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Socioemotional Development
in Infancy
Study Unit 1 - Chapter 2 - Topic 2
Learning Outcomes
• Explain the key socioemotional development in infancy.
• Explain the attachment theory and its impact on child development.
• Apply the knowledge base in life-span development to the impact of
infancy attachment on childhood and adolescence.
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At the end of the study topic, you will be able to:
Socioemotional Development in Infancy
Socioemotional processes refer to changes in the individual’s relationships with other
people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality.
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Emotional
DevelopmentTemperament
Personality
Development
1 2 3
In this section, we will be looking into the following aspects of infant development:
Attachment
4
Source:
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Emotional Development
• Emotion plays a key role in human development.
• Definition: Emotion is a feeling or affect that involves a mixture of physiological
arousal (e.g. a fast heartbeat) and overt behaviour (e.g. smile or frown).
Positive Emotions
• High energy
• Excitement
• Calm
• Quiet
• Joy
Negative Emotions
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Guilt
• Sadness
1
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Emotional Development
• Emotions are influenced by biological foundations and environmental experiences.
• In ‘The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals’, Charles Darwin (1872/1965)
stated that the facial expressions of humans are innate, not learned; are the same in
all cultures around the world; and evolved from the emotions of animals.
• Today, psychologists still emphasise that emotions, especially facial expressions of
emotions, have strong biological foundation (Goldsmith, 2002).
� For example, children who are blind from birth and have never observed the
smile or frown on another person’s face smile and frown in the same way that
children with normal vision do.
• Emotions are the first language with which parents and infants communicate before
infant acquires speech (Maccoby, 1992).
• Infants react to their parents’ facial expressions and tone of voice. In return, parents
‘read’ what the infant is trying to communicate, responding appropriately when their
infants are either distressed or happy.
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1
Early Developmental Change in Emotion
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Primary emotions are
present in humans and other
animals.
• 3 months – joy; sadness;
disgust
• 2 to 6 months – anger
• First 6 months – surprise
• 6 to 8 months – fear
(peaks at 18 months)
Self-conscious emotions
require cognition, especially
consciousness.
• 1½ to 2 years – empathy;
jealousy; embarrassment
• 2½ years – pride; shame;
guilt
1 2
1
Early Developmental Change in Emotion
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Click on any of the buttons
to read the explanation.
Smiling
Crying
Fear
Stranger
Anxiety
1
Early Developmental Change in Emotion
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Click on any of the buttons
to read the explanation.
Smiling
Crying
Fear
Stranger
Anxiety
• Crying is most important mechanism newborns have for
communicating with their world.
• For instance, it is important for caregiver to distinguish basic
cry, anger cry, and pain cry. A hungry baby will use his/her
basic cry to communicate his/her hunger.
1
Early Developmental Change in Emotion
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Click on any of the buttons
to read the explanation.
Smiling
Crying
Fear
Stranger
Anxiety
• Another communication tool of infant.
• Reflexive smile refers to smile that does not occur in response to
external stimuli and appears during the first month after birth,
usually during sleep.
• Social smile is the type of smile that occurs in response to an
external stimulus, typically a face. This type of smile does not
occur until 2 to 3 months of age.
1
Early Developmental Change in Emotion
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Click on any of the buttons
to read the explanation.
Smiling
Crying
Fear
Stranger
Anxiety
• The most frequent expression of an infant’s fear involves
stranger anxiety, in which an infant shows a fear and wariness of
strangers.
• In addition to stranger anxiety, infants experience fear of being
separated from their caregiver. This is called separation anxiety.
1
Early Developmental Change in Emotion
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Click on any of the buttons
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Smiling
Crying
Fear
Stranger
Anxiety
• Stranger anxiety usually emerges at about 6 months of
age in the form of wary reaction.
• By age of 9 months, the fear of strangers is often more
intense, and it continues to escalate through the infant’s
first birthday.
• Infants show less stranger anxiety when they are in
familiar settings. Who the stranger is and how the
stranger behaves also influence stranger anxiety in
infants.
1
Early Developmental Change in Emotion: Social Referencing
• Social referencing involves “reading” emotional cues in others to help determine how
to act in a particular situation.
• Its development helps infants to interpret ambiguous situations more accurately, as
when they encounter a stranger and need to know whether to fear the person
(Hertenstein & Campos, 2004).
• In Walden’s (1992) study 14 to 22 months older infants were more likely to look at
their mothers’ faces as a source of information for how to act compared with younger
babies.
• Infants become better at social referencing in the second year of life.
• At this age, they tend to “check” with their mother before they act; they look at her to
see if she is happy, angry, or fearful.
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1
Early developmental Change in Emotion:
Emotional Regulation and Coping
• During the first year of life, the infant gradually develops an ability to inhibit, or
minimise, the intensity and the duration of emotional reactions.
• Context can influence emotional regulation.
• Infants often are affected by fatigue, hunger, time of day, people around them,
and where they are.
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1
Temperament
• Temperament is defined as an individual’s behavioural style and characteristic way of
emotionally responding (Rothbart & Putnam, 2002).
• One infant might be cheerful and happy much of the time; another baby might cry
a lot and more often display a negative mood.
Chess and Thomas’ Classification
Kagan’s Behavioural
Inhibition
Rothbart and Bates’
Classification
1 2 3
Click on any of the buttons to read the explanation.
2
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Temperament - Chess and Thomas
• Temperament is defined as an individual’s behavioural style and characteristic way of
emotionally responding (Rothbart & Putnam, 2002).
• One infant might be cheerful and happy much of the time; another baby might cry
a lot and more often display a negative mood.
Three basic types/clusters
of temperament:
• Easy child.
• Difficult child.
• Slow-to-warm-up child.
1 2 3
2
Chess and Thomas’ Classification
Kagan’s Behavioural
Inhibition
Rothbart and Bates’
Classification
Click on any of the buttons to read the explanation.
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Temperament - Kagan
• Temperament is defined as an individual’s behavioural style and characteristic way of
emotionally responding (Rothbart & Putnam, 2002).
• One infant might be cheerful and happy much of the time; another baby might cry
a lot and more often display a negative mood.
1 2 3
2
• Focuses on differences
between shy, subdued,
timid child and a
sociable, extraverted,
bold child.
Chess and Thomas’ Classification
Kagan’s Behavioural
Inhibition
Rothbart and Bates’
Classification
Click on any of the buttons to read the explanation.
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Temperament - Rothbart and Bates
• Temperament is defined as an individual’s behavioural style and characteristic way of
emotionally responding (Rothbart & Putnam, 2002).
• One infant might be cheerful and happy much of the time; another baby might cry
a lot and more often display a negative mood.
1 2 3
2
• Extraversion.
• Negative affectivity.
• Effortful control (self-
regulation).
Chess and Thomas’ Classification
Kagan’s Behavioural
Inhibition
Rothbart and Bates’
Classification
Click on any of the buttons to read the explanation.
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Temperament & ‘Goodness of Fit’
• Physiological characteristics are associated with different temperaments.
• Kagen (1997, 2003) argues that children inherit a physiology that biases them to
develop
a particular type of temperament.
• However, through experience they may learn to modify their temperament to some
degree.
• Gender may be an important factor shaping the context that influences the fate of
temperament.
� Parents may react differently to a child’s temperament depending on whether the
child is a boy or a girl and on the culture in which they live (Kerr, 2001).
� For instance, a mother may be more responsive to the crying of an irritable girl
than
an irritable boy.
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2
Temperament & ‘Goodness of Fit’
• On the culture front, an active temperament might be valued in some cultures (such
as the United States) but not in other cultures (such as China).
• Due to the vast different and biological basis for temperament, the concept of
‘goodness of fit’ comes in. Children differ from each other even at very early in life.
• Goodness of fit refers to the match between a child’s temperament and the
environment demands with which the child must cope (Thompson & others, 2008).
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2
Temperamental Variations & Parenting
• What are the implications of temperamental variations for parenting?
• According to Ann Sanson and Mary Rothbart (1995), the following are some conclusions
regarding the best parenting strategies in relation to children’s temperament.
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• We need to be careful not to pigeon-hole children into categories without examining
the context in which temperament occurs. Caregivers’ behaviour needs to be taken
into account when considering a child’s temperament.
The “difficult child” and
packaged parenting
programmes – identifying
a ‘difficult child’ might be
helpful but maintaining the
labelling throughout may
not be productive.
Structuring the
child’s environment –
crowded & noisy
environment may pose
greater problem for
some children than
others.
Attention to and
respect for individuality
– the need to be sensitive
and flexible to the infant’s
signals and needs.
1 2 3
2
Personality Development - Trust vs. Mistrust
• According to Erikson (1968), the first year of life is characterised by the trust-versus-
mistrust stage of psychosocial development.
� Infants learn trust when they are cared for in a consistent, warm manner.
� If infants are not well fed and kept warm on a consistent basis, a sense of
mistrust is likely to develop.
• Trust vs. mistrust is not resolved once and for all in the first year of life.
� For example, children who leave infancy with a sense of trust can still have their
sense of mistrust activated at a later stage, perhaps if their parents are
separated or divorced under conflicting circumstances.
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3
Personality Development – Construct Selves
• Infants are not ‘given’ a self by their parents or the culture; rather, they find and
construct selves (Rochat, 2002).
• To determine whether infants can recognise themselves, psychologists have used
mirrors.
� For example, the observer watches to see how often the infant touches his/her
nose. Next, the infant is placed in front of a mirror, and observers detect whether
nose touching increases. Research found that infant begins to recognise self
toward the end of the second year of life.
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3
Attachment
• Attachment can be defined as a close emotional bond between an infant and
a caregiver.
– Visualise a situation in which a small, curly haired girl named Danielle, age 11
months, begins to whimper. After a few seconds, she begins to wail. Soon her
mother comes into the room, and Danielle’s crying ceases. Quickly, Danielle
crawls over to where her mother is seated and reaches out to be held. Danielle
has just demonstrated attachment to her mother.
• There are at least three theories about infant attachment which provide influential
views:
– Sigmund Freud - believed that infants become attached to the person or object
that provides oral satisfaction (e.g. feeding).
• However, Harry Harlow (1958) in his study has demonstrated that feeding is
not the crucial element in the attachment process and that contact comfort is
important.
– Erik Erikson - believed that the first year of life is the key time for the
development of attachment (trust vs. mistrust stage).
• Erikson believed that responsive, sensitive parenting contributes to
an infant’s sense of trust.
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4
Theory of Attachment: John Bowlby (1969, 1989)
John Bowlby
• Ethological perspective of British psychiatrist – also stresses the importance of
attachment in the first year of life and the responsiveness of the caregiver.
• He argues that the newborn is biologically equipped (e.g. cries, clings, coos, smiles)
to elicit attachment behaviour.
• The immediate result is to keep the primary caregiver nearby; the long-term effect is
to increase the infant’s chance of survival.
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From birth to
2 months.
Infants
instinctively
direct their
attachment to
human
figures.
From 2 to 7
months.
Attachment
becomes
focused on
one figure,
usually the
primary
caregiver.
From 7 to 24
months. Specific
attachment
developed. With
increased
locomotor skills,
babies actively
seek contact with
regular caregiver.
From 24 months
on. Children
become aware of
others’ feelings,
goals and plans
and begin to take
these into
account in
forming their own
actions.
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
Phases of attachment are:
4
Individual Differences in the Strange Situation
• Mary Ainsworth (1979) created the ‘strange situation’ – an observational measure of
infant attachment in which the infant experiences a series of introductions,
separations, and reunions with the caregiver and an adult stranger in a prescribed
order.
• Based on how babies respond to the strange situation, they are described as being
securely or insecurely attached to the caregiver:
– Securely attached babies: use the caregiver as a secure base from which to
explore the environment.
– Insecure avoidant babies: show insecurity by avoiding caregiver.
– Insecure resistant babies: often cling to the caregiver, then resist her by fighting
against the closeness, perhaps by kicking or pushing away.
– Insecure disorganised babies: show insecurity by being disorganised and
disoriented.
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4
Individual Differences in the Strange Situation
• However, some critics believe that behaviour in the Strange Situation (like any other
laboratory assessment) might not indicate what infants would do in a natural
environment.
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What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you think culture plays
a part in infants’ behaviour?
4
The Significance of Attachment
• Ainsworth believes that secure attachment in the first year of life provides an
important foundation for psychological development later in life.
• Secure attachment in infancy is important because it reflects a positive parent-infant
relationship and provides the foundation that supports healthy socioemotional
development in the years that follow.
• However, not all developmentalists believe that attachment in infancy is the only path
to competence in life.
• Jerome Kagan (1987, 2000), for example, believes that infants are highly resilient
and adaptive; he argues that they are evolutionarily equipped to stay on a positive
developmental course, even in the face of wide variations in parenting.
• Kagan and others stress that genetic and temperament characteristics play more
important roles in a child’s social competence.
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At this point, take some time to think about your own life experiences.
• What are your opinions on the significant of attachment in infancy?
• Is the style of care-giving linked with the quality of the infant’s
attachment?
4
Child-care
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Recognise that the
quality of your
parenting is a key
factor in your child’s
development.
Monitor your child’s
development.
• Child-care quality is very important!
• High-quality childcare: caregiver encourage the children to be engaged in a variety of
activities, have frequent, positive interactions that include smiling, touching, holding,
and speaking at the child’s eye level, respond properly to the child’s questions or
requests, and encourage children to talk about their experiences, feelings, and ideas.
Take some time
to find the best
child-care.
Some strategies to consider in regard to child-care:
1 2 3
Reflective Question
We have learnt from the socioemotional development of young children that
identifying and choosing the right childcare is important.
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• Imagine that a friend of yours is getting ready to put her
baby in child care. What advice would you give her?
• Do you think she should stay home with her baby? Why or
why not?
Summary
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• Emotional, temperament, and personality development are the
important building blocks of the socioemotional processes in humans.
• Crying, smiling and fear are basic displays of emotion in infancy.
• Social referencing or “reading” emotional cues begins at a very young
age within the infant-caregiver relationship.
• While temperament is dependent on nature, nurture plays an
important role.
• There are at least three theories about infant attachment which
provide influential views.
• Among some interesting issues are the relationship between the
attachment patterns that infants display and their potential long-term
effects.
In this topic, you learnt that:
References and Additional Learning Resources
• Santrock, J. W. (2013). Life-Span Development (14th Edition),
McGraw-Hill International (Chapter 6).
• Note: All references not listed here are based on the text in Santrock
(2013).
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