1. Invitation to the Life Span by Kathleen Stassen Berger
Chapter 4 – The First Two Years: Psychosocial Development
These colors actually are a template design in PPT, but match the scheme of the book…do you agree? If so, this will be an easy formatting task. The cover has been revised to reflect the new title “Invitation to the Life Span”. I’ve been waiting to get it, that’s why this slide has been delayed getting to you…but I didn’t want to wait any longer. So the cover needs to be swapped in/out when it arrives. Lastly, I got rid of the chapter outline…as it’s repetitive. Do you agree?
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2. Emotional Development
Infants’ Emotions
Smiling and Laughing
Social smile (6 weeks): Evoked by viewing human faces
Laughter (3 to 4 months): Often associated with curiosity
Anger
First expressions at around 6 month
Healthy response to frustration
Sadness
Indicates withdrawal and is accompanied by increased production of cortisol
Stressful experience for infants

3. Emotional Development
Fear: Emerges at about 9 months in response to people, things, or situations
Stranger wariness:
Infant no longer smiles at any friendly face but cries or looks frightened when an unfamiliar person moves too close
Separation anxiety:
Tears, dismay, or anger when a familiar caregiver leaves.
If it remains strong after age 3, it may be considered an emotional disorder.

4. Emotional Development
Toddlers’ Emotions
Anger and fear become less frequent and more focused
Laughing and crying become louder and more discriminating
New emotions:
Pride
Shame
Embarrassment
Guilt
Require an awareness of other people
Emerge from family interactions, influenced by the culture

5. Emotional Development
Self-awareness
A person’s realization that he or she is a distinct individual whose body, mind, and actions are separate from those of other people.
First 4 months: Infants have no sense of self and may see themselves as part of their mothers.
5 months: Infants begin to develop an awareness of themselves as separate from their mothers.
15-18 months: Emergence of the Me-self
Sense of self as the “object of one’s knowledge”

6. Emotional Development
Mirror Recognition
Classic experiment (M. Lewis & Brooks, 1978)
Babies aged 9–24 months looked into a mirror after a dot of rouge had been put on their noses.
None of the babies younger than 12 months old reacted as if they knew the mark was on them.
15- to 24-month-olds: Showed self-awareness by touching their own noses with curiosity.

7. Emotional Development

8. Brain Maturation and the Emotions
Synesthesia
The stimulation of one sensory stimulus to the brain (sound, sight, touch, taste, or smell) by another.
Common in infants because boundaries between sensory parts of the cortex are less distinct.
Cross-modal perception
Infant associates textures with vision, sounds with smells, own body with the bodies of others
Basis for early social understanding
Synesthesia of emotions
Infant’s cry can be triggered by pain, fear, tiredness, or excitement; laughter can turn to tears.
Infants’ emotions are difficult to predict because of the way their brains are activated.

9. Social Impulses Emotional Self-regulation
Directly connected to maturation of the anterior cingulate gyrus
Particular people begin to arouse specific emotions
Toddlers get angry when a teasing older sibling approaches them or react with fear when entering the doctor’s office.
Memory triggers specific emotions based on previous experiences.

10. Stress
Hypothalamus
Regulates various bodily functions and hormone production
May grow more slowly in stressed than in nonstressed infants
Abuse (form of chronic stress)
Potential long-term effects on a child’s emotional development
High levels of stress hormones indicative of emotional impairment
Excessive stress in infants must be prevented
Stress can be avoided by:
providing new mothers with help and emotional support
involving new fathers in the care of the infant
strengthening the relationship between mother and father

11. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
FREUD: THE ORAL AND ANAL STAGES
Oral stage (first year): The mouth is the young infant’s primary source of gratification
Anal stage (second year): Infant’s main pleasure comes from the anus (e.g. sensual pleasure of bowel movements and the psychological pleasure of controlling them)
Potential conflicts:
Oral fixation: If a mother frustrates her infant’s urge to suck, the child may become an adult who is stuck (fixated) at the oral stage (e.g. eats, drinks, chews, bites, or talks excessively)
Anal personality: Overly strict or premature toilet training may result in an adult with an unusually strong need for control, regularity and cleanliness

12. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
ERIKSON: TRUST AND AUTONOMY
Trust versus Mistrust
Infants learn basic trust if the world is a secure place where their basic needs are met
Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt
Toddlers either succeed or fail in gaining a sense of self-rule over their actions and their bodies
Early problems can create an adult who is suspicious and pessimistic (mistrusting) or who is easily shamed (insufficient autonomy)

13. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
BEHAVIORISM
Parents mold an infant’s emotions and personality through reinforcement and punishment
Social learning
The acquisition of behavior patterns by observing the behavior of others
Demonstrated in the classic Bobo Doll study by Albert Bandura

14. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
COGNITIVE THEORY
Working model: Set of assumptions that the individual uses to organize perceptions and experiences
A person might assume that other people are trustworthy and be surprised by evidence that this working model of human behavior is erroneous.
The child’s interpretation of early experiences is more important than the experiences themselves.
New working models can be developed based on new experiences or reinterpretation of previous experiences.

15. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
ETHNOTHEORY
A theory that underlies the values and practices of a culture but is not usually apparent to the people within the culture.
Example:
Culture’s ethnotheory includes the belief in reincarnation
Children are not expected to show respect for adults, but adults must show respect for their reborn ancestors  indulgent child-rearing
Perceived as extremely lenient by Western cultures

16. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
SYSTEMS THEORY
Epigenetic approach to development, using all five characteristics of the life-span perspective (multidirectional, multicontextual, multicultural, multi disciplinary, and plastic)
Systems theory is especially insightful in interpreting temperament.

17. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
Temperament
Inborn differences between one person and another in emotions, activity, and self-regulation
Temperament is epigenetic, originating in the genes but affected by child-rearing practices
New York Longitudinal Study (NYLS)
Started in the 1960s
Found 4 categories of temperament

18. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
Easy (40%)
Difficult (10%)
Slow to warm up (15%)
Hard to classify (35%)
Additional findings:
Temperament often changes in the early weeks but is increasingly stable by age 3
Extreme temperaments at age 3 tend to carry over to adolescence and young adulthood
Parenting practices are crucial, temperament can change or be changed

19. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
The Big Five (acronym OCEAN)
Five basic clusters of personality traits that remain quite stable throughout life
Found in many cultures and among people of all ages
Openness: imaginative, curious, welcoming new experiences
Conscientiousness: organized, deliberate, conforming
Extroversion: outgoing, assertive, active
Agreeableness: kind, helpful, easygoing
Neuroticism: anxious, moody, self-critical

20. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
Longitudinal study of infant temperament (Fox et al., 2001): Grouped 4-month-olds into three distinct types based on responses to fearful stimulation
Positive (exuberant)
Negative
Inhibited (fearful)
Less than half altered their responses as they grew older
Fearful infants were most likely to change
Exuberant infants were least likely to change
Maturation and child rearing has effect on inborn temperament

21. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development

22. The Effects of Parenting
Proximal parenting
Caregiving practices that involve being physically close to the baby, with frequent holding and touching
Distal parenting
Caregiving practices that involve remaining distant from the baby, providing toys, food, and face-to-face communication with minimal holding and touching

23. The Effects of Parenting

24. Goodness of Fit
A similarity of temperament and values that produces a smooth interaction between an individual and his or her social context, including family, school, and community
With a good fit
parents of difficult babies build a close relationship
parents of exuberant, curious infants learn to protect them from harm
parents of slow-to-warm-up toddlers give them time to adjust

25. Synchrony
A coordinated, rapid, and smooth exchange of responses between a caregiver and an infant
Synchrony in the first few months
Becomes more frequent and more elaborate
Helps infants learn to read others’ emotions and to develop the skills of social interaction
Synchrony usually begins with parents imitating infants

26. Is Synchrony Needed for Normal Development?
Experiments using the still-face technique
An experimental practice in which an adult keeps his or her face unmoving and expressionless in face-to-face interaction with an infant
Babies are very upset by the still face and show signs of stress
Conclusions:
A parent’s responsiveness to an infant aids psychological and biological development
Infants’ brains need social interaction to develop to their fullest

27. Attachment
Attachment is a lasting emotional bond that one person has with another.
Attachments begin to form in early infancy and influence a person’s close relationships throughout life

28. Attachment

29. Attachment Types
Secure attachment: An infant obtains both comfort and confidence from the presence of his or her caregiver.
Insecure-avoidant attachment: An infant avoids connection with the caregiver, as when the infant seems not to care about the caregiver’s presence, departure, or return.
Insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment: An infant’s anxiety and uncertainty are evident, as when the infant becomes very upset at separation from the caregiver and both resists and seeks contact on reunion.
Disorganized attachment: A type of attachment that is marked by an infant’s inconsistent reactions to the caregiver’s departure and return.

30. Attachment Types

31. Measuring Attachment Strange Situation Key behaviors to observe:
A laboratory procedure for measuring attachment by evoking infants’ reactions to the stress of various adults’ comings and goings in an unfamiliar playroom.
Key behaviors to observe:
Exploration of the toys. A secure toddler plays happily.
Reaction to the caregiver’s departure. A secure toddler misses the caregiver.
Reaction to the caregiver’s return. A secure toddler welcomes the caregiver’s reappearance.

32. Measuring Attachment

33. Measuring Attachment

34. Social Referencing Social referencing
Seeking information about how to react to an unfamiliar or ambiguous object or event by observing someone else’s expressions and reactions. That other person becomes a social reference.
Mothers use a variety of expressions, vocalizations, and gestures to convey social information to their infants.

35. Fathers as Social Partners
Fathers usually spend less time with infants than mothers do and are less involved parents
Reasons:
Fathers’ own ideas of appropriate male behavior
Mothers often limit fathers’ interactions with their children
Quality of marital relationship is best predictor
Happier husbands tend to be more involved fathers

36. Comparing Mothers and Fathers
Selected research findings:
Teenagers are less likely to lash out at friends and authorities if they experienced a warm, responsive relationship with their fathers as infants (Trautmann-Villalba et al., 2006).
Infants may be equally securely attached to both parents, more attached to their mothers, or more attached to their fathers (Belsky et al., 2006).
Close father–infant relationships can teach infants (especially boys) appropriate expressions of emotion (Boyce et al., 2006).
Close relationships with their infants reduce fathers’ risk of depression (Borke et al., 2007; Bronte-Tinkew et al., 2007).
Mothers tend to engage in more caregiving and comforting, and fathers tend to engage in more high-intensity play (Kochanska et al., 2008).
When toddlers are about to explore, they often seek their father’s approval, expecting fun from their fathers and comfort from their mothers (Lamb, 2000).

37. Infant Day Care Family day care Center day care
Child care that includes several children of various ages and usually occurs in the home of a woman who is paid to provide it.
Center day care
Child care that occurs in a place especially designed for the purpose, where several paid adults care for many children.
Usually the children are grouped by age, the day-care center is licensed, and providers are trained and certified in child development.

38. Infant Day Care

39. The Effects of Infant Day Care
The impact of nonmaternal care depends on many factors.
Psychosocial characteristics, including secure attachment, are influenced more by the mother’s warmth than by the number of hours spent in nonmaternal care.
Quality of care is crucial, no matter who provides that care.

40. The Effects of Infant Day Care