1. Invitation to the Life Span
by Kathleen Stassen Berger
Chapter 4 – The First Two Years:
Psychosocial Development
PowerPoint Slides developed by
Martin Wolfger and Michael James
Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington
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.
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
1. Openness: imaginative, curious, welcoming new
experiences
2. Conscientiousness: organized, deliberate, conforming
3. Extroversion: outgoing, assertive, active
4. Agreeableness: kind, helpful, easygoing
5. 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
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
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
29. Attachment Types
1. Secure attachment: An infant obtains both comfort
and confidence from the presence of his or her
caregiver.
2. 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.
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.
31. Measuring Attachment
• Strange Situation
– 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.
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
– 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.
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.
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?