CH 7: Social Behaviour and Personality in Infants and Toddlers Flashcards
Basic Emotions
- Psychologists use facial expressions to judge infant’s emotional development.
- The earliest indicator of happiness is the social smile, which emerges at about 2 months; laughter appears at 4 months
- Anger (emerges gradually) and fear are both evident by about 6 months
- Fear first appears in infancy as stranger wariness
- Infants have greater fear of strangers in unfamiliar environments and of strangers that don’t allow the infants to warm up to them.
Complex Emotions: What are they and when do they emerge?
Complex emotions have an evaluative component and include guilt, embarrassment, and pride.
• Emerges 18-24 months, because they depend upon cognitive development and child’s reflexive understanding of the self.
• Require more sophisticated understanding than basic emotions, which are more biologically based
Recognizing and Using Others’ Emotions
- 6-7 months recognizes different emotions associated with different facial expressions
- Infants often match their own emotions to other’s emotions.
- Infants use info about emotion to help them evaluate unfamiliar people and situations
Regulating Emotions
• Begins in infancy.
- For example, infants will look away when they encounter something frightening or confusing or move closer to a parent.
• With age, children develop even more effective strategies.
• Both genetics and parenting impact children’s emotion regulation.
Attachment
Enduring social-emotional relationship between infant and primary caregiver
- Influences infant’s perceptual and cognitive skills
- 6 or 7 months, primary attachment figure, usually the mother but can include other close relations
• Many behaviours that contribute to the formation of attachment are biologically programmed
Internal Working Model
a set of expectations about parents’ availability and responsivity, generally and in times of stress
Types of Attachment
(1) secure
(2) avoidant
(3) resistant
(4) disorganized
Quality of Attachment
Characteristics of child care and mother affect quality of attachment.
Factors determining quality of attachment
Caregiver sensitivity
Predictable and responsive caregiving leads to secure attachment
In modern attachment theory, parents have internal working models of the attachment relationship with their own parents, and these working models guide interactions with their own children
- Adult Attachment Interview identified three groups:
(1) Autonomous adults
(2) Dismissive adults
(3) Preoccupied adults
Other factors include:
- Parenting Skill
- Parent’s work
- Child Care arrangements
> Parents can enroll their children in high quality daycare without fear of harmful consequences for attachment.
Autonomous Adults
describe childhood experiences objectively and mention both positive and negative aspects of their parents.
According to attachment theory, only parents with autonomous attachment representations are likely to provide the sensitive caregiving that promotes secure attachment
- parents with secure attachment tend ti become adults with autonomous attachment representations
Dismissive Adults
describe childhood experiences in very general terms and often idealize their parents.
Preoccupied Adults
describe childhood experiences emotionally and often express anger or confusion regarding their relationships with their parents.
Non-social Play
Playing alone or watching others play
• Onset of peer interactions begins around 6-10 months with non-social play.
- At 6 months of age, children have a developing sense of morality
Parallel Play
Playing alone but near others, while maintaining an interest in what the others are doing.
~ 12 months
Simple Social Play
Youngsters interacting socially during play activities.
~ 15-18 months
Co-operative Play
Play that is organized around a distinct theme and involves children taking on special roles based on that theme
~ 24 months
Origins of Self-Recognition and Self-Concept
• Mirror-task suggests it’s between 15 and 24 months. First signs of self-awareness
- can see red dot on their face and touch themselves rather than the mirror (15 months)
• At about 15 months, infants also have preference for photos of self and use of pronouns such as “I” or “me”.
- refer to themselves by name and with personal pronouns, and sometimes to know their age and gender
• Changes interactions with peers.
• By 2 years most children have the rudiments of self-awareness, but this early understanding is fragile
• Material possessions are one of the first elements involved in young children’s developing self-concepts
• Growing self-recognition probably reflects their cognitive development
• Young children seemingly don’t make the connection between the current self (“I am being recorded”) and the previous self (“I had a sticker on my head”)
Describe how, following self-recognition, infants acquire a self-concept.
- 20-28-month-olds who are more self-aware are more likely to say “mine” while playing with toys with other children.
- Self-awareness leads to self-concept and influences peer interactions.
- As toddlers grow, self-concept moves beyond possessions
Dimensions of Temperament in the New York Longitudinal Study
(1) Activity Level
(2) Rhythmicity
(3) Approach/Withdrawal (response to novel object)
(4) Distractibility
(5) Adaptibility
(6) Intensity of Reaction
(7) Mood
(8) Threshold (level of stimulation needed for the child to respond)
(9) Attention Span and Persistence
Temperament
Consistent mood or style of behaviour.
• Different dimensions
- emotionality, activity, sociability
• Temperament influences infant-family/peer interactions and is influenced by environment.
Emotionality
the strength of an emotional response to a situation, the ease with which that response is triggered, and the ease of return to a nonemotional state.
i.e. strong emotional response, easily triggered, not easily calmed; responses are subdued, relatively difficult to elicit, and readily soothed
Activity
the tempo and vigour of a child’s movements
- inactive infants have a more controlled behavioural tempo and are more likely to enjoy quiet play
Sociability
the extent to which a person prefers to be with other people
Hereditary and Environmental Contributions to Temperament
• Twin studies show genetic influence.
- Identical twins are usually more temperamentally alike than fraternal twins.
• Influence of hormones
• Influence of parenting styles
• Cultural influences temperament patterns
- Asian infants less visibly emotional than North American
> genetics
> environment
- Japanese mothers spend more time in close physical contact with their babies. constantly and gently soothing them; might reduce tendency to respond emotionally
• Children more likely to have difficult temperaments when mothers are abrupt and lack confidence.
Stability of Temperament
• Temperament is modestly stable throughout infancy and the preschool years.
- An active fetus is more likely to be a difficult, unadaptive infant.
- Newborns who cry under moderate stress tend to cry as 5-month-olds when stressed.
Temperament and Social Interaction
• Various aspects of temperament are related to school success, peer interactions, and compliance with parents.
accidents that cause injury
• Temperament is also related to helping others.
• Infant temperament can affect how parents interact with babies.
Anxious, Fearful Children
Anxious, fearful children are more likely to comply with a parent’s rules and requests, even when the parent is not present
Extroverted, Uninhibited Children
Extroverted, uninhibited toddlers are more likely to have accidents that cause injury
Shy, Inhibited Children
Shy, inhibited children often have difficulty interacting with their peers and often do not cope effectively with problems
Inhibited children are less likely to help a stranger in distress