Still Face Experiment

• Edward Tronick, 1975

• Demonstrates some understanding of emotion, power of connection.

• Have a clear reaction to a lack of emotional connection from their caregivers.

• Even very young babies have demonstrated that they can respond to emotions of the adults who care for them.

• Reciprocity: babies are also actively engaging and shaping social interaction with the adults in their lives.

Emotional Development in Infancy

• Reciprocity: at 2-3 months, babies match the feeling tone of the caregiver.

  • At 4-5 months, they gradually discriminate a wider range of emotions

• Social referencing (8-10 months): actively seek emotional information from a trusted person in an uncertain situation

  • Toddlers use others’ emotional reactions and messages to evaluate the safety of surroundings, to guide actions, and to gather information

Altruism and Empathy

• Roots of empathy can be seen early on

  • 2-3 months old react to others’ emotional expression

  • Infants at 1, 3, 6, 9 months of age all found to respond to infant cries with cries of their own or facial expressions of distress

  • By 18 – 24 months, offer comfort at the distress of others

• Infants prefer helpers over non-helpers

  • By 15 months of age, showed expectations of ‘fairness’, unequal distribution of food

Personality Development

• Personality: the enduring characteristics of individuals, of which emotions and temperament are key aspects.

• Central to personality development is trust and the development of self and independence.

• Erikson’s trust versus mistrust stage: infants learn trust when they are cared for consistently and develop a sense of mistrust when not fed and kept warm on a consistent basis.

• Independence also becomes more central.

• Separation: the infant’s movement away from the mother.

• Erikson’s second stage, autonomy versus shame and doubt:

  • autonomy builds with mental and motor abilities, and infants feel pride in their new accomplishments

  • when caregivers are impatient and do for toddlers what they are capable of doing for themselves, shame and doubt develop.

Emotional Development: Concerns

• Little or no eye contact

• Frequent and long-lasting fussiness or irritability

• Unsmiling or withdrawn behavior

• Little or no preference for familiar adults

• Extreme, frequent and long-lasting tantrums that impede on learning and relationship building

• Lacks curiosity

• Sleeping too much or too little

• Troubles with eating/feeding- too much or too little

• For toddlers and/or preschoolers:

  • Often seems sad or worried

  • Fails to listen or respond

  • Rarely uses words to express feelings

  • Seems unable most of the time to control feelings