Chapter 6 Social and Personality development in infancy

Developmentalists believe a true emotion has what three components.

• Biological arousal

• cognitive

• behavioral component

What are infants born with?

Innate repertoire of emotional expressions

Infant nonverbal emotional expressivity is similar to adult expression BUT actual infants.

May have different experiences.

At birth what type of smile do children have?

Spontaneous smile

At what age do infants begin to respond to smile in response to stimuli

6 weeks

What is a social smile?

Smiling in response to other individuals.

At what age do infants social smiles become more directed toward particular individuals?

18 months

What is nonverbal decoding?

The ability to understand nonverbal cues.

By how many moths are infants able to discriminate happy and sad vocal expressions?

5 months

By producing and decoding emotion what can infants do?

experience their own emotion and better understand ambiguous situations.

What is self-awareness?

Knowledge of oneself as an independent entity.

At how many months may children recognize rouge on a nose as shown through prolonged glance?

12 months

When do children start to show awareness of their own capabilities?

17-24 months

What is social referencing?

The intentional search for information about other feeling to help explain the meaning of uncertain circumstances and events.

When does social referencing first occur?

8 or 9 months

What do stranger anxiety and separation anxiety represent?

Important social progress, reflect cognitive advances and growing emotional social bonds between infants and their caregivers.

What is stranger anxiety?

The caution and wariness displayed by infants when encountering an unfamiliar person.

What is separation anxiety?

The distress displayed by infants when a customary care provider departs.

What is theory of mind?

Knowledge and beliefs about the mind work and how it affects behavior.

What is empathy

An emotional response that corresponds to the feelings of another person, at approximately 2 years of age.

What is attachment?

The emotional bond that develops between a child and particular individual.

What is imprinting?

Behavior that takes place during a critical period and involves the attachment to the first moving object observed.

What did Harry Harlow prove?

attachment involves the preference for warmth and comfort, e.g., from a cloth mother without bottle versus wire mother with bottle.

According to John Bowlby what is attachment based on?

Based primarily on infants’ needs for safety and security motivation to avoid predators.

What does Ainsworth Strange Situation eight step research measure used to assess?

The attachment relationship between a child and caregiver.

What is secure attachment?

When child uses caregiver was the home base.

What is avoidant attachment?

Child does not seek proximity to the caregiver, does not seem distress upon departure and avoid her upon reunion

What is Ambivalent?

Child displays a combination of positive and negative reactions to their caregiver.

What is disorganized-disoriented attachment?

Child shows inconsistent contradictory and confused behavior.

What attachment pattern is this; When mother leaves, they become upset and go to her as soon as she returns

Secure attachment

What attachment pattern is this; After mother leaves, child seems to avoid her when she returns as if they are angered by her behavior

Avoidant attachment

What attachment pattern is this; Child shows great distress when the mother leaves, but simultaneously seek close contact, but also hit and kick her.

Ambivalent pattern

What attachment pattern is this; Children show inconsistent, often contradictory behavior

Disorganized-disoriented

What does attachment depend on?

How caregivers react to their infants’ emotional cues. 

What is key to a healthy attachment style?

Sensitivity to infants’ needs and desires and communicative interactional synchrony.

What is significant to a child’s wellbeing?

Expressions of nurturance, warmth, affection, support, and concern

What communication will most likely result in a secure attachment?

interactional synchrony

Communication involving interactional asynchrony, where the child’s behavioral cues are ignored, caregiver behaves inconsistently will most likely result in what?

Insecurely attached child.

What does secure attachment correlate with?

Fewer psychological difficulties, socially and emotionally competent and viewed by other more positively?

What do fathers tend to spend more time doing?

Playing with their infants, e.g., rough and tumble play, while mothers tend to feed, nurture, and play traditional games.

When the attachment relationship has been severely disrupted what might happen to the child?

They might experience a mental illness.

What does reactive attachment involve

extreme reluctance to initiate or accept comfort and affection.

What does disinhibit social engagement disorder involve?

involves excessive attempts to receive comfort and affection from any available adult.

What does mutual regulation model indicate?

infants and parents learn to communicate emotional states to one another and to respond appropriately, e.g., through facial expressions.

What is the process where infants’ behaviors invite further responses from parents and other caregivers. In turn, the caregivers’ behaviors bring about a reaction from the child, continuing the cycle?

Reciprocal socialization

At what age do infants notice racial differences

6 months

What happens when infants aren’t given framework for understanding differences?

They try to sort them out on their own, and they start categorizing people by race.

What is a useful approach to help break down racial biases?

Discuss race explicitly stories about and interaction with racially diverse people.

How do infant communicate?

smile, laugh, and vocalize while looking at peers.

What happens to infants as they age?

They begin to imitate one another.

What do mirror neurons in the brain relate to?

innate ability to imitate.

What is personality?

The sum total of enduring characteristics that differential one individual from another.

What does Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development consider?

How individuals come to understand themselves and the meaning of behavior, both the behavior of others’ and themselves.

How many stages of development unfold over the course of life?

8 stages

According to Erosion what should happen at each stage of your life?

A unique developmental task confronts individuals with an age-appropriate crisis that must be resolved.

According to Erikson what happens if you successfully resolve a crisis?

The healthier the development will be.

According to Erikson what is Trust vs mistrust?

The period during which infants (birth to 18 months) develop a sense of trust or mistrust, largely depending on how well their needs are met by their caregivers.

According to Erikson what is autonomy vs shame and doubt stage?

The period that toddlers (aged 18 months to 3 years) develop independence and autonomy if they are allowed the freedom to explore, or shame and self-doubt if they are restricted and overprotected.

What is temperament?

Patterns of arousal and emotionality that represent consistent and enduring characteristics in an individual.

What are easy babies?

Babies that have a positive disposition; their body functions operate regularly, and they are adaptable

What are difficult babies?

Babies that have negative moods and, when confronted with a new situation, they tend to withdraw or are slow to adapt.

What are slow-to-warm babies?

Babies that are inactive, showing relatively calm reactions to their environment.  Their moods are generally negative, and they adapt slowly.

What is goodness-of-fit

The notion that development is dependent on the degree of match between Childrens temperament and the nature and demands of the environment in which that are being raised.

What is temperamental characteristic viewed as?

Temperamental characterizes views was inherited traits during childhood and across entire lifespan.