Infancy and Childhood

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Infancy and Childhood

• Social Development

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Stranger Anxiety

• The fear of strangers that infants commonly
  display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

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Stranger Anxiety
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Attachment

• An emotional tie with another person shown in
  young children by their seeking closeness to the
  caregiver and showing distress in separation.

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Factors of Attachment

• Body Contact
• Familiarity
• Responsive Parenting

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Body Contact

• It was first assumed that infants became attached
  to those who satisfied their need for nourishment.

Then this guy came along..
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Harry Harlow and his
Discovered that monkeys preferred the soft body
contact of a cloth mother, over the nourishment
of a hard/wirily mother.
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Familiarity

• Attachments based on familiarity are formed
  during our critical periods.

Critical Periods the optimal period shortly
after birth when an organisms exposure to
certain stimuli or experiences produce proper
development.
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Imprinting

• The process by which certain animals form
  attachments during a critical period very early
  in life.

Do humans imprint?
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Responsive Parenting

• Do parents play a part in your attachment?

• Mary Ainsworth Stranger Paradigm

• Van den Booms Research

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Dads Matter Too

• We are not just mobile sperm banks!!!!

• Paternal separation puts children at increased
  risk for various psychological and social
  pathologies.

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Secure Attachment Predicts Social Competence
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Deprivation of Attachment

• Often withdrawn, frightened and in extreme cases
  speechless.

• Harlows monkeys would either cower in fright or
  act extremely aggressive. Many could not mate
  and if they could, the mothers were unresponsive
  parents.

• Is there a connection between crime and lack of
  childhood attachment?

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Daycare

• High Quality daycare has shown no detrimental
  effects on children over the age of two.

• The studies go both ways for children under the
  age of two- no clear answer yet.

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Self - Concept

• A sense of ones identity and self-worth.

When does self-awareness start?
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Child-Rearing Practices

• Parenting styles have been shown to have a
  positive correlational effect on a childs
  self-concept

Three General Classifications of Parenting Styles
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Authoritarian Parents

• Impose rules and expect obedience.

• Why, because I said so!!!!

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Permissive Parents

• Parents submit to their childrens desires, make
  few demands and use little punishment.

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Authoritative Parents

• Parents are both demanding and responsive.
• Exert control by setting rules, but explain
  reasoning behind the rules.
• Encourage open discussion.