1. Chapter 7 – The First Two Years: Psychosocial Development
The Developing Person Through the Life Span 8e by Kathleen Stassen Berger
Chapter 7 – The First Two Years: Psychosocial Development
PowerPoint Slides developed by
Martin Wolfger and Michael James
Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington
Reviewed by Raquel Henry
Lone Star College, Kingwood

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 months
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

4. Emotional Development
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.

5. Emotional Development
Toddlers’ Emotions
Anger and fear become less frequent and more focused
Laughing and crying become louder and more discriminating
New emotions appear: pride, shame, embarrassment, guilt
Require an awareness of other people
Emerge from family interactions, influenced by the culture

6. Emotional Development
Self-awareness
The realization that one’s body, mind, and actions are separate from those of other people.
First 4 months: Infants have no sense of self; may see themselves as part of their mothers.
5 months: Begin to develop an awareness of themselves as separate from their mothers.

7. 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 those 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.

8. 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 teased by an older sibling or react with fear when entering the doctor’s office.
Memory triggers specific emotions based on previous experiences.

9. Stress
Hypothalamus
Regulates various bodily functions and hormone production
May grow more slowly if an infant is often stressed
Abuse (form of chronic stress)
Potential long-term effects on a child’s emotional development
Excessive stress in infants must be prevented

10. Stress Stress can be avoided by: supporting new mothers
involving new fathers in the care of the infant
strengthening the parents’ relationship

11. Brain Maturation and the Emotions
Synesthesia
When one sense triggers another in the brain
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.
Emotions are difficult to predict because of the way infants’ brains are activated.

12. Brain Maturation and the Emotions
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

13. The N.Y. Longitudinal Study Findings
Found 4 categories of temperament
Easy (40%)
Difficult (10%)
Slow to warm up (15%)
Hard to classify (35%)
Additional findings:
Parenting practices are crucial, temperament can change or be changed

14. Goodness of Fit
A similarity of temperament and values that produces a smooth interaction between an individual and his or her social context
includes 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

15. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud: 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 denied the infant urge to suck, 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

16. 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 bodies
Early problems can create an adult who is suspicious and pessimistic (mistrusting) or who is easily shamed (insufficient autonomy)

17. 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

18. Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
Cognitive Theory
Working model: a set of assumptions used 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.

19. 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

20. Proximal and Distal 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

21. Proximal and Distal Parenting

22. 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

23. When Synchrony Disappears
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

24. 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
Infants show attachment through proximity-seeking (i.e. approaching caregiver) and contact-maintaining (i.e. touching, holding)

25. Attachment

26. Secure and Insecure Attachment
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.

27. Secure and Insecure Attachment
3. 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.
4. Disorganized attachment: A type of attachment that is marked by an infant’s inconsistent reactions to the caregiver’s departure and return.

28. Secure and Insecure Attachment

29. 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.

30. Measuring Attachment

31. Measuring Attachment

32. 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.
Mothers use a variety of expressions, vocalizations, and gestures to convey social information to their infants.

33. 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

34. Comparing Fathers and Mothers
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).
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).

35. 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.

36. Infant Day Care

37. 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.