DEVPSYCH 6 - Psychosocial Development During the First 3 Years

Personality

The relatively consistent blend of emotions, temperament, thought, and behavior that makes a person unique.

Emotions

Subjective reactions to experience that are associated with physiological and behavioral changes.

Crying

Higher pitch and a more monotonic vocalization is associated with autonomic system activity during stressful procedures in infants. including variations such as basic cry, anger cry, pain cry, and frustration cry.

Basic Cry

Consists of a cry, followed by a briefer silence, then a shorter whistle that is somewhat higher in pitch than the main cry, then another brief rest before the next cry.

Anger Cry

A variation of the basic cry in which more excess air is forced through the vocal cords.

Pain Cry

A sudden appearance of a long, initial loud cry without preliminary moaning, followed by breath-holding

Frustration Cry

Two or three drawn-out cries, with no prolonged breath-holding

higher pitch a more monotonic vocalization is associated with autonomic system activity during stressful procedures in infants

Social Smiling

Beginning in the 2nd month, newborn infants gaze at their parents and smile at them, signaling positive participation in the relationship.

Anticipatory Smiling

Infant smiles at an object and then gazes at an adult while still smiling

Self-Conscious Emotions

Emotions that depend on self-awareness, such as embarrassment, empathy, and envy.

Self-Awarenes

Cognitive understanding that they have a recognizable identity, separate and different from the rest of their world.

Self-Evaluative Emotions

Emotions that depend on both self-awareness and knowledge of socially accepted standards of behavior

Example:

▪ Pride, shame, and guilt.

Altruistic Behavior

Activity intended to help another person with no expectation of reward.

Empathy

Ability to put oneself in another person’s place and feel what the other person feels.

Mirror Neurons

Neurons that fire when a person does something or observes someone else doing the same thing.

Overimitation

▪Infants closely copying all actions they see an adult do, even if some of the actions are clearly irrelevant or impractical.

▪Across cultures, children are capable of generalizing information learned via overimitation to new objects, demonstrating the utility of such social learning.

Temperament

Characteristic disposition, or style of approaching and reacting to situations.

Easy Children

Generally happy, rhythmic in biological functioning, and accepting of new experiences

Difficult Children

More irritable and harder to please, irregular in biological rhythms, wary of new experiences, and more intense in expressing emotion

Slow-to-Warm-Up Children

Mild but slow to adapt to new people and situations.

Extraversion/Surgency

Approach, activity, smiling, and laughter.

Negative Affectivity

▪ Fear, frustration, sadness, and discomfort.

▪ Easily distressed.

▪ May cry and fret more often

Effortful Control (Self-Regulation)

Attentional focusing and shifting, inhibitory control, perceptual sensitivity, and low-intensity pleasure

Goodness of Fit

Match between a child’s temperament and the environmental demands and constraints the child must deal with.

Behavioral Inhibition

o Babies with high ____ become physiologically aroused, pumping their arms and legs vigorously and sometimes arching their backs when presented with new stimulus.

o Babies with low ____ inhibition are relaxed and show little distress or motor activity, and often calmly stare at new stimuli

Ideal Mother

Someone who is warm and physically loving with children, takes joy in their mutual interactions, shields the baby from danger, praises and talks to the child, and responds quickly and well when the child is sad or in need.

Father’s Role

o They are not always involved in their children’s lives.

o Father involvement is tied to factors such as the ability to accumulate materials goods, the equality of parental contributions to the family diet, population density, how peaceful or warlike a culture is, and the marriage structure of a culture.

o A father’s frequent and positive involvement with his child, from infancy on, is directly related to the child’s well-being and physical, cognitive, and social development, as well as to the avoidance of risk and delinquency.

Gender

o Significance of being male or female.

o Boys and girls achieve the motor milestones of infancy about the same times

Gender-Typing

Children learn behavior their culture considers appropriate for each sex.

Attachment

Reciprocal, enduring tie between two people, especially between an infant and a caregiver.

Secure Attachment

Pattern in which an infant is quickly and effectively able to obtain comfort from an attachment figure in the face of distress.

Avoidant Attachment

Pattern in which an infant rarely cries when separated from the primary caregiver and avoids contact on their return.

Ambivalent (Resistant) Attachment

Pattern in which an infant becomes anxious before the primary caregiver leaves, is extremely upset during their absence, and both seeks and resists contact on their return

Disorganized-Disoriented Attachment

Added by Main & Solomon

• Pattern in which an infant, after separation from the primary caregiver, shows contradictory, repetitious, or misdirected behaviors on their return.

Stranger Anxiety

Wariness of strange people and places, shown by some infants during the second half of the 1st year.

Separation Anxiety

Distress shown by someone, typically an infant, when a familiar caregiver leaves.

Mutual Regulation

Process by which infant and caregiver communicate emotional states to each other and respond appropriately.

Social Referencing

Understanding an ambiguous situation by seeking another person’s perception of it.

Self-Concept

• Image of ourselves

• our total picture of our abilities and traits.

• Describes what we know and feel about ourselves and guides our actions

Socialization

Development of habits, skills, values, and motives shared by responsible, productive members of a society.

Internalization

During socialization, process by which children accept societal standards of conduct as their own.

Self-Regulation

• Control of behavior to conform to a caregiver’s demands or expectations, even when the caregiver is not present.

• Foundation of socialization.

• Its growth parallels the development of the self-conscious and evaluative emotions, such as empathy, shame, and guilt

Conscience

Internal standards of behavior, which usually control one’s conduct and produce emotional discomfort when violated.

Situational Compliance

Kochanska’s term for obedience of a parent’s orders only in the presence of signs of ongoing parental control

Committed Compliance

Kochanska’s term for wholehearted obedience of a parent’s orders without reminders or lapses

Receptive Cooperation

Kochanska’s term for eager willingness to cooperate harmoniously with a parent in daily interactions.

Physical Abuse

Action taken deliberately to endanger another person, involving potential bodily injury.

Neglect

Failure to meet a child’s basic needs, such as food, clothing, medical care, protection, and supervision.

Sex Trafficking

The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act.

Shaken Baby Syndrome

A form of maltreatment in which shaking an infant or toddler can cause brain damage, paralysis, or death.

Sexual Abuse

Physically or psychologically harmful sexual activity or any sexual activity involving a child and an older person.

Emotional Maltreatment

o Rejection, terrorization, isolation, exploitation, degradation, ridicule, or failure to provide emotional support, love, and affection.

o Other action or inaction that may cause behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders

Nonorganic Failure to Thrive

• Slowed or arrested physical growth with no known medical cause, accompanied by poor developmental and emotional functioning.

• Evident in babies who do not receive nurturance and affection or who are neglected.