1. Chapter 7
Social Development in Infancy
Caprice Paduano
Child Development

2. Chapter 7 Key Questions Do infants experience emotions?
 What sort of mental lives do infants have?
 What is attachment in infancy and how does it affect a
person’s future social competence?
 What roles do other people play in infants’ social
development?
 What individual differences distinguish one infant from
another?
 How does nonparental child care impact infants?

3. Emotions in Infancy: Do Infants Experience
Emotional Highs and Lows?
 Infants display a fairly wide range of
emotional expressions.
 According to research, almost all mothers
think that by the age of 1 month, their babies
have expressed interest and joy. In addition,
84% of mothers think their infants have
expressed anger, 75% surprise, 58% fear,
and 34% sadness.

4. Emotions in Infancy: Do Infants Experience
Emotional Highs and Lows?
 Research also finds that interest, distress,
and disgust are present at birth, and that
other emotions emerge over the next few
months.
 Although infants display similar kinds of
emotions, the degree of emotional
expressivity varies among infants.

5. Experiencing Emotions
 The fact that children display nonverbal expressions in
a manner similar to that of adults does not necessarily
mean that their actual experience is identical.
 However, most developmental researchers argue that
the nonverbal expressions of infants represent actual
emotional experiences.
 It now seems clear that infants are born with an innate
repertoire of emotional expressions.

6. Stranger Anxiety and
Separation Anxiety
 Stranger anxiety The caution and wariness
displayed by infants when encountering an
unfamiliar person
 Separation anxiety The distress displayed by
infants when a customary care provider
departs
 Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety
represent important social progress.

7. Smiling
 Social smile Smiling in response to other
individuals
 As babies get older, their social smiles
become directed toward particular individuals,
not just anyone.
 By the age of 18 months, social smiling,
directed more toward mothers and other
caregivers, becomes more frequent than
smiling directed toward nonhuman objects.

8. Decoding Others’ Facial
and Vocal Expressions Infants seem to be able to discriminate vocal expressions
of emotion at a slightly earlier age than they can interpret
facial expressions.
 Scientists know more about the sequence in which
nonverbal facial decoding ability progresses.
 By the time they reach the age of 4 months, infants may
already have begun to understand the emotions behind
facial and vocal expressions.

9. Social Referencing:
Feeling What Others Feel Social referencing The intentional search for
information about others’ feelings to help explain
the meaning of uncertain circumstances and events
 Social referencing first occurs around the age of 8
or 9 months.
 It is a fairly sophisticated social ability: Infants need
it not only to understand the significance of others’
behavior, but also the meaning of those behaviors
within the context of a specific situation

10. The Development of Self: Do
Infants Know Who They Are?
 Self-awareness Knowledge of oneself
 At around 17 to 24 months, children begin to
show awareness of their own capabilities.
 Children’s cultural upbringing also impacts the
development of self-recognition.

11. Theory of Mind: Infants’ Perspectives
on the Mental Lives of Others—
and Themselves
 Theory of mind Knowledge and beliefs about
how the mind works and how it affects
behavior
 Infants learn to see other people as compliant
agents, beings similar to themselves who
behave under their own power and who have
the capacity to respond to infants’ requests.
 Empathy An emotional response that
corresponds to the feelings of another person

12. Forming Relationships
 The arrival of a newborn brings a dramatic
change to a family’s dynamics.
 The bonds that grow between infants and
their parents, siblings, family, and others
provide the foundation for a lifetime’s worth of
social relationships.

13. Attachment: Forming
Social Bonds Attachment The positive emotional bond that
develops between a child and a particular individual
 When children experience attachment to a given
person, they feel pleasure when they are with them
and feel comforted by their presence at times of
distress.
 As children become more independent, they can
progressively roam farther away from their secure
base.

14. Attachment: Forming
Social Bonds Ainsworth Strange Situation A sequence of staged
episodes that illustrate the strength of attachment
between a child and (typically) his or her mother
 Secure attachment pattern A style of attachment in
which children use the mother as a kind of home
base and are at ease when she is present; when she
leaves, they become upset and go to her as soon as
she returns (Table 7-1)

15. Infant Attachment

16. Attachment Patterns
 Avoidant attachment pattern A style of
attachment in which children do not seek
proximity to the mother; after the mother has
left, they seem to avoid her when she returns
as if they are angered by her behavior

17. Attachment Patterns
 Ambivalent attachment pattern A style of
attachment in which children display a
combination of positive and negative reactions
to their mothers; they show great distress
when the mother leaves, but upon her return
they may simultaneously seek close contact
but also hit and kick her

18. Attachment Patterns
 Disorganized-disoriented attachment pattern A style of
attachment in which children show inconsistent, often
contradictory behavior, such as approaching the mother
when she returns but not looking at her; they may be the
least securely attached children of all

19. Mothers and Attachment Sensitivity to their infants’ needs and desires is the
hallmark of mothers of securely attached infants.
 Research has shown that overly responsive mothers
are just as likely to have insecurely attached children
as underresponsive mothers.
 In contrast, others whose communication involves
interactional synchrony are more likely to produce
secure attachment.

20. Fathers and Attachment
 Research has shown that fathers’ expressions
of nurturance, warmth, affection, support, and
concern are extremely important to their
children’s emotional and social well-being.
 Certain kinds of psychological disorders, such
as substance abuse and depression, have
been found to be related more to the father’s
than to the mother’s behavior

21. Infant Interactions: Developing
a Working Relationship
 Research shows that infants may develop
multiple attachment relationships.
 Variations in attachment show that developing
relationships is an ongoing process
throughout our lifetimes.

22. Infant Interactions: Developing
a Working Relationship
 Mutual regulation model The model in which
infants and parents learn to communicate
emotional states to one another and to
respond appropriately
 Reciprocal socialization A process in which
infants’ behaviors invite further responses
from parents and other caregivers, which in
turn bring about further responses from the
infants

23. Infants’ Sociability With Their Peers:
Infant–Infant Interaction
 Babies react positively to the presence of peers from
early in life, and they engage in rudimentary forms of
social interaction.
 Infants’ sociability is expressed in several ways and
generally rises with age.
 As infants age, they begin to imitate each other.
 To some developmentalists, the capacity of young
children to engage in imitation suggests that imitation
may be inborn.

24. Differences Among Infants
 Differences among infants include overall
personality and temperament, and differences
in the lives they lead.
 Differences are also based on their gender,
the nature of their families, and the ways in
which they are cared for.

25. Personality Development: The
Characteristics That Make Infants
Unique
 Personality The sum total of the enduring characteristics
that differentiate one individual from another
 Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development The theory
that considers how individuals come to understand
themselves and the meaning of others’—and their own—
behavior

26. Personality Development: The
Characteristics That Make Infants
Unique
 Trust-versus-mistrust stage According to Erikson,
the period during which infants develop a sense of
trust or mistrust, largely depending on how well
their needs are met by their caregivers
 Autonomy-versus-shame-and-doubt stage The
period during which, according to Erikson, toddlers
(aged 18 months to 3 years) develop
independence and autonomy if they are allowed
the freedom to explore, or shame and self-doubt if
they are restricted and overprotected

27. Temperament: Stabilities
in Infant Behavior
 Temperament Patterns of arousal and
emotionality that represent consistent and
enduring characteristics in an individual
 Temperament refers to how children behave,
as opposed to what they do or why they do it.

28. Temperament: Stabilities
in Infant Behavior
 Infants show temperamental differences in
general disposition from the time of birth,
initially being largely due to genetic factors,
and temperament is fairly stable well into
adolescence.
 However, it is not fixed and unchangeable.

29. Dimensions of Temperament

30. Categorizing Temperament: Easy, Difficult,
and Slow-to-Warm Babies
 Easy babies Babies who have a positive
disposition; their body functions operate
regularly, and they are adaptable
 Difficult babies Babies who have negative
moods and are slow to adapt to new
situations; when confronted with a new
situation, they tend to withdraw

31. Categorizing Temperament: Easy, Difficult,
and Slow-to-Warm Babies
 Slow-to-warm babies Babies who are inactive,
showing relatively calm reactions to their
environment; their moods are generally
negative, and they withdraw from new
situations, adapting slowly

32. The Consequences of Temperament: Does
Temperament Matter?
 Goodness-of-fit The notion that development
is dependent on the degree of match between
children’s temperament and the nature and
demands of the environment in which they are
being raised
 Research suggests that certain temperaments
are, in general, more adaptive than others.

33. The Consequences of Temperament: Does
Temperament Matter?
 Temperament seems to be at least weakly
related to infants’ attachment to their adult
caregivers.
 Cultural differences also have a major
influence on the consequences of a particular
temperament.

34. The Biological Basis
of Temperament
 From the behavioral genetics perspective,
temperamental characteristics are seen as
inherited traits that are fairly stable during
childhood and across the entire life span.
 These traits are viewed as making up the core
of personality and playing a substantial role in
future development.

35. Gender: Boys in Blue,
Girls in Pink
 Parents play with boy and girl babies
differently.
 The behavior exhibited by girls and boys is
interpreted in very different ways by adults.
 Gender The sense of being male or female
 All cultures prescribe gender roles for males
and females, but these roles differ greatly
between cultures.

36. Gender Differences
 There is a considerable amount of
disagreement over both the extent and
causes of such gender differences, even
though most agree that boys and girls do
experience at least partially different worlds
based on gender.
 Differences between male and female infants,
however, are generally minor.

37. Gender Roles Gender differences emerge more clearly as children
age and become increasingly influenced by the
gender roles that society sets out for them.
 Societal encouragement and reinforcement do not
completely explain differences in behavior between
boys and girls.
 Differences in behavior between boys and girls begin
in infancy, and continue throughout childhood (and
beyond).

38. Family Life in the 21st Century
 Key statistics suggest that many infants are
being raised in environments in which
substantial stressors are present.
 Such stress makes it an unusually difficult
task to raise children—which is never easy,
even under the best circumstances.
 On the other hand, society is adapting to the
new realities of family life in the 21st century.