Infancy: Social Features of Development in the First 18 Months

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering emotional development, attachment theories, temperament profiles, and self-development milestones across the first 18 months of life.

Primary (Basic) Emotions

A set of emotions appearing between 2 and 7 months of age—including anger, sadness, joy, surprise, and fear—that involve cognitive development or learning and reference goal-achievement, the experience of control, and fulfillment or violation of expectations.

Rudimentary Smile

An early reflexive smile present at birth that occurs during sleep as a response to physiological changes or soothing stimuli such as gentle rocking, stroking of the skin, high-pitched vocalizations, and having a full stomach.

Social Smile

A smile appearing by age 3 months that is triggered by sharing positive affect with a companion or when infants can control toys and inanimate aspects in their environment; by 6 to 7 months, it becomes noticeably larger for familiar companions.

Tronick's Still-Face Study

A procedure demonstrating that an infant's sadness and distress are triggered by the violation of expectation when a caregiver remains expressionless and unable to provide a positive social response.

Stranger Anxiety

A wary or fretful reaction displayed by infants and toddlers when approached by an unfamiliar person; it typically emerges around 6 to 7 months and peaks at 8 to 10 months of age.

Separation Anxiety

A wary or fretful reaction shown by infants and toddlers when separated from persons to whom they are attached; it emerges around 6 to 7 months and peaks between 14 and 18 months of age.

Attachment

An enduring emotional bond between a child and a special caregiver (or network of caregivers) characterized by selectivity, physical proximity seeking, comfort and security provision, and separation anxiety when the tie is severed.

Imprinting

An ethological phenomenon described by Konrand Lorenz in which goslings identify and bond to the first moving object seen during a critical period of the first 36 hours of life and follow it as their caregiver.

Contact Comfort

Harry Harlow's finding with infant rhesus monkeys showing that clinging to a soft, warm cloth surrogate without food is preferred over a wire surrogate with food, demonstrating that the need for comfort and security is a primary drive rather than a secondary drive derived from hunger.

Protest Phase

The first behavioral phase observed by John Bowlby in separated hospitalized children, characterized by crying, active searching, and demanding the mother's return.

Phase of Despair

The second phase identified by John Bowlby during temporary separation, where children seem to lose hope of reunification and become apathetic, quiet, and unresponsive to people and toys.

Detachment Phase

The third phase observed by John Bowlby where hospitalized children show renewed interest in toys and substitute caregivers, but treat the returning mother with cool indifference and show little protest when left again.

Secure Base Phenomenon

Mary Ainsworth's concept (identified in her Uganda study) referring to the universal role of the mother acting as a safe base for infant exploration and a safe haven when facing threats.

Strange Situation Procedure

An eight-episode laboratory assessment developed by Mary Ainsworth simulating naturalistic caregiver-infant interactions, brief separations, stranger encounters, and reunion episodes to measure attachment security.

Secure Attachment

An attachment classification where infants actively explore in the mother's presence, become visibly upset during separation, greet her warmly and seek physical comfort upon reunion, and cannot be consoled by a stranger during total separation.

Resistant / Ambivalent Attachment

An insecure attachment pattern where infants remain clingy and explore little, become extremely distressed by separation, and display mixed feelings upon reunion—seeking contact while simultaneously acting angry and resisting comfort.

Avoidant Attachment

An insecure attachment pattern in which infants show little distress upon parental separation, actively avoid or ignore the mother when she returns, and are relatively sociable with strangers.

Disorganized / Disoriented Attachment

An insecure classification where infants exhibit confused, contradictory responses upon reunion—such as freezing, cringing, curling up on the floor, or approaching and abruptly retreating—indicating the lack of a coherent distress regulation strategy.

Asocial Phase

The initial stage of attachment development (0 to 6 weeks) identified by Shaffer and Emerson, where both social and nonsocial stimuli produce favorable reactions and innate reflexes initiate caregiving.

Phase of Indiscriminate Attachments

The second stage of attachment (6 weeks to 6-7 months) in which infants enjoy human contact indiscriminately and synchronize interactive routines with caregivers through intentional gaze.

Specific Attachment Phase

The third stage of attachment (7 to 9 months) where infants form their first true attachment, protesting separation from one particular individual and showing wariness toward strangers.

Phase of Multiple Attachments

The fourth stage of attachment development occurring by age 18 months, during which infants expand their attachment ties to include fathers, siblings, and other family members.

Temperament

Constitutionally based individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional activity and reactivity, as well as self-regulation.

Rothbart's Temperament Dimensions

Six core dimensions of infant temperament formulated by Rothbart (1981): fearful distress, irritable distress, positive affect, activity level, attention span/persistence, and rhythmicity.

Behavioural Inhibition

A temperamental attribute studied by Kagan characterized by a tendency to withdraw from unfamiliar people or situations; it exhibits long-term stability primarily for children situated at the extreme ends of the continuum.

Easy Temperament

A temperamental profile identified by Thomas and Chess (1977) describing children who are even-tempered, typically in a positive mood, adaptable to new experiences, and display regular, predictable biological habits.

Difficult Temperament

A temperamental profile identified by Thomas and Chess (1977) describing active, irritable infants with irregular biological habits who react vigorously to changes in routine and adapt slowly to novelty.

Slow-to-Warm-Up Temperament

A temperamental profile identified by Thomas and Chess (1977) characterized by low activity levels, moodiness, slow adaptation to new people and situations, and mild negative reactions to novelty.

Goodness of Fit

The compatibility between a child's temperamental characteristics and the childrearing practices or demands of the parents and environment.

Rouge Test

A self-recognition assessment developed by Lewis & Brooks-Gunn (1979) where a red spot is placed on an infant's nose; children show early signs around 15 to 17 months, and by 18 to 24 months reliably touch their own nose to demonstrate self-recognition.

Self-Agency

An aspect of emerging self-concept developing from about 8 weeks of age where an infant realizes that their actions produce predictable events in the environment (e.g., kicking causes a mobile to move).