Socio-emotional Development In Infancy - Lecture Notes | PSYC 2070, Study notes of Psychology

Download Socio-emotional Development In Infancy - Lecture Notes | PSYC 2070 and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Life-Span Development Twelfth Edition Chapter 6: Socioemotional Development in Infancy ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Emotions • Emotion: feeling, or affect, that occurs when a person is in a state or an interaction that is important to him or her, especially to his or her well-being • Biological and Environmental Influences: • Changes in baby’s emotional capacities with age • Development of certain brain regions plays a role in emotions • Emotions are the first language with which parents and infants communicate • Social relationships provide the setting for the development of a variety of emotions ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Emotions • Fear is one of a baby’s earliest emotions • Appears at about 6 months; peaks at about 18 months • Stranger Anxiety: occurs when an infant shows a fear and wariness of strangers • Emerges gradually, first appearing at about 6 months of age • Intensifies at about 9 months of age, escalating past the 1st birthday • Intensity of anxiety depends on: • Individual differences • Familiarity of the setting • Who the stranger is and how the stranger behaves ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Emotions • Separation Protest: crying when the caregiver leaves • Due to anxiety about being separated from their caregivers • Typically peaks at about 15 months for U.S. infants • Cultural variations ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Emotions • Caregivers’ actions influence the infant’s neurobiological regulation of emotions • As caregivers soothe, it reduces the level of stress hormones • Swaddling • Infant gradually learns how to minimize the intensity of emotional reactions • Self-soothing • Self-distraction • Language (2nd year) • Context can influence emotional regulation • How should caregivers respond? ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Temperament • Kagan: children inherit a physiology that biases them to have a particular type of temperament, but this is modifiable through experience • Biological Influences: • Physiological characteristics have been linked with different temperaments • Heredity has a moderate influence on temperament differences • Contemporary view: temperament is a biologically based but evolving aspect of behavior ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Temperament • Gender and Cultural Influences: • Parents may react differently to an infant’s temperament depending on gender • Different cultures value different temperaments • Goodness of Fit: the match between a child’s temperament and the environmental demands the child must cope with ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Personality Development • Three central characteristics: • Trust: Erikson believed the 1st year is characterized by trust vs. mistrust • Not completely resolved in the first year of life • Arises again at each successive stage of development • Development of a sense of self • Occurs at approximately 18 months • Independence through separation and individuation • Erikson: autonomy vs. shame and doubt ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Attachment • Attachment: a close emotional bond between two people • Theories of Attachment: • Freud: infants become attached to the person that provides oral satisfaction • Harlow: contact comfort preferred over food • Erikson: trust arises from physical comfort and sensitive care • Bowlby: newborns are biologically equipped to elicit attachment behavior from caregivers ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact Time with Wire and Cloth Surrogate Mothers 24 0 6 12 18 21-251-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 Age (in days) . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . .... . Infant monkey fed on wire mother Infant monkey fed on cloth mother Hours per day spent with wire mother Hours per day spent with cloth mother Mean hours per day Attachment • Four Phases: • Phase 1 (birth to 2 months): infants direct their attention to human figures • Phase 2 (2 to 7 months): attachment becomes focused on one figure • Phase 3 (7 to 24 months): specific attachments develop • Phase 4 (24 months on): children become aware of others’ feelings and goals, and begin to take these into account in forming their own actions • Infants develop an internal working model of attachment ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Attachment • Interpreting Differences in Attachment: • Attachment is an important foundation for later psychological development • Early attachment can foreshadow later social behavior • Early secure attachment is not the only path to success because children are resilient and adaptive • Later experiences also play an important role • Genetics and temperament play a role in attachment differences • Attachment varies among different cultures of the world ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Social Contexts • The Family: • Family is a constellation of subsystems • Each subsystem has a reciprocal influence on the other • Adjustment of parents during infant’s first years • Infant care competes with parents’ other interests • Marital satisfaction and relationship dynamics may change • Reciprocal socialization: two-way interaction process whereby parents socialize children and children socialize parents • Parent–infant synchrony: temporal coordination of social behavior • Scaffolding: parental behavior that supports children’s efforts through turn-taking sequences ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Social Contexts ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Social Contexts • Child Care • More children are in child care now than ever before • Parental-leave policies vary across cultures • The U.S. grants the shortest period of parental leave and is one of the few countries that offers only unpaid leave • Type of child care varies • Child care centers, private homes, etc. • Low-SES children are more likely to experience poor-quality child care ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Social Contexts • National Institute of Child Health Study: • By 4 months, ¾ of infants were in some type of child care • Socioeconomic factors linked to amount and type of care • Quality of child care: • Group size, child–adult ratio, physical environment, caregiver characteristics • High-quality care resulted in better language and cognitive skills, more cooperation and positive peer interactions, and fewer behavior problems • Quantity of child care: • Extensive amounts of time in child care led to fewer positive interactions with mother, more behavior problems, and higher rates of illness • Influence of parenting was not weakened by extensive care ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.