Lecture 3: Constructing first relationships

Question 1

Characteristics of the first relationship

Answer 1

The emergence of the first relationship is fascinating and may be a prototype for all subsequent relationships > First prototype relationship with mother > relationship forms before the baby is born, mom is the one when the child is born (best she be prewired to take care of the baby)

Question 2

What does “We infer relationships from interactions but the sum of interactions does not equal a relationship” mean?

Answer 2

• Not all interaction = relationship
• Interactions we observe point in the opposite way of the relationships (fighting could equal they care about one another but what we see is them fighting)

Question 3

Biological regulation (0 months)

Answer 3

• The task is to regularize the infant’s basic biological processes and harmonize them with parental requirements
• Parental requirements > facilitate child’s biological processes and bring different ideas of what they think is right (ex. When baby cries do I pick them up or not, most times culturally driven)
• Different ways of managing their child’s biological processes
• Baby uses fixed action patterns as their way of communicating

Question 4

Face-to-face exchanges (2 months)

Answer 4

• The task is to regulate mutual attention and responsiveness in face-to-face situations
  1> Visible acuity develops more, attention is regulated, beginning of turn-taking
  2 > first direct eye-to-eye contact > important for conveying emotions (pupils dilate), first social smile, reactive smile/social smile, here, fixed action pattern are no longer just for survival,
  3 > Child is better able to discriminate between people by scanning their entire face. This perceptual discrimination, helps them identify a unique relationship with their mother > Research linked *how long they look at the face (if they look at one for longer, most likely because it’s a new face), Babies are biologically programmed to identify human faces for evolutionary purposes

Question 5

Babies’ cycles of attention and non-attention (2 months)

Answer 5

• cycles can be as short as 10s, parents will stimulate and synchronize that stimulation with the child when they see the baby is ready to receive,
• baby not ready when they are fussy or cranky - constant stimulation becomes background noise they begin to toon it out, becomes meaningless, -
• This compromises the child’s interactions with others as they will have difficulty differentiating what’s important and what isn’t, especially important for verbal communication

Question 6

Topic sharing (5 months)

Answer 6

• Developmental task is to incorporate objects. into social interaction to ensure joint attention and action to them
  1 > Children at this age that find interesting objects tend to put it in their mouths, play around with it and then drop it (no object permanence therefore they dont look for these objects any more),
  2 > Children focus on the object, not just a person, usually either or and NOT both at the same time (infant-object-adult communication) *this is encouraged, by parents passing the object to the child and “asking” for it back

Question 7

Reciprocity (8 months)

Answer 7

• Developmental task is to initiate intentional actions directed at others and develop more flexible and symmetrical relationships
• The child is expected to be reactive and sometimes initiate interaction > (ex. sometimes I hand you the block sometimes you hand be the block),
• Flexibility (sometimes one person is more the leader than another at a particular time) *we see this in the coordination of several activities, ex. turn taking, or repetition in child songs < child is gradually learning these skills
• Reciprocity and intentionality are key features of mature social exchange
• Gestures such as (pointing), literal or symbolic *beginning of language is symbolic
• Literal gesture (specific meaning, recognizing and recalling something and pointing at it) *intentional
  Symbolic gestures (head turn for no or head nod for yes), associated with these meanings
• Conventional > Social referencing (looks at adults for approval or feedback, intention to do something and doesn’t do it without receiving feedback, ex. Seeking approval before pressing a button to avoid an unpleasant experience with a loved one > evidence of intentionality

Question 8

How does the game of peek-a-boo become a symmetrical interaction? (8 months)

Answer 8

• Turn taking game (peek a boo), before age 1 there is no object permanence > actor is the parent, initiates and is in full control, the child is the observer, if the child enjoys themselves, they may intentionally symbol for the parent to do it again
• For this to be symmetrical, they need to also initiate the game by covering their face,

Question 9

Symbolic representation (18 months)

Answer 9

• Developmental task is to develop verbal and other symbolic means of relating to others and reflecting upon social exchanges
• Children start speaking within a safe and secure environment

Question 10

Categories of parental behavior: Nurturant

Answer 10

• Meets physical requirements
• The parents is nurturing physical requirements (feeding, changing, ensuring their safe, and get sleep)

Question 11

Categories of parental behavior: Material

Answer 11

• Provision and organization of the material world
• Housing (sharing rooms vs having your own), depends upon SES, culture, and parents’ values about what’s more important

Question 12

Categories of parental behavior: Didactic

Answer 12

• Stimulating and engaging infants to understand the environment outside the dyad
• Experiential vs didactic, teaching is didactic ex. This is a flower

Question 13

Categories of parental behavior: Social

Answer 13

• Visual, verbal, affective, and physical behaviors parents use when engaging infants in interpersonal exchanges
• This refers to affective, emotional communication with the child, (Ex. rocking the child to sleep to calm them) or tactile comforting such as stroking them is all-important for emotional development

Question 14

Goal 1: Parental display of warmth peaks in infancy and declines thereafter

Answer 14

• This is important for this child’s own development
• There is a gradual decline due to less needs for physical affection and rather need/seek it more from friends and a partner
  -Has an evolutionary basis

Question 15

Goal 2: Regulation of affect

Answer 15

• Implications of how do we come to regulate?
• Important to integrate into society, parents assume a very important role by adjusting the environment around the child (ex. using scolding, ignoring the child)

Question 16

Goal 3: Management of social relations with others

Answer 16

• In this case, parents get directly involved to manage the relations between others (Ex. Teaching them to share, direct instructions to manage how they behave around other people)

Question 17

Goal 4: Parents pay special attention to the infant’s emotions

Answer 17

• This is due to the child’s emotions being indicative of the child’s personality,
• Parents on the cues to see what their going to be like later on

Question 18

A factor that affects infants’ development: 1. Different caregiving behaviors

Answer 18

• The amount a parent talks to an infant is often related to personality
• What do you do and how much of it > this is influenced by external factors such as cultures, climate, SES

Question 19

A factor that affects infants’ development: 2. Stability of caregiving behaviors

Answer 19

• This revolves around variations in the amount of time spent talking to the child
• Consistency here is important
• Ex. do parents read the same amount every day or is it choppy, lack of routine) The amount also matters, 2hrs every day or 15mins everyday > important in shaping the child, more reading = the child becoming more of a reader
• Predictability is important for the child,
• Lack of stability can result in dysfunctional sleeping patterns

Question 20

A factor that affects infants’ development: 3. Responsiveness

Answer 20

• To what degree does a parent respond promptly, reliably, and appropriately
• The action of parents ruling out what the child could need in order to respond appropriately,
• How prompt = how quickly and how reliable (sometimes respond), better behaved and less anxious if parents’ predictability is stable

Question 21

A factor that affects infants’ development: 4. Parents’ beliefs

Answer 21

• What parents know and believe about the nature of child development. This affected to a large degree by culture
• A guide
  -May affect stability and responsiveness,

Question 22

A factor that affects infants’ development: 5. SES

Answer 22

• SES affects what parents are able to provide
• Material provisions and organization, quality

Question 23

Mother vs Father: Mother (4)

Answer 23

• Assume the primary role
• Are more lenient and understanding when children deviate from culture
• Tend to go along with the infant’s focus whereas fathers tend to set their own
• Are more in tune with infant’s linguistic abilities

Question 24

Mother vs Father: Fathers

Answer 24

• Dads are more likely to hold the infant during play or as a response to a request by the infant
• More involved in play

Question 25

The specificity principle

Answer 25

• States that specific experiences at specific times exert specific effects over specific aspects of infants’ growth in specific ways
• Everything that we do matters, parents have to pay close attention to how they raise their children

Question 26

The transactional principle

Answer 26

• Characteristics of individuals shape their experiences and reciprocally, that experiences shape the characteristics of individuals through time. Infants actively contribute towards producing their own environment and reciprocally, the environment contributes to their own development
• Ex. children shape their environment by seeking books and the environment is reciprocal in contributing to their upbringing
• Biological perspective > maybe their brain is wired in a way that makes it more likely for them to be avid readers > niche picking