social development in infancy Flashcards
Developing recognition of mother
Rapid recognition of mother’s voice and the foetal heart responds to mother’s voice at 32 weeks gestation.
Pre-term infants (born between 32-7 weeks) heart rates respond more to mother’s voice than stranger. (vastani et al 2017)
By 4 weeks, infants will prefer mother’s voice over other females (Mehler 1978)
At 7 hrs, prefer to look at picture of mother than stranger with same colour hair ever when image was colour reversed (Walton and bower 1991)
Imitation Meltzoff and Moore 1977
Babies imitate facial expressions from birth and this may be beginning of social communication.
Field et al 1985- at 3 months, babies smiled and vocalised more when mother imitated them
Developing interaction with mother and father
Through smiling, new-borns have a reflex smiles. and by 6wks smile to mother’s face and voice. 3mnths: smiles synchronised with mother’s
Babbling from 2 months when smiled at or spoken to
Joint attention
Emerges between 6-12 months and established by 9.
Flom et al 2004: better chance performance with look and point but not if the object was out of visual field. When in visual field and mother looks, points and verbalises, this is most effective. Always more likely to look if object is in front and even more if the turn was dramatic
Pointing with full hand instead of index
Liszkowsski and Tomasello 2011
when pointing with a finger, trying to point something out and communicate with parents.
From 10-12 months pointing is to gain attention and reach an object.
Around 2 years they are pointing and looking back at parent to communicate something
Social referencing
When a new situation rises and child looks to parent to see if it is safe due to fear of stranger.
Starts at 3 months with just comparing faces. At 8-9 months they begin to look distressed.
Infant to note: change in expression, nature and intensity of expression.
How this reflects internal mental state and gaze following
Do infants recognise and understand emotional expressions
3 months: sensitive to fearful faces in comparison to happy and brain reacts different to the two.
5 months: can match body emotion with vocal emotion sounds
7 months: can match and recognise emotion information across face and voice
The visual cliff experiment (Campos and Sternberg 1981; Sorce et al 1985)
Will the children cross the barrier?
9-10 months recognise the change and problem in depth and don’t cross.
When a parent is stood on the other side with a positive expression, they crossed. If with a fearful expression they don’t
They can recognise the intensity of the emotions
Importance of attachment and can attachment styles change
More frequently parents smile and interact, more likely they are to receive this back.
Brennan and Shaver 1998: attachment style is related to infancy and later childhood patterns, affecting ego, resilience, regulation and problem solving.
Insecure romantic attachment styles in adulthood relate to loneliness, anxiety, depression, physical symptoms, neuroticism and maladaptive coping strategies with negative effects.
Parents lead child to psychologically health developmental pathways and independence
Insecure patterns like loss of attachment figure or no attachment contributed to later abnormal behaviour
Kennison and Spooner 2023
Undergraduates account of childhood parental support and adults attachment resilience.
Negative parents lead to negative controlling of emotion and less structure in relationships.
Positive relationships and attachments = higher resilience and felt more socially accepted
Negative relationships and attachments with father= low resilience
4 Key attachment theories
1) Freudian psychoanalytic theory
Attachment to caregiver forms because they provide oral gratification
2) Learning theory:
Attachment forms because they are the secondary reinforces (after food)
3) Cognitive development theory:
Attachment occurs after the infant is able to differentiate between the self and others and have object permanence still exist when they are gone.
4) Ethological theory:
Attachment forms due to instinctual responses ensuring protection and survival
John bowbly
Aim to explain the formation of the earliest attachment bonds between mother using ethological principles in human terms, the mother provides a secure base from which the developing infant can explore the world and return in safety.
- Strong social relationship and physical care needed
- Biological need for baby to form significant attachment to one person (monotropy to mother usually)
- Attachment figure is constructed from past experience with that person, are they sensitive, available, consistent, predictable
Harlow
Research on maternal deprivation in monkeys
Baby monkeys alone given the choice of a cloth covered support that did not dispense food or a wire that dispenses food.
When a loud noise was made, they went to cloth, meaning that not only food is enough.
Schaffer 1996 attachment stages
1) Pre-attachment (0-2 months)
indiscriminate social responsiveness
2) Attachment-in-the-making (2-7 months)
Recognition of familiar people
3) Clear-cut attachment (7-24 months)
Separation protest, wariness of stranger, intentional communication
4) Goal-corrected partnership (24 on)
Relationships are more 2-sided and children understand parent’s needs and actively interact with them
Bowbly criticisms
initial work was done with maladjusted children in care home facilities, primarily boys.
Asking 44 adolescents who had been convicted for thieving about childhood experiences.
Found many resented their parents, which is what his theory is based one and therefore there are many implications.
Schaffer and Emerson 1964
Attachment if often to more than just one key figure and poor attachment to one person can be offset by strong attachment to another
The strange situation Ainsworth 1969
1) Mother + infant enter observation and infant’s play is observed
2) Stranger enters, talks to mother and leaves, infants reaction is observed
3) Mother leaves and infants reaction observed
4) Mother returns and infants reaction observed
5) Mother leaves and reaction observed
6) Stranger enters and infant observed
7) Mother returns and infant observed
Ainsworth types of attachment
Secure: 66% plays happily but keeps an eye on the mother, cries when mother leaves and is rapidly comforted
Insecure-avoidant: 20% indifferent to mother and does not cry and can be comforted by stranger.
Insecure-resistant: 10-15% stays close to mother and does not move away to play with toys, cries when mother leaves and continues to cry when comforted. May seek contact with mother and still resist
Insecure-disorganised: Lacks organised ability to deal with stress When mother returns, may be confused and dazed or cry loudly. Mothers often have postnatal or other depression and so cannot always be present
Maintaining attachment style
Formation of attachment in infancy does not have irreversible consequences.
Lewis et al 2000: attachment at 1 year differed from 18 yrs
Importance may shift from proximity to attachment figure to availability of them. We can be attached to someone we are not close to.
We go into relationships with previous experience but this changes as we make more attachments
Individual differences in temperament and sociability affect attachment
Caregiver factors: depression, previous experience and day care arrangement
Child factors: temperament
Attachment and postnatal depression
More common in low socio-economic status groups, depending on support network. intergenerational history of depression and attachment may also have impact.
McMahon et al 2006:
explores maternal depression, attachment and maternal attachment
- mothers who suffer postnatal depression more likely to have insecure attachment styles.
- Children whose mothers suffer from chronic postnatal depression more likely too
Main 1991:
Adult attachment interview
- Asks about childhood experiences and adult perspective on them
3 perspectives on attachments
- autonomous (this has an effect)
- Dismissing (no effect)
- Preoccupied (if they raised me different I would not be like this)
Mothers often pass down these perspectives
Implications of Bowlby’s theory
Introductions of facilities in hospitals for parents to stay with young children.
Change in days care, orphanages and having multiple carers- not only food but also physical care is needed for attachment
Belsky and Rovine 1988
Is there a relation between how long children spend in day care and type of attachments
Full time: 47% insecure
Higher part time: 35%
Lower part time: 21%
Mother care/ less than 5 hrs : 25%
Further research on full time groups found:
Mothers with insecure infants often had worse SES and had motivation for working
With secure infants, they had alternative care arrangements
Why is there more insecurity for infants in day care more than 20hrs?
- Strange situation is not that strange/ stressful, particularly not for that who go day-care
-=Mothers who work differ in many ways from those who do not
- Other measure of insecurity such as self-confidence and emotional adjustment do not show these infants as any different
Theories
Applebaum et al 1997: found relationships with maternal sensitivity and sensitivity are more likely to have secure attachments
Belsky 1997: differential susceptibility hypothesis, children vary in whether they are affected by experiences and not just depending on temperament
DesShipper et al 2008: no evidence to support this theory
Pluess and Belsky 2009: infant temperament and quality of childcare result both result in different childhood outcomes
Problems in measuring attachment
- The strange situation:
○ Attachment is a continuum and classification into categories is misleading
○ Only assess behaviour in one ‘strange’ situation
○ Does not consider cultural practice
Does not identify all children with abnormal social relationships eg Autism
