Infancy: Social & Emotional Development Notes

Infancy: Social & Emotional Development Notes

Emotional Development

  • Development of Discrete Emotions:
    • Birth: Interest, distress, disgust, rudimentary smile.
    • 2-7 months: Anger, sadness, joy, surprise, fear (primary emotions).
    • Emotions change in form/function during development.
  • Happiness:
    • Rudimentary smile: Full stomach, soothing stimuli, occurs during sleep.
    • Social smile: By 3 months, sharing positive affect, controlling environment.
    • 6-7 months: Bigger smile for familiar companions.
  • Anger:
    • 2 months: To painful stimuli, restricted movement.
    • Middle of year 1: Intense reactions, goal-oriented behavior leads to frustration and anger.
  • Sadness:
    • 2-6 months: Similar situations to anger (distress).
    • After 4 months: Anger and sadness become discrete emotions.
    • Triggered by: Inability to elicit positive response from caregiver (Tronick’s still face study).
    • Depressed caregiver: More sadness in infants, matching depressive symptoms.
  • Fear:
    • Loud noises, sudden changes = innate fear.
    • 6-7 months: Stranger anxiety (8-10 months peak), separation anxiety (14-18 months peak).
  • Explanations of Separation/Stranger Anxiety:
    • Evolutionary: Avoidance response prewired, unfamiliarity risks survival.
    • Cognitive: Lack explanation for strange situations, faces discrepant with schemes.

Attachment

  • Definition: Enduring emotional bond with caregiver(s).
    • Lays foundation for interpersonal & emotion regulation strategies.
  • Main Features:
    • Selectivity, physical proximity seeking, comfort/security, separation anxiety.
  • Ethological Aspects:
    • Lorenz: Imprinting - first moving object is caregiver.
    • Harlow: Contact comfort is primary need, not secondary to food.
  • Theories of Early Bonding:
    • Psychoanalytic: "I love you because you feed me."
    • Learning: Feeding as reward, caregiver becomes secondary reinforcer.
    • Cognitive-Developmental: "To love you, I must know you will be there" (object permanence).
    • Bowlby: Physical contact is primary need for survival.
  • Bowlby's Observations of Temporary Separation:
    • Protest, despair, detachment phases during hospitalization.
  • Development of Attachment (Shaffer & Emerson):
    • Asocial (0-6 weeks), Indiscriminate (6 weeks - 6-7 months), Specific (7-9 months), Multiple (by 18 months).
  • Ainsworth's Strange Situation:
    • Secure base in exploration; variability in attachment behavior.
    • Simulates caregiver/infant interactions, separations, reunions.
  • Attachment Classifications:
    • Secure: Explores, upset during separation, seeks contact upon reunion, outgoing with stranger when mother present.
    • Resistant/Ambivalent (Insecure): Clingy, little exploration, distressed during separation, ambivalent upon reunion, wary of strangers.
    • Avoidant (Insecure): Little distress during separation, ignores/turns away from mother upon reunion, sociable with strangers.
    • Disorganized/Disoriented: Fearful, freezing, contradictory behaviors upon reunion.
  • Developmental Outcomes:
    • Secure: Fewer psychological difficulties, more socially/emotionally competent.
    • Insecure (disorganized): Least adaptive, vulnerable to disorders, lack emotion regulation strategies.
    • Attachment classification can change.
  • Caregiving Aspects Promoting Secure Attachment:
    • Sensitivity, positive attitude, synchrony, mutuality, support, stimulation.
  • Risk Factors for Insecure Attachment:
    • Caregiver mental illness, history of abuse/neglect, unplanned pregnancy, ecological constraints, marital conflicts, temperament.
  • Caregiver Contributions to Insecure Attachment:
    • Resistant: Inconsistent caregiving, unresponsive.
    • Avoidant: Impatient, rejecting, over-active, high stimulation.
    • Disorganized: Abusive, depressed, substance abuse, unresolved trauma.
  • Fathers as Caregivers:
    • Positive attitude, time spent, sensitive caregiving -> secure attachment.
    • Provide playful physical stimulation, become secure base.

Temperament

  • Definition: Constitutionally based individual differences in emotional, motor, attentional activity, reactivity, and self-regulation.
  • Dimensions:
    • Fearful distress, irritable distress, positive affect, activity level, attention span/persistence, rhythmicity.
  • Hereditary and Environmental Influences:
    • Hereditary: Biological, genetically influenced, stable.
    • Environmental: Shared (positive traits), nonshared (negative traits).
  • Stability:
    • Moderately stable: Activity, irritability, sociability. Behavioral inhibition.
    • Long-term stability at continuum extremes.
    • Environmental factors (overprotection, insensitivity) contribute to stability.
  • Early Temperamental Profiles (Thomas & Chess):
    • Easy, difficult, slow-to-warm-up.
  • Parents’ Personality/Childrearing and Temperament:
    • Goodness of fit: Parents adapting to child's temperament.
    • Socially desirable temperament varies by culture.

Self-Development

  • Infants’ Self Concept:
    • Newborns: No concept of self.
    • Realization of independent existence marked by routines and predictable responses from others.
  • The Emerging Self:
    • Distinguish from environment: Cry at others' cries, anticipate hand at mouth, proprioceptive feedback.
    • Self-awareness: Bodily self (sensorimotor schemes), self-agency (producing events).
    • Self-other differentiation: Physical agents (till 6 months), shared attention (from 9 months).
    • Self-recognition: Rouge test (15-17 months show early signs, 18-24 months recognize self).
  • Early Understanding of Mental States:
    • 2 months: Imitate human gestures.
    • 6 months: Perceive human actions as purposeful.
    • 9 months: Discriminate negative vs. positive intent.
    • 9-12 months: Joint attention.
    • 18 months: Discover desires influence behavior.