Invitation to the Life Span - HCC Learning Web

Invitation to the Life Span by Kathleen Stassen Berger

Chapter 4 – The First Two Years:

Psychosocial Development

PowerPoint Slides developed by

Martin Wolfger and Michael James

Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington

Emotional Development

Infants’ Emotions

• Smiling and Laughing – Social smile (6 weeks): Evoked by viewing human faces

– Laughter (3 to 4 months): Often associated with curiosity

• Anger – First expressions at around 6 month

– Healthy response to frustration

• Sadness – Indicates withdrawal and is accompanied by increased

production of cortisol

– Stressful experience for infants causes increased production of cortisol

• Fear: Emerges at about 9 months in

response to people, things, or situations

• Stranger wariness:

– Infant no longer smiles at any friendly face

but cries or looks frightened when an

unfamiliar person moves too close

• Separation anxiety:

– Tears, dismay, or anger when a familiar

caregiver leaves.

– If it remains strong after age 3, it may be

considered an emotional disorder.


Toddlers’ Emotions

• Anger and fear become less frequent and more focused

• Laughing and crying become louder and more discriminating

• New emotions: – Pride

– Shame

– Embarrassment

– Guilt

• Require an awareness of other people

• Emerge from family interactions, influenced by the culture


• Self-awareness – A person’s realization that he or she is a distinct

individual whose body, mind, and actions are separate from those of other people.

• First 4 months: Infants have no sense of self and may see themselves as part of their mothers.

• 5 months: Infants begin to develop an awareness of themselves as separate from their mothers.

• 15-18 months: Emergence of the Me-self – Sense of self as the “object of one’s knowledge”


Mirror Recognition

• Classic experiment (M. Lewis &

Brooks, 1978)

– Babies aged 9–24 months looked

into a mirror after a dot of rouge

had been put on their noses.

– None of the babies younger than

12 months old reacted as if they

knew the mark was on them.

– 15- to 24-month-olds: Showed

self-awareness by touching their

own noses with curiosity.


Brain Maturation and the Emotions • Synesthesia

– The stimulation of one sensory stimulus to the brain (sound, sight, touch, taste, or smell) by another.

– Common in infants because boundaries between sensory parts of the cortex are less distinct.

• Cross-modal perception – Infant associates textures with vision, sounds with

smells, own body with the bodies of others

– Basis for early social understanding

• Synesthesia of emotions – Infant’s cry can be triggered by pain, fear, tiredness, or

excitement; laughter can turn to tears.

– Infants’ emotions are difficult to predict because of the way their brains are activated.

Social Impulses

• Emotional Self-regulation – Directly connected to maturation of the anterior

cingulate gyrus

• Particular people begin to arouse specific emotions – Toddlers get angry when a teasing older sibling

approaches them or react with fear when entering the doctor’s office.

– Memory triggers specific emotions based on previous experiences.

Stress • Hypothalamus

– Regulates various bodily functions and hormone production

– May grow more slowly in stressed than in nonstressed infants

• Abuse (form of chronic stress)

– Potential long-term effects on a child’s emotional development

– High levels of stress hormones indicative of emotional impairment

– Excessive stress in infants must be prevented

• Stress can be avoided by:

– providing new mothers with help and emotional support

– involving new fathers in the care of the infant

– strengthening the relationship between mother and father

Theories of Infant Psychosocial

Development PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

FREUD: THE ORAL AND ANAL STAGES

• Oral stage (first year): The mouth is the young infant’s primary source of gratification

• Anal stage (second year): Infant’s main pleasure comes from the anus (e.g. sensual pleasure of bowel movements and the psychological pleasure of controlling them)

Potential conflicts:

• Oral fixation: If a mother frustrates her infant’s urge to suck, the child may become an adult who is stuck (fixated) at the oral stage (e.g. eats, drinks, chews, bites, smokes, or talks excessively)

• Anal personality: Overly strict or premature toilet training may result in an adult with an unusually strong need for control, regularity and cleanliness

ERIKSON: TRUST AND AUTONOMY

• Trust versus Mistrust

– Infants learn basic trust if the world is a secure place

where their basic needs are met (i.e. Romania)

• Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt

– Toddlers either succeed or fail in gaining a sense of

self-rule over their actions and their bodies

• Early problems can create an adult who is

suspicious and pessimistic (mistrusting) or who

is easily shamed (insufficient autonomy)


Development

BEHAVIORISM

• Parents mold an infant’s emotions and personality through reinforcement and punishment

• Social learning – The acquisition of behavior patterns by observing the

behavior of others

– Demonstrated in the classic Bobo Doll study by Albert Bandura


Development

COGNITIVE THEORY

• Working model: Set of assumptions that the individual uses to organize perceptions and experiences – A person might assume that other people are

trustworthy and be surprised by evidence that this working model of human behavior is erroneous.

– The child’s interpretation of early experiences is more important than the experiences themselves.

– New working models can be developed based on new experiences or reinterpretation of previous experiences.


Development

ETHNOTHEORY

• A theory that underlies the values and practices of a culture but is not usually apparent to the people within the culture.

• Example: – Culture’s ethnotheory includes the belief in

reincarnation

– Children are not expected to show respect for adults, but adults must show respect for their reborn ancestors indulgent child-rearing

– Perceived as extremely lenient by Western cultures


Development

SYSTEMS THEORY

• Epigenetic approach to development,

using all five characteristics of the life-

span perspective (multidirectional,

multicontextual, multicultural, multi

disciplinary, and plastic)

– Systems theory is especially insightful in

interpreting temperament.

• Biopsychosocial model


Development

• Temperament

– Inborn differences between one person and

another in emotions, activity, and self-

regulation

– Temperament is epigenetic, originating in the

genes but affected by child-rearing practices

• New York Longitudinal Study (NYLS)

– Started in the 1960s

– Found 4 categories of temperament


Development

• Easy (40%)

• Difficult (10%)

• Slow to warm up (15%)

• Hard to classify (35%)

Additional findings:

• Temperament often changes in the early weeks but is increasingly stable by age 3

• Extreme temperaments at age 3 tend to carry over to adolescence and young adulthood

• Parenting practices are crucial, temperament can change or be changed


Development

• The Big Five (acronym OCEAN)

– Five basic clusters of personality traits that remain quite stable throughout life

– Found in many cultures and among people of all ages

– 4 out of the Big Five appear more influenced by genetics

1. Openness: imaginative, curious, welcoming new experiences

2. Conscientiousness: organized, deliberate, conforming

3. Extroversion: outgoing, assertive, active

4. Agreeableness: kind, helpful, easygoing

5. Neuroticism: anxious, moody, self-critical


Development

• Longitudinal study of infant temperament (Fox et al., 2001): Grouped 4-month-olds into three distinct types based on responses to fearful stimulation – Positive (exuberant)

– Negative

– Inhibited (fearful)

• Less than half altered their responses as they grew older – Fearful infants were most likely to change

– Exuberant infants were least likely to change

– Maturation and child rearing has effect on inborn temperament


Development


Development

The Effects of Parenting

• Proximal parenting

– Caregiving practices that involve being

physically close to the baby, with frequent

holding and touching

• Distal parenting

– Caregiving practices that involve remaining

distant from the baby, providing toys, food,

and face-to-face communication with minimal

holding and touching

The Effects of Parenting

Goodness of Fit

• A similarity of temperament and values that

produces a smooth interaction between an

individual and his or her social context, including

family, school, and community

• With a good fit

– parents of difficult babies build a close relationship

– parents of exuberant, curious infants learn to protect

them from harm

– parents of slow-to-warm-up toddlers give them time to

adjust

Synchrony

• A coordinated, rapid, and smooth

exchange of responses between a

caregiver and an infant

• Synchrony in the first few months

– Becomes more frequent and more

elaborate

– Helps infants learn to read others’

emotions and to develop the skills of

social interaction

– Synchrony usually begins with

parents imitating infants

Is Synchrony Needed for Normal

Development?

• Experiments using the still-face technique – An experimental practice in which an adult keeps his

or her face unmoving and expressionless in face-to-face interaction with an infant

– Babies are very upset by the still face and show signs of stress

• Conclusions: – A parent’s responsiveness to an infant aids

psychological and biological development

– Infants’ brains need social interaction to develop to their fullest

Attachment

• Attachment is a lasting emotional bond

that one person has with another.

– Attachments begin to form in early infancy

and influence a person’s close relationships

throughout life

Attachment

Measuring Attachment

• Strange Situation – A laboratory procedure for measuring attachment by

evoking infants’ reactions to the stress of various adults’ comings and goings in an unfamiliar playroom.

• Key behaviors to observe: – Exploration of the toys. A secure toddler plays

happily.

– Reaction to the caregiver’s departure. A secure toddler misses the caregiver.

– Reaction to the caregiver’s return. A secure toddler welcomes the caregiver’s reappearance.

Attachment Types

1. Secure attachment: An infant obtains both comfort and confidence from the presence of his or her caregiver.

2. Insecure-avoidant attachment: An infant avoids connection with the caregiver, as when the infant seems not to care about the caregiver’s presence, departure, or return.

3. Insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment: An infant’s anxiety and uncertainty are evident, as when the infant becomes very upset at separation from the caregiver and both resists and seeks contact on reunion.

4. Disorganized attachment: A type of attachment that is marked by an infant’s inconsistent reactions to the caregiver’s departure and return.

Attachment Types

Social Referencing

• Social referencing

– Seeking information about how to

react to an unfamiliar or

ambiguous object or event by

observing someone else’s

expressions and reactions. That

other person becomes a social

reference.

• Mothers use a variety of

expressions, vocalizations, and

gestures to convey social

information to their infants.

Fathers as Social Partners

• Fathers usually spend less time with infants than mothers do and are less involved parents, but that is changing

• Reasons:

– Fathers’ own ideas of appropriate male behavior

– Mothers often limit fathers’ interactions with their children

• Quality of marital relationship is best predictor

– Happier husbands tend to be more involved fathers

Comparing Mothers and Fathers

• Selected research findings:

– Teenagers are less likely to lash out at friends and authorities if they experienced a warm, responsive relationship with their fathers as infants (Trautmann-Villalba et al., 2006).

– Infants may be equally securely attached to both parents, more attached to their mothers, or more attached to their fathers (Belsky et al., 2006).

– Close father–infant relationships can teach infants (especially boys) appropriate expressions of emotion (Boyce et al., 2006).

– *Close relationships with their infants reduce fathers’ risk of depression (Borke et al., 2007; Bronte-Tinkew et al., 2007).

– Mothers tend to engage in more caregiving and comforting, and fathers tend to engage in more high-intensity play (Kochanska et al., 2008).

– When toddlers are about to explore, they often seek their father’s approval, expecting fun from their fathers and comfort from their mothers (Lamb, 2000).

Infant Day Care

• Family day care – Child care that includes several children of various

ages and usually occurs in the home of a woman who is paid to provide it.

• Center day care – Child care that occurs in a place especially designed

for the purpose, where several paid adults care for many children.

– Usually the children are grouped by age, the day-care center is licensed, and providers are trained and certified in child development.

*Infant Day Care*

The Effects of Infant Day Care

• The impact of nonmaternal care depends on

many factors.

• Psychosocial characteristics, including secure

attachment, are influenced more by the

mother’s warmth than by the number of hours

spent in nonmaternal care.

• Quality of care is crucial, no matter who

provides that care.

The Effects of Infant Day Care

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