Socioemotional Development in Infants and Toddlers

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Socioemotional Development in Infants and Toddlers

• Chapter 6

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Attachment

• emotional tie to a specific person or persons
• exists across time and space
• infants tend to form attachments with primary
  caregivers

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Attachment

• Bowlbys early work
• Early infancyorientation without
  discrimination.(2-4 mos)
• Orients to any attending adult
• Little discrimination among caregiving adults
• Middle infancyorientation with discrimination
  (6-8 mos)
• Gazing preference for primary caregivers
• Responds differentially to primary caregivers

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Bowlbys Early Work on Attachment

• Late infancy early toddlerhoodsafe-base
  attachment (6-12 mos)
• Actively seek to be near caregivers
• Seek proximal contact
• Become distressed when caregiver leaves (bond
  across time and space)
• Toddlerhoodgoal corrected partnerships
• Recognize motives of caregivers
• Toddler adjusts behaviors to needs and motives of
  caregivers

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Ainsworths work

• Strange situation (page 193, Table 6.1)
• Stranger anxietysignals attachment
• Separation anxietysignals attachment
• Attachment Status
• Secure Attachment
• Mother return infant seeks contact cling
  tightly allows mother to comfort and soothe
• Majority of infants show secure attachment

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Ainsworths work

• Attachment Status
• Insecure Avoidant Attachment
• No preference for mother (avoids or shows equal
  preference for mother and stranger)
• Mother leaves infants undisturbed
• Continue playing with stranger

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Ainsworths work

• Attachment Status
• Insecure Resistant\ Ambivalent Attachment
• Exaggerated stranger and separation anxiety
• Exaggerated need to maintain proximal contact
  with mother
• Some resistant to mothers attempts to soothe
• Some passive with mothers attempts to console
• Some variable in response (cycles of calm and
  anger)
• Variable in status

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Ainsworths work

• Attachment Status
• Parental quality and attachment (sensitive
  responsiveness)
• Secure Attachment
• Timely response
• Appropriate response
• Insecure disorganized or disoriented Attachments
• abusive parents or parents who suffered abuse
  themselves

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Ainsworths work

• Insecure Attachments
• indifferent parentingresponse only when
  necessary or when the parent is impacted
• indulgent parentingover stimulating intrusive
• unresponsive parentingneglectful
• Mothers of insecurely attached infants
• tense
• irritable
• unresponsive little interest
• mechanical handling
• scheduled vs. demand feeding

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Infant Characteristics, Caregiver Characteristics
and Attachments

• Easy Infants--associated with greater frequency
  of secure attachments
• Special needsassociated with insecure
  attachments
• Fussy or difficult infants associated with higher
  levels of irritability-- tend to develop insecure
  attachments with mothers who have low levels of
  social support
• Model tends to be bidirectional with infant
  characteristics interacting with caregiver
  characteristics to yield the attachment status

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Infant Characteristics, Caregiver Characteristics
and Attachments

• Fathers role in attachment
• fathers roles tend to reflect mothers roles in
  relationships with attachment statuses
• Child care and caregiver attachment
• with quality child care, no difference in
  attachment given caregiver is responsive in
  sensitive and timely ways when with infant

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Infant Characteristics, Caregiver Characteristics
and Attachments

• NICHDChild Care Report (2006)
• Quality of out of home child care related to
• Family income, education, parenting style
• Higher quality out of home child care related to
  higher levels of cognitive and social development
• Effect sizes range from moderate to small

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Attachment and Developmental Outcomes

• Long-term outcomes
• securely attached infants tend to have some early
  advantage over other attachment statuses
• higher quality care later in childhood and
  adolescence can overcome early attachment
  challenges

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Social Risk and Childrens Health Outcomes

• Larson, et al. (2008)
• High School education or less
• Family income lt200 federal poverty level
• Single parent household
• Minority racial/ethnic group
• Uninsured
• Family conflict
• Low maternal mental health
• Unsafe neighborhood

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Social Risk and Childrens Health Outcomes

• Larson, et al. findings
• Overall, family income, minority status,
  maternal mental health independently predicted
  poorer health status
• As the number of social risk factors increased
  the childs health status decreased
• Mechanism of effect is likely related to
  cumulative higher levels of stress as number of
  risks increase

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Eriksons first psychosocial stage Trust vs.
Mistrust

• Two tasks
• establish sense that the environment is going to
  meet basic needs in a timely and appropriate
  manner
• establish sense that the self is an active agent
  in ones own outcomes

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Eriksons first psychosocial stage Trust vs.
Mistrust

• caregivers who establish a sensitive
  responsiveness are likely to develop a sense of
  trust
• infant comes to learn that differential cries
  relate to differential outcomes
• Infant develops a sense of contingency between
  behaviors and outcomesa sense of agency

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Eriksons 2nd psychosocial stage Autonomy vs.
Shame Doubt

• Toddler seeks to assert preferences beyond simple
  needs (e.g. particular type of food rather than
  simply hunger)
• Caregivers can provide choices of acceptable
  options to establish a sense of autonomy
• Caregivers who are not sensitive to and provide
  opportunities for toddlers to exercise some
  preference can create doubt within the toddler

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Temperament

• The reactivity of the infant to the environment
• Genetics plays a significant role in temperament
• Temperament is measured across nine dimensions
  (Table 6.5, pg 204)
• Activity level, rhythmicity, intensity of
  reaction, etc.
• Profile based on levels of each dimension

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Temperament

• Temperament Constellations
• Easy generally positive stable rhythm of
  movement, sleep adapts to new situations, smiles
• Slow-to-Warm-Up slow to adapt to new situations
  mildly negative response more intense reactions
  than Easy babies but less than difficult babies
• Difficult intense negative reactions to new
  situations slow to adapt irregular patterns of
  sleeping and activity overall

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Temperament

• Based on an interaction of genetics and
  interactions with the environment
• Balance between temperament and environment
  determines outcomes

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Temperament

• Scarr
• Passive infants environment is frequently based
  on biological parents so, genetic tendency is
  reinforced by the environment
• Parents who accommodate to their infants
  temperament tend to have more successful outcomes

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Emotions

• In the first 12 months of life, infants tend to
  respond differentially and more sensitively to
  expressed emotions by caregiver
• Fear, anger, sadness, interest, joy resulted in
  differential responses to the visual cliff
• Infants reference the reactions of caregivers as
  cues for their own reactions
• From very early on, infants tend to respond to
  distress cries from other infants

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Emotions

• Toddlers
• Sense of self as independent entity leads to
• Self conscious emotions
• Expanded emotional repertoire
• Guilt, embarrassed, pride
• Comparison of ones own behaviors to some
  standard is linked to cognitive and social
  development

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Infant and Toddler Play

• Infant Play
• Mutual gazefirst awareness of the other
• Sensorimotor Play
• Focus is on interactions with motion and objects
  in the environment
• Some level of novelty is preferred
• Repetition of actions is frequent
• Toys over which infants can assert control tend
  to be preferred and build a sense of agency
  (Bandura, 1977 c.f. Erikson, trustmistrust)

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Infant and Toddler Play

• Toddler Play
• With language, mobility, and cognitive
  development, toddlers move to more socially
  mediated play
• Coordinated imitationtend to repeat others
  actions
• Early toddler play remains focused on motion and
  objects (e.g. block stacking)
• As maturation occurs, more social role play
  begins

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Infant and Toddler Play

• Toddler Play
• More advanced levels of social play (negotiating
  roles, changing roles) tend to be related to more
  lasting friendships across childhood
• Conflicts arise!
• Distraction and diversion tend to work best with
  toddlers
• Conflicts tend to be based on possession of
  objects or turns at some desired activity
• Possession is ownership (similar to dog rules)

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Infant and Toddler Play

• Toddler Play
• As language and symbolic thought improve,
  toddlers begin make-believe play
• Imaginary roles and substitution of one object
  for another (shoe becomes a truck) occurs
• Children can appear to be much more cognitively
  advanced in play with peers than alone.