The First Two Years: Psychosocial Development

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Part II
Chapter Seven

• The First Two Years Psychosocial Development

Emotional Development Theories About Infant
Psychosocial The Development of Social
Bonds Conclusions in Theory and Practices
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The First Two Years Psychosocial Development

• The interaction of infants emotions and their
  social context is dynamic
• This interplay is seen in a tiny baby smile at an
  engaging face or a toddler flop to the floor,
  kicking and screaming

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Emotional Development in Infancy

• Within the first two years, infants progress
  from reactive pain and pleasure to complex
  patterns of social awareness.
• a period of life with high emotional
  responsiveness

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Emotional Development in Infancy

• Specific Emotions
• infants progress from pleasure and pain
• happy and relaxed when fed, then drift off to
  sleep
• cry when hurt or hungry, are tired or frightened
  or have colic
• social smiles are evoked by a human face,
  normally evident about 6 weeks after birth
• anger is evident at 6 months

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Emotional Development in Infancy

• Specific Emotions
• fully formed fear in response to some person,
  thing, or situation emerges at about 9 months
• stranger wariness infant no longer smiles at any
  friendly faces, and cries if an unfamiliar person
  moves to close, too quickly
• separation anxiety expressed in tears, dismay,
  or anger when a familiar caregiver leaves

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Emotional Development in Infancy

• Specific Emotions
• separation anxiety is normal at age 1
• intensifies by age 2, and usually subsides after
  that
• 1-year-olds fear not just strangers but also
  anything unexpected
• emotions that emerge in the first month
  strengthen at about age 1

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Emotional Development in Infancy

• Self Awareness
• ... emotional growth that has the infant
  realizing that his or her body, mine,
• and actions are separate from those
• of other people
• around age 1 an emerging sense of me and mine
• self-recognition emerges at about 18 months
• pretending and using first person pronouns
• I, me, mine, myself, my

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Psychoanalytic Theory
• connects biosocial and psychosocial development
• emphasizing the need for response maternal care

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Freud Oral and Anal Stages
• the first year is the oral stage
• the mouth is the young infants primary source of
  gratification
• the second year is the anal stage
• the infants main pleasure comes from the anus
  sensual pleasure of bowel movement the pleasure
  of controlling

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Erikson Trust and Autonomy
• first psychosocial crisis infants learn basic
  trust if the world is a secure place where their
  basic needs (for food, comfort, attention, etc.)
  are met
• second stage crisis of psychosocial development
  toddlers either succeed or fail in gaining a
  sense of self-rule over their own actions and
  bodies

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Behaviorism
• emotions and personality are molded as parents
  reinforce or punish the childs spontaneous
  behaviors
• Infants experience social learning learning by
  observing others
• apparent in families from giggling to cursing
  much like their parents

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Cognitive Theory
• holds that thoughts and values determine a
  persons perspectives
• early experiences are important
• beliefs, perceptions and memories
• infants use early relationships to develop a
  working model
• a set of assumptions that the individual uses to
  organize perceptions and experiences

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Epigenetic Theory
• holds that every human characteristic is strongly
  influenced by each persons unique genotype
  inborn predispositions

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Temperament
• Inborn differences between one person and another
  in emotions, activity, and self-control.
  Temperament is epigenetic, originating in genes
  but affected by child-rearing practices.

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• The Parents Role
• infant temperament often changes with adult
  guidance
• interaction between culture influences and
  inherited traits tend to shape behavior
• parents need to find a goodness of fit
• goodness of fit is 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

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Sociocultural Theory
• human development occurs in a cultural
  context.
• sociocultural theorists argue culture
• has a substantial influence on infants
• has a major impact on infant-caregiver
  relationships, thus the development of the infant

So the is question How much influence does
culture have?
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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Ethnotheories
• ethnotheory
• a theory that underlies the values and practices
  of a culture and that becomes apparent through
  analysis and comparison of those practices,
  although it is not usually apparent to the people
  within the culture

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Theories About Infant Psychosocial Development

• Proximal and Distal Parenting
• proximal parenting
• parenting practices that involve close physical
  contact with the childs entire body, such as
  cradling and swinging
• distal parenting
• parenting practices that focus on the intellect
  more than the body, such as talking with the baby
  and playing with an object

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Synchrony
• is a coordinated interaction between caregiver
  and infant, an exchange in which they respond to
  each other with split-second timing

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Attachment
• according to Ainsworth, is an affectional tie
  that an infant forms with the caregivera tie
  that binds them together in space and endured
  over time

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Secure and Insecure Attachment
• secure attachment
• relationships in which an infant obtains both
  comfort and confidence from the presence of his
  or her caregiver
• insecure-avoidant attachment
• a pattern of attachment in which an infant avoids
  connection with the caregiver, as when the infant
  seems not to care about the caregivers presence,
  departure, or return

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Secure and Insecure Attachment
• insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment
• a pattern of attachment in which anxiety and
  uncertainty are evident, as when an infant is
  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
  infants inconsistent reactions to the
  caregivers departure and return

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Secure and Insecure Attachment

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Measuring Attachment
• strange situation
• developed by Ainsworth
• a laboratory procedure for measuring attachment
  by evoking infants reaction to stress

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Measuring Attachment

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Insecure Attachment and Social Settings
• infants shift in attachment status between one
  age and another
• most trouble children may be those who are
  classified as type D (table 7.4)

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Social Referencing
• seeking information about how to react to an
  unfamiliar ambiguous object or event by observing
  someone elses expressions and reactionsthat
  other person becomes a social reference

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Referencing Mothers
• most social referencing occurs with mothers
• infants heed their mothers wishes, expressed in
  tone and facial expression

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Referencing Fathers
• increases in maternal employment have expanded
  the social references available to infants
• fathers now spend considerable time with their
  children

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The Development of Social Bonds

• Infant Day Care
• more than ½ of all 1-year-olds in the U.S. are in
  regular scheduled nonmaternal care
• family day care
• child care that occurs in another caregivers
  homeusually the caregiver is paid at a lower
  rate than in center care, and usually one person
  shares of several children of various ages
• center day care
• child care in a place especially designed for the
  purpose, where several paid providers 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