood are as adults  Less likely to be assertive  Less likely to experience social support  More likely to delay entering a stable job track  At a higher risk for developing anxiety disorders o Reactions to an infant’s temperament can depend on culture  Behavioural inhibition is more highly valued in China  Canadian mothers of inhibited 2 year olds are less accepting of their infant’s inhibited temperament  Links between temperament in childhood and personality in adulthood also might vary, depending on the contexts in individual’s experience  Temperament and goodness of fit o Goodness of fit  match between child’s temperament and environmental demands  Good “fit”  positive child outcomes  Bad “fit”  negative child outcomes  Adjustment problems

o Extra support and training for mothers of distress-prone infants improves the quality of mother-infant interaction Attachment  A close emotional bonding, most often between infant and caregiver  Function: o Serves as a secure base for exploration o Serves as a safe haven to retreat to in times of distress  Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory o Infants become attached to the person or object that provides oral satisfaction o Disproved by Harlow’s research which showed that physical comfort is preferred for security  Infant monkeys separated from mother  Option of wire “mother” or cloth mother  Results: Infant monkeys preferred the cloth “mother”  evidence that mother-child attachment develops because the mother provides contact comfort  History o Erikson: Physical comfort and sensitive care are key to establishing a basic sense of trust that is the foundation for attachment o Ethological perspective: Babies and primary caregivers are biologically predisposed to form attachments to each other  Adaptive, necessary for survival  Imprinting o Bowlby’s ethological perspective: Attachment is an innate predisposition that develops in a series of phases  Phase 1 (birth to 2 months): Infants are instinctively drawn to humans  Phase 2 (2 to 7 months): attachment becomes focused on one person  Phase 3 (7 to 24 months): specific attachments develop, with increased locomotor skills, infants actively seek regular contact with caregivers  Phase 4 (24 months on): children become aware of other’s feelings, goals, and plans and take them into account  Manifestation of attachment behaviours o Separation anxiety: Don’t want caregiver to leave o Stranger anxiety: Fear of unfamiliar adults o Social referencing: Look to caregiver when unsure o Greetings: Reaction to caregiver after separation o Secure base behaviour: Using caregiver as a “base of operations” to explore  Strange Situation Procedure o By Mary Ainsworth o Laboratory observation designed to induce stress o Focus: How infants respond  Infants’ motivation to be near the caregiver and the degree to which the caregiver’s presence provide infants with security and confidence

o 8 episodes, each 3 minutes long o For 1-2 years olds

 Classifications of infant attachment o Securely attached: positive, confident exploration o Insecure avoidant: little interaction with caregiver, no distress o Insecure resistant: clings to caregiver and then resists o Insecure disorganised: disorganised and disoriented  Most infants form a secure attachment relationship o Cultural variations in other types o Germany: more insecure-avoidant (emphasis on independence) o Japan: More insecure-resistant (emphasis on mother-child bond)

 Caregiving styles and Attachment o Securely attached babies have caregivers who are sensitive to their signals  Consistently available to respond to infants needs  Often let their babies have an active part in determining the onset and pacing of interaction in the first year

o Caregivers of insecurely attached babies tend to be unavailable or rejecting  Often ignore or don’t respond to their babies’ signals  When they do interact they may behave in an angry and irritable way o Caregivers of disorganised babies often neglect or physically abuse them...