Adobe Scan Feb 22, 2025

Emotional and Social Development During Infancy

Definition of Psychosocial Development

  • Psychosocial development involves forming relationships, interacting with others, and managing feelings.

  • Important social milestone: forming healthy attachments.

  • Attachment: a long-standing bond with others that is crucial for healthy development.

Learning Outcomes

  • Explain emotional development and self-awareness during infancy.

  • Contrast styles of attachment.

  • Describe temperament and the goodness-of-fit model.

  • Use Erikson's theory to characterize psychosocial development during infancy.

Emotional Development and Attachment

Emotional Responses in Infants

  • At birth: Two basic responses - attraction to pleasant situations and withdrawal from unpleasant stimuli.

  • By 2 months: Increase in social engagement (social smiles).

  • By 3-5 months: Laughter as an expression of pleasure.

  • By 6-8 months: Development of specific feelings (fear, sadness, anger).

Progression of Emotional Awareness

  • Infants transition from simple instincts to complex socio-emotional awareness.

  • Fear: Linked with presence of strangers (stranger wariness) and separation from caregivers (separation anxiety).

  • Development timeline for anxiety: Begins around 6-8 months, peaks at 14 months, then decreases.

  • Jealousy may manifest as early as 6 months.

Categories of Emotion

  • Basic Emotions: Interest, happiness, anger, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust.

  • Self-Conscious Emotions: Envy, pride, shame, guilt, doubt, embarrassment; requires social interaction and self-concept for development.

Emotional Regulation

  • Defined in two components:

    1. Emotions as Regulating: Changes elicited by emotions.

    2. Emotions as Regulated: Processes used to change activated emotions (self-soothing, distraction).

  • Infants rely heavily on caregivers for co-regulation of emotions.

  • Emotional regulation strategies by caregivers include distraction and sensory inputs.

  • Infants can self-regulate as early as 4 months.

Importance of Caregiving

  • Sensitive responses to children's emotions lead to better emotional regulation and social skills in later years.

  • Caregivers help toddlers label and understand emotions and model coping strategies.

Social Referencing

  • The process where infants seek information from caregivers to clarify situations (e.g., visual cliff experiments helped demonstrate this).

Self-Awareness

  • Begins during the second year, marking recognition of self as distinct from others.

  • Rouge Test: Identifies self-awareness by noticing makeup on one’s face in the mirror.

  • Self-awareness development correlates with understanding social emotions like guilt, pride, and empathy (around ages 3-5).

Attachment Theories

Definition of Attachment and Key Researchers

  • Attachment Theory: Defined by John Bowlby as a powerful bond necessary for normal social and emotional development.

  • Key Studies:

    • Harry Harlow: Monkeys preferred soft, comforting surrogates over wired maternal figures for nourishment, highlighting the importance of comfort in attachment.

    • John Bowlby: Proposed secure base concept that defines healthy attachment.

    • Mary Ainsworth: Studied different attachment styles using the Strange Situation.

Types of Attachment Identified by Ainsworth

  1. Secure Attachment: Prefers caregiver over strangers; uses them as a secure base.

  2. Avoidant Attachment: Shows no preference for caregiver; indifferent to their presence or absence.

  3. Resistant/Ambivalent Attachment: Clings to caregiver but rejects their interaction; shows distress on separation and is hard to comfort.

  4. Disorganized Attachment: Behaviors are disorganized and erratic; common in abused or neglected children.

Prevalence of Attachment Styles

  • Approximately 65% of U.S. children are securely attached, 20% avoidant, 10-15% resistant, and 5-10% disorganized.

Temperament

Definition and Dimensions

  • Temperament: Innate traits observable from birth, leading to individual differences in behavior—not the same as personality.

  • Nine dimensions include activity level, regularity, sensitivity, mood, and others.

Profiles Based on Temperament

  1. Easy Babies (40%): Positive disposition and adaptable.

  2. Difficult Babies (10%): Negative moods and slow to adapt.

  3. Slow-to-Warm-Up Babies (15%): Withdraw from new situations, adapt gradually.

  4. Undifferentiated (35%): Mixed characteristics, harder to categorize.

Goodness-of-Fit Model

  • Success in development depends on the fit between infant temperament and caregiving style.

  • Caregivers' responses to children's temperament significantly affect emotional and behavioral outcomes.

Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

Trust vs. Mistrust

  • Establishing trust based on caregivers' consistency in meeting physical and emotional needs.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

  • Focus shifts to independence as toddlers explore their environment; anxiety from caregivers can lead to shame and doubt.

robot