Social and emotional development

Question 1

How do infants sustain relationship with their caregiver?

Answer 1

Crucial role plays attachment (2nd half of 1st year) that is sustained through proximity-seeking behaviours ( approaching, climbing, following), trying to maintain contact when being put down.
For caregivers, attachment is more emotional than physical

Question 2

What is Bowlby’s explanation of attachment (4 stages)

Answer 2

Attachment provides a sense of security, a safe base for exploring the world, enhances survival

4 stages 
Pre attachment (<3m)
Attachment in the making (2-8m)
Clear - cut attachment :separation anxiety (6m - 2/3y)
reciprocal relationship (>3y)

Attachment guides our behavior in future relationships,
in childhood guided by Internal working model ( a result of children’s experiences that is used as a reference for future interactions with others etc.

Question 3

What is internal working model?

Answer 3

a result of children’s experiences that is used as a reference for future interactions with others etc.

Question 4

Are there critical periods for attachment?

Answer 4

For Monkeys: 3+mo of isolation leads to abnormal social isolation
Humans: adoption +6mo, increased risk for attachment difficulties
== sensitive period?

Question 5

How can we measure attachment

Answer 5

Strange situation (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970)

• children presented with strange situation, outcome 4 different attachment styles.
• ambivalent
• disorganised
• secure
• avoidant

Keller- attachment is not universal, varies across cultures.

Question 6

Sense of self and self/awareness in early childhood

Answer 6

Recognition of self in the mirror (15-24mo), rouge test
Self conscious emotions are experience from around 2 years old
Guilt: regret over wrongdoing (emerge marks early moral sense, 56 mo for violation of conduct, 22-45 mo - fear))
Shame: a passive, or helpless emotion
aroused by self-related aversive event

Question 7

How do we test and define reasoning for others?

Answer 7

False-belief task (Sally)
pass around 3-4 yo
Dictators game: sharing stickers

Children who passed the false-belief task shared significantly less resources. Cowell et al/ (2015) - strategic resources management, no consequences for resource hoarding

Theory of mind: the ability to understand and predict the behaviour of others

Question 8

What is the timeline of emotional understanding in infants?

understanding cues (face, voice)

Social referencing -visual cliff paradigm

Theory of mind (
Understanding of other’s emotions

Understanding that people’s emotional reactions depend on their desires and vary

Answer 8

4-7 months: Understanding cues – face, voice, behaviour
8-12 months: Social referencing -visual cliff paradigm (Sorce et al., 1985)
18 months onwards: Vocabulary and identification-happy first, fear, sad, anger
3-4 years: begin to understand how external causes
affect the emotions of other children -E.g. sad at loss of toy
3-5 years children: begin to appreciate that people’s
emotional reactions depend on their desires, different emotions about same situation

Question 9

What phenomena does visual paradigm measure?

Answer 9

depth perception in infants - Visual cliff ( Joseph Campos)

Because six-month-old children could be enticed to wiggle across the visual edge, while 10-month-old children refused to cross the threshold,

in 2013 it was assumed that the younger children had not yet developed depth perception while the older children had.4

Later research published in 2014, however, has demonstrated that children as young as three months are able to perceive the visual cliff. When placed over the apparent “edge,” their heart rates quicken, eyes widen, and breathing rates increase. So if these infants can perceive the visual cliff, why would they be willing to crawl off what appears to be a straight drop down?

The issue is that children of this age do not yet fully realize that the consequence of going over this visual cliff is potentially falling. This realization only comes later when the child begins to crawl and gains real experience with taking tumbles.

Question 10

How about acting upon moral emotions?

Answer 10

Not until 4 years old

By age 2, children have the ability to empathise

Question 11

What new important moments children experience by 6 months of age (4)

Answer 11

Locomotion
Separation from caregivers
New social relations
Emerging use language

Question 12

Theory of mind and important findings

Answer 12

the ability to attribute mental states to the self and others in order to predict and explain behaviour

Repacholi & Gopnik (1997): broccoli or crackers?
By 2 years can understand that adult may prefer broccoli even though they prefer crackers
Can infer that another person held a different desire
How desires are related to emotions

not earlier than 2 years plus differences if both desirable

Question 13

What marks early moral sense?

Answer 13

Emergence of guilt (regret over wrongdoing) around 2 yo (Kochanska)

Question 14

What is the main criticism of Bowlby and Piaget?

Answer 14

lack of cultural consideration - models culturally universal

Question 15

When can separation anxiety occur?

Answer 15

Clear - cut attachment :separation anxiety (6m - 2/3y)

Question 16

Warneken’s findings regarding origins of prosocial behaviour

Answer 16

He proposes that prosocial behaviour is due to the internal mechanism - children are intrinsically motivated and reinforced for helping

not because of rewards etc.