3. Theories of Social and Personality
Development
Psychoanalytic Perspectives: Freud and Erikson
Freud: psychosexual
stage related to infant
attempts at needs
satisfaction
Oral stage
Mother-child
symbiotic
relationship
Nursing; fixation
Erikson: psychosocial
stage in which
attending to infant
needs and social
development important
Trust versus
mistrust
Relationship goes
beyond feeding
4. Attachment
The Parent’s Attachment to the Infant
Synchrony: Opportunity for parent-infant
development of mutual, interlocking pattern
of attachment behaviors
Takes practice to develop
Provides developmental benefits
5. Theories of Social and Personality
Development
Ethological Perspectives: John Bowlby
Attachment: Emotional bond in which a
person’s sense of security is bound up in the
relationship
Strong emotional bond-making is innate
Bonds maintained by instinctive behaviors
that create and sustain proximity
6. Attachment
The Parent’s Attachment to the Infant
Mother’s bond with infant
Bond dependent on synchrony
Mothers provide more routine caregiving
than fathers.
After first few weeks, mothers talk to and
smile more at baby.
7. Attachment
The Parent’s Attachment to the Infant
Father’s bond with infant
The relationship depends on synchrony.
Fathers have same repertoire as mothers.
After first few weeks, fathers begin to spend
more time playing with baby.
8. Attachment
The Infant’s Attachment to the Parents
Characteristics of attachment
Safe haven
Secure base
Proximity maintenance
Separation distress
Now let’s look at how several theorists
operationalize this construct.
9. Attachment
The Infant’s Attachment to the Parents
Establishing attachment: Bowlby’s 4 phases
Nonfocused orienting and signaling
(0–3 months)
Focus on one or more figures
(3–6 months)
Secure base behavior (6–24 months)
Internal model (24 months and beyond)
10. Attachment
The Infant’s Attachment to the Parents
Establishing attachment: Bowlby’s 4 phases
How would you recognize each of Bowlby’s
phases?
What behaviors would you expect to see?
12. Attachment
Secure and Insecure Attachments
Mary Ainsworth
Protocol: The Strange Situation
Attachment styles:
Secure attachment
Insecure/avoidant attachment
Insecure/ambivalent attachment
Insecure/disorganized attachment
13. Attachment
Stability of Attachment Quality
Attachment stability
Dependent on consistency of child’s life
circumstances
Influenced by major upheavals
Internal models elaborated from year 1 until
the age of 4 or 5
14. Attachment
Caregiver Characteristics and Attachment
Caregivers and attachment
Several characteristics influence the attachment
process:
Emotional availability
Contingent responsiveness
16. Attachment
Caregiver Characteristics and Attachment
Other caregiver characteristics influencing
secure attachment
Marital status
Education
Age
SES
Mental health
17. What kind of attachment do you have with your
parents? Has it changed since you were a
child, or does it reflect the type of
attachment you had when you were
younger?
What factors will influence your choice of
childcare if the one or both parents decide to
work? What would be best for your child?
Questions To PonderQuestions To PonderQuestions To PonderQuestions To Ponder
18. Attachment
Attachment Quality: Long Term
Consequences
The securely attached:
More sociable
More positive in relationships with friends
Less clingy and dependent on teachers
Less aggressive and disruptive
More emotionally mature
Continues into adolescence
More likely to be leaders
Have higher self-esteem
22. Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Dimensions of Temperament
Dimensions of temperament: How are these
theorist alike? Different?
Thomas and Chess
Buss and Plomin
How might results differ when temperament
is viewed as a trait rather than a
category?
23. Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Origins and Stability of Temperament
Heredity
Identical twins more alike in temperament
than fraternal twins
Long-term Stability
Stable across long periods of time
24. Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Neurological Processes
Heredity
Basic differences in behaviors related to
underlying neurological processes
Neurotransmitters regulate brain
responses to new information and
unusual situations.
Still difficult to demonstrate conclusively
that neurological differences are cause or
effect
25. Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Origins and Stability of Temperament
Environment
Sandra Scarr
Niche-picking
Thomas and Chess
Goodness of fit
Synchronous relationships
Parental influence with children at
temperamental extremes
27. Stop and Think!
During the same months in which infants are
developing an internal model of attachment
and exploring their own unique
temperament, they are also developing a
unique sense of self.
What implication does this have for
parents and caregivers?
28. Personality, Temperament, and Self-
Concept
Self-concept
The subjective self
Awareness by the
child that he is
separate from others
and endures over time
Appears by 8–12
months at the same
time as object
permanence
Self-concept
The objective self
Toddler comes to
understand he is
an object in the
world.
The self has
properties, such as
gender.
29. Personality, Temperament, and Self-
Concept
Studying Self-Awareness
Rouge test (Lewis and Brooks)
Children at 21 months show self-recognition
in a mirror.
What does this tell us about children’s
development? How do you know?
31. Personality, Temperament, and Self-
Concept
The Emotional Self
First, babies learn to identify changes in
emotional expression.
Gradually they learn to “read” and respond
to facial expressions.
With age and experience, infants learn to
interpret emotional perceptions of others to
anticipate actions and guide own behavior.
33. Effects of Nonparental Care
Overview
Arrangements vary considerably.
Time in care varies.
Some children in multiple care settings
Younger children less likely to receive
nonparental care
35. Effects of Nonparental Care
Effects on Cognitive Development
High-quality daycare has beneficial effects,
especially for children from poor families.
Later scores in reading and math related to
daycare entry age and poverty
36. Effects of Nonparental Care
Effects on Social Development
Infant daycare has negative effects on
attachment if started under 1 year.
Parents whose behaviors are associated
with insecure attachment have children who
are negatively affected by early daycare.
Early day care associated with greater risks
for social problems in school-age children
37. Effects of Nonparental Care
Research Challenges
Complex interaction among numerous
variables in all care types
Nonparental care varies in quality and
structure.
Maternal attitudes toward care arrangement
vary.
Multiple care settings difficult to separate
38. Effects of Nonparental Care
What’s Responsible?
Nonparental care may induce child stress,
causing higher levels of cortisol.
Variations in ways stress-induced related to
child age and temperament
Individual and gender differences interact
with nonparental care.
Notas do Editor
Freud
Psychosexual stage: related to infant attempts at needs satisfaction
Oral stage: derive satisfaction from the mouth
Mother-child symbiotic relationship between mother and child
Fixation could later result in swearing, nail biting.
Erikson
Trust versus mistrust
Helping the infant get its needs met consistently
Social relationships go beyond feeding.
The symbiotic relationship helps develop the infant’s sense of both attachment and separation.
Synchrony—like a conversation, an emotional dance between mother and child
Synchrony: Opportunity for parent-infant development of mutual, interlocking pattern of attachment behaviors
Takes practice over time to develop until each participant follows the other
Highly synchronous six- to eight-month-old infants:
Have larger vocabularies at age two
Have higher intelligence scores at age three
In Bowlby’s view, “the propensity to make strong emotional bonds to particular individuals [is] a basic component of human nature, already present in germinal form in the neonate” (Bowlby, 1988a, p. 3).
While Bowlby and Ainsworth saw mothers as the most likely person to have an attachment, others could be attached as well.
Such a relationship has survival value because it ensures that the infant will receive nurturance.
The relationship is built and maintained by an interlocking repertoire of instinctive behaviors that create and sustain proximity between parent and child.
First two years of life constitute a sensitive period for attachment in human infants.
Father’s bond with infant
The relationship depends on synchrony.
Fathers have the same repertoire as mothers.In early weeks, fathers touch, talk to, and cuddle the baby.
After first few weeks, fathers begin to spend more time playing with baby.
More physical roughhousing
1. Nonfocused orienting and signaling (birth through three months)
Uses an innate set of behavior patterns to signal needs
Proximity promoting behaviors
2. Focus on one or more figures (three to six months)
3. Secure base behavior (six to twenty-four months)
Proximity seeking behaviors
Most important person used as a safe base for explorations
4. Internal model (twenty-four months and beyond)
A child can imagine how her behavior would affect the bonds with her caregiver.
Smiles more at people who regularly care for her
1. Nonfocused orienting and signaling (birth through three months)
Uses an innate set of behavior patterns to signal needs
Proximity promoting behaviors
2. Focus on one or more figures (three to six months)
3. Secure base behavior (six to twenty-four months)
Proximity seeking behaviors
Most important person used as a safe base for explorations
4. Internal model (twenty-four months and beyond)
A child can imagine how her behavior would affect the bonds with her caregiver.
Smiles more at people who regularly care for her
Once clear attachment is established, related behavior begins appearing.
Stranger anxiety
Cling to mother when strangers are present
Separation anxiety
Infants cry and protest when separated from mother.
Social referencing
Use cues from caregiver facial expressions
Helps to figure out novel situations
Helps to learn to regulate emotions
Separation anxiety occurs between six to eight months, rises in frequency until about twelve to sixteen months, and then declines.
Social referencing begins at about ten months.
Mary Ainsworth: The Strange situation
Protocol
Series of eight episodes played in a laboratory
Children between twelve and eighteen months
Scenarios:
With mother
With mother and a stranger
Alone with stranger
Completely alone for a few minutes
Reunited with the mother
Alone again
With the stranger again
Reunited with the mother
The reunion episodes provide the best assessment of attachment strength.
Internal models: pictures of their relationships with parents and other key adults
By age 5, child has clear internal models of the mother, a self model, and a model of relationships.
Several characteristics influence the attachment process:
Emotional availability
Caregiver who is able and willing to form an emotional attachment
Contingent responsiveness
Caregivers who are sensitive to the child’s cues and respond appropriately
Both are essential to the formation of a secure attachment.
Economically or emotionally distressed parents may be too distracted by their problems which prevents the investment of emotions in the parent–infant relationship.
Insecure/avoidant attachment
Mother rejects or regularly withdraws from infant.
Mother overly intrusive or overly stimulating
Insecure/ambivalent attachment
Primary caregiver inconsistently or unreliably available to child
Insecure/disorganized attachment
Likely when child has been abused, or when parent has unresolved childhood trauma
When a child’s family environment or life circumstances are relatively consistent, the security or insecurity also seem to remain consistent.
When the child’s family changes—if (for example) there is a divorce—the attachment may change.
Psychiatric illness
Depressed mothers interact less.
Married parents produce more secure attachments than cohabiting or single parents.
Higher education produces better attachments.
Poverty is difficult on attachment.
Older mothers display more sensitive caregiving skills.
Children of depressed mothers are more likely to display aggression and social withdrawal in school.
Some forms of secure attachments appear in all cultures.
Secure attachment is the most common category.
Israel and Japan have more ambivalent than avoidant attachments.
The Strange Situation may not effectively measure these cultures.
Mothers in Japan are rarely separated from their infants.
Children in Israel are raised in group settings.
German researchers suggest avoidant shows up because mothers give rather explicit training toward greater independence.
Avoidance of overinterpretation important!
Thomas and Chess: activity level, rhythmicity, approach/withdrawal, adaptability to new experiences, threshold of responsiveness, intensity of reaction, quality of mood, distractibility, and persistence
Other theorists, such as Buss and Plomin, have identified three dimensions: activity level, emotionality, and sociability.
Kagan asserts that shyness is based on differing thresholds for arousal in the parts of the brain that control responses to uncertainty: the amygdala and the hypothalamus.
Dopamine and serotonin: genes that regulate these chemicals fail to protect the child from over-stimulation.
Kagan asserts that shyness is based on differing thresholds for arousal in the parts of the brain that control responses to uncertainty: the amygdala and the hypothalamus.
Dopamine and serotonin: genes that regulate these chemicals fail to protect the child from over-stimulation.
Environment
Sandra Scarr:
Niche picking
Thomas and Chess:
Goodness of fit
Synchronous relationships may modify heredity effects.
Parental influence is greater with children at the extremes of the temperament continuum.
Environment
Sandra Scarr:
Niche picking
Thomas and Chess:
Goodness of fit
Synchronous relationships may modify heredity effects.
Parental influence is greater with children at the extremes of the temperament continuum.
Environment
Sandra Scarr:
Niche picking
Thomas and Chess:
Goodness of fit
Synchronous relationships may modify heredity effects.
Parental influence is greater with children at the extremes of the temperament continuum.
Objective self: the self also has properties, such as gender, size, a name, and qualities like shyness or boldness, coordination or clumsiness.
It is this self-awareness that is the hallmark of the “me” self.
Rouge test (Lewis and Brooks)
Ask: What does this mean? Why do you think this occurs?
Children at twenty-one months show self-recognition in the mirror.
Same age that children name themselves, use “I,” “me,” and “mine”
Same time when maturity of region of brain where temporal and parietal lobes meet
Classic study shows the rate at which children refer to themselves by name and touch or do not touch rouge dot on nose.
Babies learn to identify changes in emotional expression.
Starts at two to three months
Infants can “read” and respond to facial expressions.
Around seven months
Babies interpret emotional perceptions of others to anticipate and guide actions.
Respond to much wider variety of emotions and distinguish among happy, surprised, angry, interested, sad
Around one year
Emotion perceptions of others help babies to anticipate others’ actions and guide their own behavior.
1970: 18 percent of U.S. married women with children under 6 were in the labor force.
Now: 64 percent are in the workforce at least part-time.
At least half of children under 12 months are cared for by someone else at least part-time.
1970 :18 percent of U.S. married women with children under 6 were in the labor force.
Now: 64 percent are in the workforce at least part-time.
At least half of children under 12 months are cared for by someone else at least part-time.
Children younger than 6 years whose mothers are employed are cared for in a variety of settings.
Difference in vocabulary: white middle-class children had smaller vocabularies after entering daycare. This difference was not found in black families.
Children from poor families who began daycare before age one had higher reading and math scores at the start of school than did children of middle-class families who entered daycare in infancy.
In 1985, Jay Belsky sounded the alarm about the negative effects of daycare on children under one year of age.
Infant daycare has negative effects on attachment if started under one year.
Heightened risk for insecure attachment
Nonparental care may induce child stress, causing higher levels of cortisol.
May affect child’s brain development
Boys more insecurely attached to caregivers in nonparental care BUT
Differences between children in parental and nonparental care are very small.