Chapter 5: Psychosocial Development in the First 2 Years Flashcards
Psychosocial development
an aspect of development that explains how we acquire attitudes and skills that encompass changes in our interaction with and understandings of one another, as well as knowledge and understanding of ourselves as members of society
Transition to Parenthood
- Major adjustment for first-time parents- Personal, familial, social, professional
- Adjustment to family roles
- Reallocation of household tasks
- Changes in parents’ social and emotional interactions
- Marital satisfaction of new parents related to paternal involvement
Erikson’s Two major tasks of psychosocial development in infancy
- Trust (vs. mistrust) 2. Autonomy (vs. shame and doubt)
Most important factor in maintaining marital satisfaction
Higher levels of paternal involvement with a baby- especially in caregiving
Caregiver-infant synchrony
Patterns of closely coordinated social and emotional interactions
Co-regulation
- Joint attention
- Reciprocal turn-taking in interactions
Goodness-of-fit
- Match of mood and temperament
- Mismatch leads to later adjustment problems
- Thomas and Chess (1977) model
Father-Infant Interactions
- Increased involvement of fathers
- Increased role-reversal
- Fathers’ style of play different from mothers’- Shorter, more active, less ritualized
• Jain, Belsky, and Crnic (1996) interaction types (fathers, 4):
- Caregivers
- Playmates-teachers
- Disciplinarians
- Disengaged
Fathers with caregiver and playmates-teachers interactions types tend to be more educated, better adjusted emotionally, were able to rely on others and experienced fewer daily hassles than disciplinarian and disengaged fathers
Fathers with caregiver and playmates-teachers interactions types
tend to be more educated, better adjusted emotionally, were able to rely on others and experienced fewer daily hassles than disciplinarian and disengaged fathers
Interactions with siblings and grandparents
Siblings
- Relationship with parents disrupted by new arrival
- May take caring role
- Use parentese to communicate
- Conflict and jealousy if preferential treatment is given to one child
Grandparents
- Secondary source of support and advice
- May be primary caregivers
Forms of non-parental childcare
Formal, regulated care
• Long day-care, after-school care
Informal care
• Family or friends
Childcare meets parents’ needs
• Employment, socialisation, respite, dealing with personal or family matters
Interactions with peers
Reciprocal socialisation
Mutual regulation model
- Basis for future social interactions
- Quality of parent-child relationship determines behaviour with peers (i.e., attachment)
- Day-care experience related to positive peer relationships
Reciprocal socialisation
• Invites and elicits response
Mutual regulation model
• Communicate and respond effectively
Attachment
Etholgocial view
Psychoanalytic view
Harlow and Zimmerman (1959)
Attachment: strong and enduring emotional bond that develops between an infant and caregiver in first year of life
Ethological view
• Biologically based, inherited adaptation
Psychoanalytic view
• Emotional ties with mother provide basis for future relationships
Comfort more important than food
• proved by Harlow and Zimmerman (1959) reesus monkey experiment
How attachment is inferred
by signalling and approach behaviours
Signaling behaviours:
Crying
Cooing
Babbling
Approach behaviours
Smiling
Clinging
Non-nutritional sucking
Following or gazing
Bowlby’s Phases of Attachment (4)
Phase 1 (birth - 2 months)
• Indiscriminate sociability
Phase 2 (2 - 7 months)
• Attachments in the making
• Increasing preference for familiar carers
Phase 3 (7 - 24 months)
- Specific, clear-cut attachments
- Separation and stranger anxiety
Phase 4 (24 months +)
• Goal-coordinated partnerships
The strange situation (Ainsworth)
Patterns of attachment
- Secure (60-70%)
- Anxious-resistant (10%)
- Anxious-avoidant (20%)
- Disorganised-disoriented (5-10%)
Secure attachment
- 65 – 70%
- When first alone with mothers, typically played happily
- Wary when stranger entered; still played happily
- When left alone with stranger, typically stopped playing and searched for mother
- Happy when mother returned and actively sought contact and interaction
- When left alone again with stranger, they were easily comforted
Anxious-resistant attachment
- 10%
- Stayed close to mother; explored minimally
- When mother returns, actively sought contact, but at same time resisted mother’s effort to comfort them
- Refused comfort from stranger
Anxious-avoidant attachment
- 20%
- Little involvement with mother
- Treated mother and stranger the same
- Rarely cried on separation
- Mixed response on mother’s return – low level engagement and tendency to avoid
- Uninterested in the environment
Disorganised-disoriented attachment
- Rare category – later added by Main and colleagues
- Somewhere between 5 – 10%
- Greatest degree of insecurity
- Confused/unpredictable and contradictory reactions to mother’s leaving and returning
- May appear dazed/disoriented when reunited
Cross-cultural variations of attachment
- Patterns of attachment vary across and within cultures
- Cultural values
- Personal independence
- Expectations of compliance
- Temperament
- Child-rearing practices
- Restricted contact with others
Consequences of attachment
- Securely attached infants cooperate better with adults, comply better with rules, learn more readily from parents
- Less securely attached do not learn as well form parents
- Disorganised-disoriented attachment found in disturbed caregiving
- Patterns persist into preschool years and beyond
Parental influences on attachment
Mothers
- Sensitivity of care most important
- Based on their own ‘working models’
Fathers
- Similar to mothers’ attachment, but interactions are different
- Spend less time with children
- Parental conflict can impact on attachment, particularly for fathers
Working models
internalized perceptions, feelings and expectations regarding social and emotional relationships with significant caregivers
Factors Affecting Attachment
Quality of caregiving
• Respond promptly and consistently
• “Interactional synchrony”
Infant characteristics
• E.g., temperament, special needs, prematurity, illness
Family circumstances
• Stressful or calm?
Parents’ internal working models
- Parents’ own attachment experiences
- Parents’ ability to accept their past
Temperament
Infants classed as easy, difficult or slow-to-warm- up, based on ratings in nine dimensions:
- Activity
- Rhythmicity
- Approach-withdrawal
- Adaptability to new situations
- Emotional reactivity
- Responsiveness to stimulation
- Quality of mood
- Distractibility
- Attention span
Emotional capabilities
Childcare and multiple carers
- Many factors influencing non-maternal care: e.g., dual-income and single parent families, changing ideas about child-rearing
- Conflicting research findings on effects of non- maternal attachment in infants and toddlers
- Quality of care important
- Cultural evidence of benefits of multiple carers through adding to a network of secure attachments or compensating for absence
Adult attachment styles (4)
Adult Attachment Interview
- Adult assessment of their childhood attachment
- Autonomous (secure)
- Dismissing (insecure)
- Preoccupied (insecure)
- Unresolved-disorganised
Erikson: Toddler Development
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 1: Basic trust vs. mistrust
• Trust helps develop hope
• Mistrust leads to fear, distress, apathy
Stage 2: Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
- Autonomy leads to independence
- Shame leads to loss of self-respect
- Imbalance may also lead to shyness
- Boundaries provide social and physical safety*
- Parents need to balance freedom and control*
Sources of autonomy
Identification
• Draws on psychoanalytic theory
Operant conditioning
• Reinforcement for desirable behaviours
Observational learning
• Imitation of parents and caregivers
Social referencing
• Sensitivity to feelings of parents
• Ability to use cues to guide responses
Development of self
Self-recognition and self-awareness
• Rouge test
Self-description and self-evaluation
• Self-descriptive vocabulary
Knowledge of standards and emotional response to wrongdoing
- Start to accept responsibility, apologise, and make reparation
- Start to initiate challenging activities
Development of Competence and Self- Esteem (White 1993)
suggests socially competent toddlers likely to display capabilities in these areas:
- Getting and holding adult attention
- Using adults as resources for difficult tasks
- Expressing affection and mild annoyance to adults
- Leading and following peers
- Expressing affection and mild annoyance to peers
- Competing with peers
- Showing pride in accomplishments
- Engaging in role play or make-believe
