Lecture 6: Infancy: Emotional and Social Development Flashcards
What is Temperament?
Constitutionally-based individual differences in
emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity
and self-regulation
– Consistency across situations and stability over time
What study did Thomas and Chess do (1977) ?
To explore differences among infants in temperament, Thomas and Chess (1977) extensively interviewed mothers of 3-month-olds about their infants’ reactions to novel people and situations, energy level, positive and negative emotions, adaptability to change, rhythmicity (how regular an infant was in sleeping, eating, etc.), general mood, and distractibility. Based on mothers’ responses, they identified three temperament profiles…
What were the three identified temperament profiles?
- Easy (40%): Positive mood, regular habits, adaptable
- Difficult (10%): Active, irritable and irregular, react
negatively to novelty (e.g., kicking or screaming) - Slow-to-warm-up (15%): Moody, inactive, slow but
eventually adapt to novelty (e.g., look away)
What are the Modern conceptions of temperament?
– Assess positive and negative emotion as separate
components of temperament
– Differentiate among types of negative emotionality
– Assess different types of regulatory capacity
What are the Six Dimensions of Infant Temperament?
Rothbart & Bates (2006)
- Activity
- Positive affect
- Fearful distress
- Attention span
- Distress to limitations
- Soothability
What are the Three Components of Temperament?
- Surgency
- Negative reactivity
- Orienting regulation/Effortful control
What is surgency?
– A measure of an infant’s activity level and intensity of
pleasure
– Displays of happiness (smiling, laughter)
What is Negative reactivity?
– An infant’s fear, frustration, sadness, and low soothability
– Easily becoming distressed by unfamiliar events or people;
difficulty in controlling negative emotions
What is Orienting regulation/Effortful control?
– An infant’s ability to regulate attention toward goals
– Infants high on orienting are better able to regulate their
emotions
Is temperament stable?
Whereas emotions are fleeting, temperament can be stable from infancy through toddlerhood, childhood, and even adulthood
Example:
– Infants high in negative reactivity (behavioural inhibition)
– Associated with anxiety, depression, social withdrawal
later in childhood and adolescence
Why is temperament stable?
Because of Evocative effects
– Gene-environment association in which a child’s
inherited characteristics evoke strong responses from others, which then reinforce the child’s
characteristics
What is Goodness of Fit?
The extent to which a person’s temperament matches the requirements, expectations, and opportunities of the environment
How does Culture affect infants?
Culture shapes expectations about infant behaviors and emotions.
What is Attachment?
Special affective relationship between infant and caregiver characterized by mutual affection and desire to maintain proximity
Does Attachment promote infant survival?
YES
What is Psychoanalytic theory? and who founded it?
Freud thought that infants have the relation with the caregiver because they help reduce hunger
What is the Learning theory?
Food is primary reinforcer, and mother becomes secondary reinforcer
What was Harlow and Zimmerman’s “surrogate mother” research (1959)?
In 1959, they researched Does feeding or contact comfort drive the development of
attachment?
What is Bowlby’s Ethological Theory of Attachment?
All species born with innate behavioural tendencies that
contribute to the survival of the species. These “built-in behaviours” promote attachment relationships. Attachment is an evolved response that promotes infant’s survival
When do Attachment relationships start?
Attachment relationships develop from parent-
infant interactions over the 1st year of life
What is Stranger anxiety?
Negative reactions of
infants to an unfamiliar person
What is Separation anxiety?
Negative reactions of
infants when the caregiver
temporarily leaves
When could Separation Anxiety begin?
Peaks around 13 months
of age
What are Greeting reactions in infants?
Positive reactions from the infant when the caregiver returns
What are Secure-base behaviors?
Infant uses the caregiver as a “home base” for exploration
What is the Strange Situation?
In this procedure, an infant and mother visited a laboratory playroom, where after being introduced to the unfamiliar room, the infant experienced a series of separations from their caregiver and exposures to a stranger…From her observations, which she replicated in larger samples, Ainsworth and colleagues identified three groups of infant attachment…
What are the three groups of infant attachment?
- Secure
- Insecure resistant
- Insecure avoidant
What is secure attachment?
Infant explores while mother is
present. They get upset when mother leaves, and greets mother warmly upon her
return, seeks her for comfort. And friendly to stranger when
mother present
What is Insecure-Resistant attachment?
(Very small % babies )
Infant stays close to mother; upset when she leaves. Explores very little in mother’s presence. Mixed reactions when she returns, and wary of stranger at all times
What is Insecure-Avoidant attachment?
Very little distress when mother leaves. Seems to ignore mother. May be sociable with or ignore stranger.
What was the forth attachment style that didn’t fit in with the rest?
Disorganized, a very rare %
Infants with disorganized attachment displayed contradictory behaviors and emotions (such as fear followed by laughter) and disorganized movements, freezing, and apprehension toward the mother. usually from abuse.
What are the Cultural Differences in Child-Care
Arrangements?
- Single-parent household
- Multiple-caregiver
household - Communal caregiving
Provide an example of Infants from different cultures expressing different attachment?
– E.g., Ugandan infants displayed intense protests when separated from their mothers compared to infants in US
– E.g., U.S. infants tend to accompany their caregivers out of the home, whereas infants in Uganda tend to remain near
their homes
