Social

1
Social Emotional Development

• Early social and emotional development as
  characterized by the dyadic relationship
• Typically, this is the caregiver-infant
  interaction
• This relationship is bi-directional

2
Ethological Theory

• Early social behaviors between infant and
  caregiver are the result of evolutionary
  processes
• Social bond developed because the human infant is
  relatively helpless at birth
• Relationship with primary caregiver (Mom) keeps
  her near and motivates her to provide proper care

3
Ethological Theory

• Infant promotes caregiving by its behaviors
• Making interactions pleasant
• Its appearance -- which we find cute
• Reduce distress when caregiver is attending
• Caregiver has innate sense of caregiving
• Read infants signals
• Know how to react
• Can evaluate when one has been effective
• Results in ATTACHMENT

4
Environmental/Learning Theories

• Concerned with socialization
• Childs behavior is shaped to match societys
  roles and belief system
• Caregiver-infant interaction is also believed to
  be bi-directional
• Not due to evolution but to learning/conditioning/
  reinforcement
• Infants vocalization and smiling can be shaped
  by reinforcement

5
Cognitive-Developmental Theories

• Believe that infants and caregivers develop
  internal working models of the other
• Use these models to interpret each others
  behaviors and predict them
• Vygotsky perspective
• Guided participation in the attainment of social
  skills
• Initially caregiver directs social learning, then
  allows the child to lead

6
Mutual Regulation

• Requires effective communication between
  caregiver and infant
• Crying
• Darwin believed that crying provided information
  to the mother about its condition
• Soon comes under the infants control
• In order to be communicative
• Different types of cries (pain, hunger, etc.)
• Caregivers must be able to discriminate the cries

7
Emotions

• Caregivers can use infants affective expressions
  to gauge their underlying emotions
• They can then modulate their own behavior to
  effect infants emotions
• We learn which activities make an infant smile
  and which them cry

8
Emotions

• Emotional responses to particular situations may
  be learned through modeling by mother
• Haviland Lelwica (1987) looked at 10-week-olds
  expressions in relation to mothers

9
Emotions

• The social role of mother in infants emotional
  expressions is not limited to modeling
• Infants smile more while playing when mom is
  looking at them rather than looking away
• Communicating their pleasure when mom is
  attending them

10
Emotion

• In order for there to be an emotional
  interaction, infants must be able to discriminate
  affective expressions
• 6-week-olds do not seem to be able to
  discriminate facial expressions
• Young-Browne et al. (1977) tested 3-mo-olds
  discrimination

11
Emotions

• Near the end of the first year, infants use
  information about others emotional expressions
  to regulate their behavior
• Klinnert (1987) studied 12-mo-olds behavior in
  relation to mothers expressions

12
Emotions

• Klinnert (1987) studied 12-mo-olds behavior in
  relation to mothers expressions

13
Emotions

• Klinnert (1987) studied 12-mo-olds behavior in
  relation to mothers expressions

This process is called social referencing
14
Emotions

• Can infants discriminate vocal expressions
• Walker-Andrews Grolnick (1983)
• Habituated to a slide of a facial expression
  paired with a vocal expression
• At test, changed vocal expression

15
Emotions

• Mothers use infants social referencing to help
  shape their emotional reactions
• When infants encounter a new event and exhibit
  surprise but are not sure how to respond, parents
  may smile at them

16
Emotions

• Early in infancy, interactions are face-to-face
  and patterns develop
• Emotion regulation by infant
• Interactional synchrony between mother and infant
• Once establish, they then get involved in
  turn-taking of answering each others responses
• In fact, if mother fails to respond to an infant
  response, the infant shows distress

17
Temperament

• Basic personality traits
• Fussy, mellow, calm, happy
• Infants behavioral style
• Strong genetic component
• Identical twins are more alike than fraternal
  twins on traits such as irritability, fear in the
  visual cliff, etc.

18
Temperament

• Are personality traits, temperament, stable with
  age?
• Some traits, in particular negative ones (e.g.
  fear), attention span, reaction to novelty, and
  activity level, seem to be very stable
• Beyond this, it is not clear whether stability or
  lack of it is due to genetics or environment
• Not clear whether traits are evident in the fetus
  - evidence is contradictory

19
Temperament

• New York Longitudinal Study
• Easy baby (regular behavioral patterns) - 40
• Difficult (irregular) - 10
• Slow-to-warm-up (adapts poorly and at low
  intensity) - 15

20
Temperament

• Difficult babies are found to have more
  behavioral problems as they get older
• But not necessarily in adulthood
• Pattern may reflect parental style

21
Attachment Bowlby

• Birth - 2 months
• Indiscriminate Social Responsiveness
• Will respond positively to anyone
• But, as we saw earlier, infants have behaviours
  that keep mother close, providing context for
  attachment to occur
• Newborn prefers mothers face
• Newborn recognizes and prefers mothers smell

22
Attachment Bowlby

• During first phase, although it takes infant a
  little bit of time to attach, mothers attach
  quickly
• Termed Maternal bonding
• Suggested to occur during a sensitive period
• Suggested to require skin-to-skin contact
• Not an absolute
• Mothers and infants who are separated due to
  illness or because they are adopted, still bond

23
Attachment Bowlby

• 2 - 7 months
• Discriminate Social Responsiveness
• Focus is on caregiver
• Others still accepts but only as secondaries
• Internal working model develops
• Social referencing develops

24
Attachment Bowlby

• 8 mos. - 2 years
• Focused Attachment
• Fear, cognitive development, and the ability to
  distinguish unfamiliar result in negative
  reaction to strange or unfamiliar situations
• Stranger Anxiety
• Separation Protest
• Infant begins to crawl and use mother as secure
  base

25
Attachment Determinants

• Maternal Responsiveness
• Show interactional synchrony and turn-taking
• Infants Temperament
• Easy -- Secure
• Difficult -- Insecure

26
Parental Style

• Two components
• Parental warmth - support, affection vs.
  rejection, shame
• Parental control - discipline and regulation vs.
  unsupervised

27
Parental Style

• Authoritative - high in warmth control
• Predictable environment
• Has the most positive effects
• Children tend to be academically successful,
  self-confident, independent
• Authoritarian - low on warmth, high in control
• Parents are controlling demanding, by threats
  and punishment
• Children are aggressive, have conduct problems

28
Parental Style

• Permissive - high in warmth, low in control
• No structure or predictability to environment,
  few limits on behaviors
• Children are impulsive, immature, behaviourally
  out of control
• Indifferent - low on warmth control
• Few limits, little attention and support
• Children are disobedient and demanding, and do
  not participate in social interactions