Chapter 7 - Emotional and Social Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Question 1

Basic trust versus mistrust

Answer 1

The psychological conflict of the first year; this is resolved when the balance of care is sympathetic and loving.

Question 2

Autonomy versus shame and doubt

Answer 2

The conflict of toddlerhood; is resolved favorably when parents provide young children with suitable guidance and reasonable choices.

Question 3

Basic emotions

Answer 3

• happiness
• interest
• surprise
• fear
• anger
• sadness
• disgust
  These are universal in humans and other primates and have a long evolutionary history of promoting survival. Four of these emotions (happiness, anger, sadness, and fear) have been the focus of much research

Question 4

Social smile

Answer 4

A broad grin that appears between 6 and 10 weeks, usually in response to parent’s communication. The development of the social smile DOES vary with culture

Question 5

Stranger anxiety

Answer 5

The most frequent expression of fear is to unfamiliar adults

Question 6

Secure base

Answer 6

The infants use the caregiver as this, or as a point from which to explore, venturing into the environment and then returning for emotional support

Question 7

Social referencing

Answer 7

Actively seeking emotional information from a trusted person in an uncertain situation; engaged in by infants starting at around 8-10 months. Used by infants to use others emotional messages to evaluate the safety of their surroundings, to guide their own actions, and to gather info about others’ preferences and intentions.

Question 8

Self-conscious emotions

Answer 8

Besides basic emotions, humans are capable of a second, higher-order set of feelings, including guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, and pride. Each of these involves injury to or enhancement of our sense of self.

Question 9

Emotional self-regulation

Answer 9

Refers to the strategies we use to adjust our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can accomplish our goals.

Question 10

Effortful control

Answer 10

Voluntary, effortful management of emotions involved in self-regulation

Question 11

Temperament

Answer 11

Early-appearing, stable individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation. Reactivity refers to quickness and intensity of emotional arousal, attention, and motor activity. Self-regulation refers to strategies that modify that reactivity

Question 12

Easy child

Answer 12

(40% of the sample in Thomas and Chess experiment) quickly establishes regular routines in infancy, is generally cheerful, and adapts easily to new experiences

Question 13

Difficult child

Answer 13

(10% of the sample in Thomas and Chess experiment) is irregular in daily routines, is slow to accept new experiences, and tends to react negatively and intensely This type of child is placed at the highest risk for adjustment problems, anxious withdrawal and aggressive behavior in early-mid childhood

Question 14

Slow-to-warm child

Answer 14

(15% of the sample in Thomas and Chess experiment) is inactive, shows mild, low-key reactions to environmental stimuli, is negative in mood, and adjusts slowly to new experiences. These children present fewer initial problems, but have difficulty in school due to excessive fearfulness and slow, constricted behavior

Question 15

Mary Rothbart

Answer 15

A psychologist (i think) who created the most influential model of temperament used currently, with 6 dimensions and corresponding descriptions, divided into 2 groups: reactivity and self-regulation

Question 16

Rothbart’s Model of Temperament

Answer 16

Reactivity:

1. Activity level: level of gross-motor activity
2. Attention-span/persistance: duration of orienting or interest
3. Fearful distress: wariness and distress in response to intense or novel stimuli, including time to adjust to new situations
4. Irritable distress: extent of fussing, crying, and distress when desires are frusterated
5. positive affect: frequency of expression of happiness and pleasure

Self-regulation:
6. Effortful control: capacity to voluntarily suppress a dominant, reactive response in order to plan and execute a more adaptive response.

Question 17

Orienting/regulation

Answer 17

Refers to the capacity to engage in self-soothing, shift attention from unpleasant events, and sustain interest for an extended time. Shows itself within the first 2 years of life.

Question 18

Inhibited, or shy children

Answer 18

react negatively to and withdraw from novel stimuli

Question 19

Uninhibited, sociable children

Answer 19

Display positive emotion and approach novel stimuli

Question 20

Goodness-of-fit model

Answer 20

Proposed by Thomas and Chess, to explain how temperament and environment can together produce favorable outcomes. Goodness of fit involves creating child-rearing environments that recognize each child’s temperament while simultaneously encouraging more adaptive functioning. This model helps to explain why difficult children frequently experience parenting that fits poorly with their dispositions.

Question 21

Attachement

Answer 21

The strong affectionate tie we have with special people in our lives that leads us to experience pleasure and joy when we interact with them and to be comforted by their nearness in times of stress.

Question 22

Ethological theories of attachment

Answer 22

This theory recognizes the infant’s emotional tie to the caregiver as an evolved response that promotes survival. This is currently the most widely accepted view on attachment. John Bowlby first suggested this view

Question 23

Phases of attachment:

Answer 23

1. Preattachment phase (birth - 6 weeks): not yet attached, but built-in signals help bring babies close to other humans
2. Attachment in the making phase (6 weeks - 6/8 months): infants begin to respond differently to their caregiver than to a stranger as a sense of trust is developed.
3. Clear-cut attachment phase (6-8 months - 12-24 months): attachment is evident, as is separation anxiety and the use of the caregiver as a safe base from which to explore.
4. Formation of a reciprocal relationship (18-24 months - beyond): separation protest declines as understanding of other’s routines sets in.

Question 24

Internal working model

Answer 24

A set of expectations about the availability of attachment figures, their likelihood of providing support during times of stress, and the self’s interaction with those figures. The internal working model become a vital part of personality, serving as a guide for all future close relationships.

Question 25

The Strange Situation Experiment

Answer 25

• designed by Mary Ainsworth et. al.
• laboratory experiment designed to test the relationship differences between securely attached infants and their caregivers.

Question 26

Episodes in the Strange Situation and corresponding attachment behavior noted

Answer 26

1. Researcher introduces parent and baby to playroom and leaves.
2. Parent is seated while baby plays with toys (parent as secure base)
   3, Stranger enters, is seated, talks to parent (reaction to unfamiliar adult)
3. Parent leaves room. Stranger responds to baby and offers comfort if baby is upset (separation anxiety)
4. Parent returns, greets baby, offers comfort if necessary. Stranger leaves room (reaction to reunion)
5. Parent leaves room (separation anxiety)
6. Stranger enters room and offers comfort (ability to be soothed by stranger)
7. Parent returns, greets baby, offers comfort if necessary, and tries to reinterest baby in toys (reaction to reunion)

Question 27

Secure attachment

Answer 27

these infants use the parent as a secure base. When separated, they may or may not cry, but if they do, it is because the parent is absent and they prefer her to the stranger. When the parent returns, they express clear pleasure - some expressing joy from a distance, others asking to be held until settling down to return to play - and crying is reduced immediately.

Question 28

Insecure-avoidant attachment

Answer 28

These infants seem unresponsive to the parent when she is present. When she leaves, they usually are not distressed, and they react to the stranger in much the same way as to the parent. During reunion, they avoid or are slow to greet the parent, and when picked up, they often fail to cling.

Question 29

Insecure-resistant attachment

Answer 29

Before separation, these infants seek closeness to the parent and often fail to explore. When the parent leaves, they are usually distressed, and on her return they combine clinginess with angry, resistive behavior (struggling when held, hitting or pushing) or with an anxious focus on the parent. Many continue to cry after being picked up and cannot be comforted easily.

Question 30

Disorganized/disoriented attachment

Answer 30

This pattern reflects the greatest insecurity. At reunion, these infants show confused, contradictory behaviors - for example, looking away while the parent is holding them or approaching the parent with flat, depressed emotion. Most display a dazed facial expression, and a few cry out unexpectedly after having calmed down or display odd, frozen postures.

Question 31

Attachment Q-sort

Answer 31

An alternative method which is suitable for children between 1 and 5 years, depends on home observations. Either the parent or a highly trained observer sorts 90 behaviors - such as “child greets mother with a big smile when she enters the room,” “If mother moves very far, child follows along,” and “child uses mother’s facial expressions as a good source of information when something looks risky or threatening” - into nine categories ranging from “highly descriptive” to “not at all descriptive” of the child. Then a score, ranging from high to low in security, is computed.

Question 32

Four factors affecting Attachment Security

Answer 32

1. Early availability of a consistent caregiver
2. quality of caregiving
3. The baby’s characteristics
4. family context, incl. parent’s internal working models.

Question 33

sensitive caregiving

Answer 33

Responding promptly, consistently, and appropriately to infants and holding them carefully and tenderly.

Question 34

Interactional synchrony

Answer 34

A special form of communication that separates the experiences of secure from insecure babies. it is best described as a sensitively tuned “emotional dance”, in which the caregiver responds to infant in a well-timed, rhythmic, appropriate fashion.

Question 35

Implicit sense of self-world differentiation

Answer 35

A discrimination of one’s own limb and facial movements from those of others ( for example, in real-time video presentations)

Question 36

Explicit self-awareness

Answer 36

An objective understanding that the self is unique object in a world of objects, which includes representations of one’s own physical features and body dimensions.

Question 37

Self-recognition

Answer 37

Identification of self as a physically unique being

Question 38

Body self-awareness

Answer 38

The recognition that their own body can serve as an obstacle

Question 39

Scale errors

Answer 39

The attempt to do things that one’s body size makes impossible

Question 40

Autonomous child-rearing goals

Answer 40

promoting personal talents and interests, expressing on’e preference.

Question 41

Relational child-rearing goals

Answer 41

doing what parents say and sharing with others

Question 42

Empathy

Answer 42

The ability to understand another’s emotional state and feel with that person, or respond emotionally in a similar way.

Question 43

Categorical self

Answer 43

developed between the ages of 18 and 30 months, children classify themselves and others on the basis of age (“baby”, “boy”, or “man”), sex (“boy” or “girl”), physical characteristics (“big”, “strong”), and even goodness and badness (“i good girl”. “tommy mean”).

Question 44

Compliance

Answer 44

The clear awareness of caregiver’s wishes and expectations and can obey (or disobey) simple requests and commands.

Question 45

delay of gratification

Answer 45

Waiting for an appropriate time and place to engage in a tempting act.