Week 5 - Developmental Psych - The Social World of Infants

The Five Stages of Infant Social Development

• birth (1 month) - basic attraction = preference for people, faces, familiar voices + smells

• 2 months - core relatedness = face-to-face social interactions, smiling, vocalising

• 5 months - topic-based relatedness = interactions begin to include objects, games, shared topics

• 9-10 months - connected-up relatedness = infants coordinate their attention with others through pointing, gaze following and shared interests

• 18 months - cooperative relatedness = infants increasingly understand others’ desires and goals, cooperate and help

Birth to 1 month - Basic Attraction

• infants are born with a basic readiness to engage socially - newborns show a preference for face-like visual stimuli

Goren, Sarty + Wu (1975)

• 40 newborns, with a median age of 9 mins

• researchers presented face-like, scrambled + blank stimuli

• newborns showed greater visual following of face-like stimuli

= found that newborns showed greater visual following of face-like stimuli

= suggests that newborns are attracted to faces that appear ready for social interaction

• newborns prefer faces with open eyes (Batki et al. 2000) and forward-facing gaze (Farroni et al. 2002)

Recognition of familiar voices + smells

• auditory recognition = infants prefer familiar voices, particularly mother’s voice

• olfactory recognition = newborns show attraction to their mother’s smell

= infants can recognise familiar social info very early, helping establish relationships with caregivers

Baby Schema - Lorenz (1943)

= a set of typical infant facial characteristics that elicit positive adult responses + motivate caregiving

• large round head, high forehead, large eyes, chubby cheeks, small nose + mouth

Neonatal Imitation

= refers to newborns copying facial gestures demonstrated by another individual

Meltzoff & Moore (1977)

• adults demonstrated mouth opening + tongue protrusion, alongside infants producing similar movements

Infant-directed speech (motherese)

= the distinctive way adults often speak to babies

Three Characteristics:

• exaggerated intonation or melody

• simple vocab, often using diminutives

• repetition

Key Findings:

• Fernald (1985) and Cooper & Aslin (1990) - infants prefer infant-directed speech over adult-directed speech

2-4 Months - Core Relatedness

• also called primary intersubjectivity

= involves direct, emotionally engaged, face-to-face interaction between an infant and another person

• eg, a mother smiles at her baby, baby smiles back the mother responds again

Early Social Expressiveness

Murray et al. (2016) - examines early behaviours including non-social mouth movements, pre-speech, vocalisation and smiles

• the important developmental principle is that infants become increasingly capable of actively participating in social exchanges

The Still-Face Experiment - Tronick et al. (1978)

= investigates how infants respond when a caregiver suddenly stops interacting normally

Four Stages:

1) normal engagement - the caregiver + infant interact normally

2) infant puzzled - the caregiver becomes expressionless + unresponsive

3) bid for response - the infant attempts to re-engage the caregiver

4) withdrawal - the infant eventually disengages when normal interaction does not resume

• demonstrated that infants are sensitive to the emotional and social responsiveness of caregivers. They expect ongoing, reciprocal engagement

= provides evidence that early social interaction is active and two-way

The Double-Video Experiment - Murray & Trevarthen (1985)

= investigates contingency in infant-caregiver interaction

• contingency = one person’s response is appropriately connected in time to another person’s behaviour

• two situations - live/contingent = mother + infant interact through a live video connection

• replay/non-contingent = the infant sees a recording of the mother’s earlier behaviour

• Main finding = infants are sensitive to the temporal contingency of maternal responses

• it shows that infants respond not just to positive facial expressions, but to whether another person’s behaviour is appropriately timed and responsive

Maternal Responses

• mirroring = matching the infant’s behaviour, including its emotional quality + intensity (eg, baby smiles, mother smiles back)

• positive or neutral marking = responding appropriately + highlighting a behaviour without directly copying it (baby vocalises, mother responds enthusiastically)

• mis-attuned response = responding with inappropriate emotional intensity (eg, baby gives a small smile, mother responds overwhelmingly)

• negating response = rejecting or mocking infant’s behaviour (eg, baby attempts engagement, caregiver responds dismissively)

Murray et al. (2016) - Mother-infant Communication

= examines how different maternal responses contribute to infants’ early social development

• maternal mirroring - has a specific positive effect on infants’ social expressiveness

• positive marking - has a more general positive effect on infant behaviour, rather than an effect specific to social expressiveness

• suggest that different types of caregiver responses can support different aspects of infant development

5 months - Topic-based Relatedness

• at this time, infants become increasingly interested in the world beyond direct face-to-face interactions

• improvements in vision and grasping allow infants to explore objects and activities

• this leads to a change in social interaction

• infant and caregiver previously mainly focused on each other - now, they can engage around a shared topic, eg toy or game

• HOWEVER - at this stage, infant does not yet fully understand the relationship between their own attention, the caregiver’s attention and the shared object

Several ways caregivers adapt their interactions to infants’ developing interests

• body games = playful physical routines, such as tickling or lifting, where infants begin to anticipate what happens next

• games with rules = familiar sequences that allow infants to anticipate the next action

• ostensive marking = using social signals (eg, eye contact, raised eyebrows, smiling) to draw attention to a topic

• triadic play = an interaction involving infant, caregiver and a third element (eg, toy)

9-10 Months : Connected-up relatedness

• also known as secondary intersubjectivity

• infants become increasingly able to coordinate their own attention, another person’s attention, an external object or event

Pointing as a sign of Connected-up relatedness

• infants can follow other people’s pointing gestures around 9 months

• allows infants to direct another person’s attention toward something of interest

Gaze Following as a sign of Connected-up relatedness

= the ability to look towards the location another person is looking at

• the ability is influenced by whether the person’s head or eyes move and by the position of the target

Reciprocal Play as a sign of Connected-up relatedness

= infants take part in interactive games, responding to another person’s actions and suggestions

• eg, parent hides during peekaboo, infant begins to participate in the routine

Sharing Interests as a sign of Connected-up relatedness

= infants actively involve others in something they find interesting

• eg, infant points at a monkey drawing to show caregiver - not just interested in the monkey, but interested in sharing their interest

18 Months - Cooperative Relatedness

• 18-24 months = infants show increasingly sophisticated understanding of other people’s experiences

• they begin to appreciate that another person can have different desires, goals and experiences from their own

• relates to Theory of Mind - involves understanding that other people have mental states, such as beliefs, desires, intentions, which may differ from our own

Understanding other’s desires - Repacholi & Gopnik (1997)

= provides evidence that young children can understand that another person’s food references may differ from their own

• a mother shows that she likes food the infant dislikes

• when asked to give her some food, the infant selects the mother’s preferred food rather than their own

= important because it demonstrates that infants can increasingly distinguish another person’s desires from their own

Helping behaviour as a sign of understanding other people

• Warneken & Tomasello (2006)

• 18 month old infants helping adults complete simple tasks

• demonstrates emerging cooperative behaviour and sensitivity to another person’s goals

Teasing behaviour as a sign of understanding other people

• Reddy (2010)

• infants playfully teasing caregivers, anticipating and enjoying their reactions

• teasing suggest that infants can increasingly influence and anticipate other people’s experiences during social interactions

Mirror self-recognition

• Lewis & Ramsay (2004)

• whether an infant recognises their reflection as themselves rather than another person

• relevant to the development of a more objective understanding of the self

Intuitive parenting + the development of cooperation

• parents naturally adapt their interactions as infants develop

• during the 2nd year, caregivers can support social understanding through increasingly complex activities

• eg, pretend play, talking about mental states (feelings, desires…), sibling conflict…