Personal Perspective

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The First Two Years: The Social World

Chapter 4

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Emotional Development: Early Emotions (part 1)

All infants progress

from reactive pain and pleasure to complex patterns of socio-emotional awareness.

from basic instincts to learned responses.

Newborns

Comfort predominates.

Discomfort is part of daily life.

Hurt, hungry, tired, frightened

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

About 20 percent of newborns are said to have colic, crying inconsolably for several hours on three or more late afternoons each week.

Other digestive problems, especially reflux, are common and are evident in pain several times daily.

At About This Time: Developing Emotions

Birth	Distress; contentment
6 weeks	Social smile
3 months	Laughter; curiosity
4 months	Full, responsive smiles
4–8 months	Anger
9–14 months	Fear of social events (strangers, separation from caregiver)
12 months	Fear of unexpected sights and sounds
18 months	Self-awareness; pride; shame; embarrassment

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Culture and experience are crucial, especially for emotional development after the first 8 months.

Emotional Development: Early Emotions (part 2)

Smiling and laughing

Social smile (by 3 months): evoked by viewing human faces, especially mothers

Laughter often emerges with curiosity, gradually discriminating.

Anger

First expressions at around 6 months

Healthy response to frustration

Sadness

Indicates withdrawal and is accompanied by increased production of cortisol

Correlates with maternal depression

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Emotional Development: Early Emotions (part 3)

Fear

It depends on awareness of discrepancy, inborn temperament, and social experience.

Social fear increases from middle of first year.

Separation anxiety

It manifests in the form of clinging and crying when a familiar caregiver is about to leave.

Some separation anxiety is typical at age 1, intensifies by age 2, and then usually subsides.

Stranger wariness

It is the fear of unfamiliar people, especially when they move too close, too quickly.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Santa’s smile and Olivia’s grimace are appropriate reactions for people their age.

Adults playing Santa must smile no matter what, and if Olivia smiled, that would be troubling to anyone who knows about 7-month-olds.

Yet every Christmas, thousands of parents wait in line to put their infants on the laps of oddly dressed, bearded strangers.

Separation anxiety

Infants experience distress when a familiar caregiver leaves; this is most obvious between 9 and 14 months.

Stranger wariness

It is an infant’s expression of concern — a quiet stare while clinging to a familiar person or a look of fear — when a stranger appears.

Emotional Development: Early Emotions (part 4)

If separation anxiety and stranger fear remain intense after age 3:

Child’s ability to leave home impaired

Considered an emotional disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2022)

Close relationships early on, with evident stranger wariness at age 1

Typically result is less fear of strangers by age 5

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Emotional Development: Toddlers’ Emotions (part 1)

Toddlers’ emotions

Anger and fear become less frequent and more focused.

Laughing and crying become louder and more discriminating.

Context is especially crucial for fear.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Emotional Development: Toddlers’ Emotions (part 2)

Temper tantrums

Emotional reactions are often exhibited when anger or frustration occurs.

Social context and parental reactions play significant roles in manifestation and resolution.

Internal factors and external triggers influence temper tantrums.

Reducing tantrums

Establishing routines

Identifying and reducing family demands

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Emotional reactions may include yelling, screaming, crying, hitting, and throwing oneself on the floor.

Parental insistence on obedience can exacerbate tantrums, while comfort rather than punishment is found to help address the underlying emotions.

Both internal factors, such as hunger and tiredness, and external triggers, such as unexpected demands, influence temper tantrums.

Emotional Development: Toddlers’ Emotions (part 3)

Self and others

Emotions begin with inborn sensitivities but involve social awareness — pride, shame, jealousy, embarrassment, disgust, and guilt.

Awareness typically emerges from family interaction.

Positive emotions also show social awareness and learning.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Awareness typically emerges from family interaction, especially the relationship between the caregiver and the baby.

Prejudice and favoritisms, such as about ethnicity, foods, or habits, begin with the infant’s preference for the familiar, which curbs their inborn interest in novelty. Then, upbringing adds delight or fear.

Emotional Development: Toddlers’ Emotions (part 4)

Self-awareness

Another foundation for emotional growth

Developmental and cultural accomplishment

Entails realization that one’s body, mind, and activities are distinct from those of other people

Research

Lewis and Brooks classic, self-recognition mirror test

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Self-awareness

It is a person’s realization that they are a distinct individual whose body, mind, and actions are separate from those of other people.

My Finger, My Body, and Me

Mirror recognition

Mirror self-recognition is particularly important in her case, as this 2-year-old has a twin sister.

Parents may enjoy dressing twins alike and giving them rhyming names, but each baby needs to know she is an individual, not just a twin.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

This illustrates the interplay of infant abilities—walking, talking, social awareness, and emotional self-understanding all combine to make the 18-month-old quite unlike the 8-month-old.

Some cultures value independence, and others do not, and each individual within each culture may reinforce or resist those cultural values.

Emotional Development: Temperament and Personality (part 1)

Temperament

Inborn differences between one person and another in emotions, activity, and self-regulation

Style of approach

Response to the environment that is stable across time and situations

Brain structures and the microbiome interact with caregiving to form temperament.

Temperamental traits are genetic; personality traits are learned.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Temperament differs from personality, although temperamental inclinations may lead to personality differences.

“Biologically based” means temperament begins with genes and prenatal determinants, the early manifestation of epigenetics. Brain structures and the microbiome interact with caregiving to form the temperament.

Emotional Development: Temperament and Personality (part 2)

Three dimensions of temperament

Effortful control (regulating attention and emotion, self-soothing)

Negative mood (fearful, angry, and unhappy)

Exuberant (active, social, and not shy)

Each dimension

Affects later personality and achievement and everyone in the family

Is associated with distinctive levels of hormones, brain patterns, and behaviors

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

The temperament of both the caregiver and the infant matters.

Temperament is not the same as personality. Generally, personality traits (e.g., honesty and humility) are heavily influenced by parents and culture, whereas temperamental traits (e.g., shyness and aggression) arise from genes.

Emotional Development: Temperament and Personality (part 3)

Nature and nurture always interact.

Temperament begins with genes, but family influences are powerful.

Parents affect their children in temperament and personality, while children affect their parents.

Infants with difficult temperaments are more likely to develop emotional problems.

Especially if the pregnancy is complicated and their caregivers are depressed or anxious

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Do Babies’ Temperaments Change?

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Sometimes, it is possible, especially if they are fearful.

Adults who are reassuring help children overcome an innate fearfulness.

If fearful children do not change, it is unknown whether that's because their parents are not sufficiently reassuring (nurture) or because they are temperamentally more fearful (nature).

Did temperament change over time, or did infant temperament endure?

Both! Change was most likely for the inhibited, fearful infants and least likely for the exuberant ones.

Development of Social Bonds: Synchrony (part 1)

Synchrony

Coordinated, rapid, and smooth exchange of responses between a caregiver and an infant

Synchrony in the first few months

Becomes more frequent and elaborate

Helps infants learn to read others' emotions and to develop the skills of social interaction

Usually begins with parents imitating infants

Insert images p 110 chp 04

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Synchrony is evident worldwide. Everywhere, babies watch their parents carefully, hoping for exactly what these three parents express, and responding with such delight that adults relish these moments.

Development of Social Bonds: Synchrony (part 2)

Mutual synchrony

Part of early adaptation as synchrony becomes a mutual dance

Research

Video measures; physiological measures

Infants read emotions and develop social skills in every interaction while coordinating their bodies and brains.

Adults react in ways influenced by culture and their own innate bonding.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Development of Social Bonds: Synchrony (part 3)

Need for synchrony

Experiments using the still-face technique

It is 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

Parent's responsiveness to an infant aids psychological and biological development.

Infants' brains need social interaction to develop to their fullest.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Still-face technique

It is an experimental practice in which an adult keeps their face unmoving and expressionless in face-to-face interaction with an infant.

Dramatic, and Tiny, Differences

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

As you see, the drop in positive affect (infants smiling, making happy noises, and so on) is almost identical in mothers and fathers and Chinese and Dutch infants when parents are suddenly non-responsive.

Development of Social Bonds: Attachment (part 1)

Attachment

First named by John Bowlby (1982)

Lasting emotional bond that one person has with another

Begins to form in early infancy and influences a person’s close relationships throughout life

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Attachment

According to Ainsworth, attachment is “an affectional tie” that an infant forms with a caregiver — a tie that binds them together in space and endures over time.

Attachment is the predominant way to describe the social interaction of 1-year-olds.

A VIEW FROM SCIENCE Measuring Attachment (part 1)

Researchers seek operational definitions.

Measuring the bond between caregiver and infant is complicated.

Strange Situation (Mary Ainsworth)

Classic laboratory procedure used to measure attachment

Evokes infants’ reactions to the stress of various adults’ comings and goings in an unfamiliar playroom

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

1-year-olds are deliberately stressed, with and without their caregiver.

A VIEW FROM SCIENCE Measuring Attachment (part 2)

Researchers focus on the following:

Exploration of the toys

A secure toddler plays happily.

Reaction to the mother’s departure

A secure toddler notices when the mother leaves and shows signs of missing her.

Reaction to the mother’s return

A secure toddler welcomes the reappearance, seeking contact, and then plays again.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Excited, Troubled, Comforted

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

This sequence is repeated daily for 1-year-olds, so the same sequence is replicated to measure attachment. As you see, toys are no substitute for a mother’s comfort if the infant or toddler is secure, as this one seems to be. Some, however, cry inconsolably or throw toys angrily when left alone.

Development of Social Bonds: Attachment (part 2)

Signs of attachment

Two signs universally indicate attachment; attachment takes many forms.

Contact-maintaining

Proximity-seeking

Attachment is classified into four types: A, B, C, and D (Ainsworth)

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

See Table 4.1 for additional information on Predictors of Attachment types.

The concept of attachment has spread from infancy and now includes how parents attach to their children — even before birth, how children of all ages attach to their parents, and how romantic partners attach.

Development of Social Bonds: Attachment (part 3)

Attachment types

Insecure-avoidant attachment (A)

Secure attachment (B)

Insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment (C)

Disorganized attachment (D)

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Insecure-avoidant attachment (A)

An infant avoids connection with the caregiver, as when the infant seems not to care about the caregiver's presence, departure, or return.

Secure attachment (B)

An infant obtains both comfort and confidence from the presence of his or her caregiver.

Insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment (C)

An infant's anxiety and uncertainty are evident, as when the infant becomes very upset at separation from the caregiver, and both resist and seek contact on the reunion.

Disorganized attachment (D)

A type of attachment is marked by an infant's inconsistent reactions to the caregiver's departure and return.

Almost two-thirds of infants are secure (type B) among the general population.

About one-third are insecure, either indifferent (type A) or unduly anxious (type C), and about 5 to 10 percent are disorganized (type D).

Predictors of Attachment

Secure attachment (type B) is more likely if:

Insecure attachment is more likely if:

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Use Table 4.1 to complete the information.

Development of Social Bonds: Cultural Differences

Human bonds are needed everywhere, with many variations depending on cultural norms and particular experiences.

Although secure (type B) infants predominate in every well-functioning community, details of insecure attachment vary.

Insecure infants in individualistic cultures are more likely to be type A, and those in collective cultures type C.

Some cultures expect exclusive mother-care, and others do not.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

An infant might be securely attached to the father, grandmother, or older sister, but not the mother.

Same or Different?

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

This chapter focuses on the fact that babies and mothers are the same worldwide yet dramatically different in each culture.

Do you see more similarities or differences between the Huastec mother in Mexico (left), the mothers waiting in a clinic in Uganda (middle), and former supermodel Gisele Bündchen in Boston, Massachusetts (right)?

CONTRASTING PERSPECTIVES Attachment Parenting

Attachment parenting

Emphasizes close parent-infant relationship

Supports some practices that benefit infants

Criticism

Lacks sufficient scientific evidence

Potentially imposes cultural values

But . . .

Despite debates, most researchers acknowledge importance of attachment in infant development.

Cultural backgrounds and social circumstances can influence parenting practices.

Differing perspectives reflect the complexity of caregiving beliefs and practices.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Some experts criticize attachment parenting for lacking sufficient scientific evidence and potentially imposing cultural values.

Cultural backgrounds and social circumstances can influence parenting practices. Some communities embrace attachment parenting as traditional and natural, while others may view it as excessive or unnecessary.

Despite debates, most researchers acknowledge the importance of attachment in infant development.

Practices like skin-to-skin contact have been shown to benefit infants, potentially reducing stress and strengthening the bond between parent and child.

Views on infant care vary across cultures and individuals.

While some emphasize the importance of maternal responsiveness and attachment, others prioritize teaching independence or allowing multiple caregivers. These differing perspectives reflect the complexity of caregiving beliefs and practices.

Myths and models of infant care, including attachment theory, shape lifelong beliefs and behaviors.

Understanding diverse viewpoints on attachment can foster appreciation for cultural differences and individual preferences in parenting approaches.

Development of Social Bonds: Orphanages in Romania

In late 1980s, thousands of Romanian children were part of international adoptions.

Infants adopted before 6 months fared best; those adopted after 12 months often suffered a variety of adverse outcomes.

Disinhibited social engagement disorder

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

What have you learned about attachment that might explain these outcomes?

These Romanian children, here older than age 2, probably spent most of their infancy in their cribs, never with the varied stimulation that infant brains need.

The sad results are evident here — that boy is fingering his own face, because the feel of his own touch is most likely one of the few sensations he knows.

The girl sitting up in the back is a teenager.

This photo was taken in 1982 before Romania ended such harsh child-care practices.

Development of Social Bonds: Politics and Children Without Parents

International adoptions that provide family-based care

Superior to institutional care

Provide opportunities for crucial attachment relationships with lifelong consequences

Raise concerns about child trafficking and violation of children’s rights

Instances like separation of immigrant children from their parents at border

Highlights the importance of attachment in child welfare and need to prioritize children’s rights and well-being in political agendas

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Research confirms that disruptions in attachment relationships can have lifelong consequences, affecting brain development and the immune system.

Declining Need?

No. More couples seek to adopt internationally, and millions of children in dozens of nations need families.

This chart does not reflect the changing needs of people; it reflects the increasing nationalism within and beyond the United States. Sadly, babies are political weapons.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Development of Social Bonds: Social Referencing

Social referencing definition

Seeking emotional responses or information from other people

Observing someone else's expressions and reactions and using the other person as a social reference

Social referencing

Begins at birth, evident in the gaze-following

Becomes urgent and more accurate in toddlerhood

Provides an array of knowledge

Has many practical applications

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Children are selective from early infancy to late adolescence, noticing that some strangers are reliable references and others are not.

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development: Psychodynamic Theory (part 1)

Sigmund Freud

Stages

Oral stage (first year)

Anal stage (second year)

Potential conflicts

Oral fixation

Anal personality

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

All Together Now

Toddlers in an employees’ day-care program at a flower farm in Colombia learn to use the potty on a schedule. Will this experience lead to later personality problems? Probably not.

Freud: Oral and anal stages

Oral stage (first year): The mouth is the young infant's primary source of gratification.

Anal stage (second year): An 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.

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development: Psychodynamic Theory (part 2)

Erik Erikson: trust and autonomy stages

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

An adult can be created who is suspicious and pessimistic (mistrusting) or easily shamed (insufficient autonomy).

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Like Freud, Erikson believed that problems in early infancy could last a lifetime, creating adults who are suspicious and pessimistic (mistrusting) or easily shamed (lacking autonomy).

Some think that a lack of trust is the core problem of people on both sides of the current political polarization in the United States (Brady & Kent, 2022).

This emphasis on the lifelong importance of the experiences of early infancy is central to many psychodynamic theories.

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development: Behaviorism (part 1)

Behaviorism

Recent experiences are more influential on adults than events of early infancy.

Early patterns may persist, but circumstances in adulthood might change them.

Social learning

Infants learn from observations, not necessarily via direct teaching.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development: Behaviorism (part 2)

Keeping baby close

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

International variations of parenting practices

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

According to behaviorism, each action reinforces a lesson that the baby learns, in this case about people and objects.

International variations of parenting practices, including proximal and distal parenting, frequency of synchrony, secure attachment, and social referencing, suggest that children are taught to respond in a particular way because of how their parents treat them.

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development: Cognitive Theory

Working model

Set of assumptions that an individual uses to organize perceptions and experiences

Includes cognitive processes that affect attachment, as children and caregivers develop a mutual understanding

Actual early experiences less influential than child’s interpretation of those experiences

New working models

Can be developed based on new experiences or reinterpretation of previous experiences

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Cognitive theory holds that thoughts determine a person’s perspective.

Early experiences are important because beliefs, perceptions, and memories make them so, not because they are buried in the unconscious (psychodynamic theory) or burned into the brain’s patterns (behaviorism).

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development: Evolutionary Theory (part 1)

Emotions for survival

Impulse to develop strong attachments is an evolutionary mandate.

Powerful emotions are fundamental for both caregivers and children.

Foster behaviors that sustain caregiving and ensure the survival of the species

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Humans take a long time to grow up because learning how to live in local conditions takes time. Our brains adjust in infancy so we can live wherever we are.

Same Situation, Far Apart: Safekeeping

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Historically, grandmothers were sometimes crucial for child survival. Now, even though medical care has reduced child mortality, grandmothers still do their part to keep children safe, as shown by these two — in the eastern United States (left) and Vietnam (right).

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development: Evolutionary Theory (part 2)

Allocare (“other-care”)

Care of children by people other than biological parents

Universal for species; distinct community values and preferences

Emotional as well as practical

Humans evolved to let other people help with child care

Evolution programmed the human brain so that relatives and even strangers want to help.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Before the introduction of reliable birth control, the average interval between human births was two to four years.

If local conditions resulted in a high death rate, for community survival, it was best for women to have their first child at age 16 or so, to have at least six more births before menopause, and to have many other relatives, particularly grandmothers, to help with child care.

Who Should Care for Infants? Everyday Caregiving

Cultures

Some cultures assume that practices of their own family or culture are best.

Opinions are also affected by personal experiences, gender, and education.

Everyday caregiving

Opposing opinions within the United States

About 60 percent of mothers with infants in labor force

Not all elected officials support regular infant day care

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Who Should Care for Infants? Attachment and Maternal Employment

Allocare in the first year of life does not weaken the mother–infant bond.

Secure across all kinds of care

Crucial factor

Responsiveness of mother, not whether or not mother provides exclusive care

Early Child Care Research Network of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) research on attachment and allocare

Early day care did not diminish attachment; correlated with many cognitive advancements; mother–child relationship pivotal.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Secure mother–infant attachment is as common for infants with regular father-care, professional day care, other caregivers, and exclusive mother-care (Cárcamo, 2018

Some evidence finds a critical period of maternal care in the first six months (Garon-Carrier et al., 2023), although allocare after that seems okay.

Particularly important is continuity of) care: Infant day-care groups should be led by the same teachers, with a small, familiar group of babies, day after day.

Who Should Care for Infants? Health and Behavior

Research findings

More externalizing problems in kindergarten than in those who did not have group care

No increase in behavior problems

No negative effects from early day care

Better emotional adjustment with extensive day care

What are the reasons for these different findings?

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Culture may be part of the reason for these differences.

High-Quality Day Care

High-quality day care during infancy has five essential characteristics.

Adequate attention to each infant

Encouragement of language and sensorimotor development

Attention to health and safety

Professional caregivers

Encouragement and respect for maternal involvement

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

High-quality day care during infancy has five essential characteristics:

Adequate attention to each infant

Eight or fewer babies are in a group with two familiar caregivers who are warm and responsive — singing, holding, and touching.

Encouragement of language and sensorimotor development

Language addressed to each child and the whole group — songs, conversations, encouraging words — is essential.

Attention to health and safety

Cleanliness routines (e.g., handwashing), accident prevention (e.g., no small objects), and exploring safe areas are essential.

Professional caregivers

Caregivers should have experience and degrees/certificates in early childhood education. Turnover should be low, the morale high, and enthusiasm evident.

Encouragement and respect for maternal involvement

For example, bottles of pumped breast milk are refrigerated for each infant.

Information from NAEYC, 2014.

National Contrasts in Child Care

Cultural beliefs and diverse ideologies shape attitudes toward infant care.

Varying government policies reflect different beliefs about infant care.

Recent neuroscience research underscores the adaptability of the human brain in response to caregiving practices.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Cultural beliefs and ideologies shape attitudes towards infant care, with nations in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America often viewing publicly paid infant care as harmful, while others, like France, Israel, and Germany, see it as a public right like other essential services.

The influence of government policies on societal attitudes towards infant care is profound, reflecting a spectrum of beliefs and approaches.

Some nations, like those in Scandinavia, prioritize early childhood development, offering publicly funded and regulated child care staffed by well-educated professionals.

In contrast, the United States needs more consistent support for such services.

Recent neuroscience research underscores the human brain's adaptability to caregiving practices.

Communities that encourage both parents to care for infants witness brain and hormonal changes in both mothers and fathers, emphasizing the importance of supportive environments for infant care.

Out of Date?

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Out of Date?

Many nations are increasing their provision of maternal leave. Current U.S. laws reflect the 1950s when most new mothers were married and expected to quit employment when children arrived.

This may have changed between the time this text is published and the time you are reading it, partly because 124 women are in Congress as of 2023, compared to only 11 in 1970.

Who Should Care for Infants? Conclusions from Science

Researchers worldwide agree on four principles, no matter who the caregivers are.

Mutual attachment with one or a few familiar caregivers is needed for infants to develop into caring children and adults.

Quality of care, with individualized attention at home or elsewhere, is crucial.

Infants need engaged and responsive caregivers.

Frequent changes and instability in care must be avoided.

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Who Cares for the Baby?

Invitation to the Life Span

Kathleen Stassen Berger | Sixth edition

Infants are the same everywhere, but allocare varies.

Does a 6-month-old need their mother more than a 3-year-old? Norway and Quebec say yes; the United States, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands say no.

If not the mother, who should provide care? Highly regarded professionals or the least expensive adult?

Personal Perspective

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