journal

Summary Emotional Development

Understanding Others Infancy and Toddlerhood

Understanding and Responding to the Emotions of

Others • Between 7 and 10 months, infants perceive facial expressions as organized patterns,

and they can match the emotional tone of a voice with the appropriate face of a

speaking person.

• Social referencing occurs when an infant relies on a trusted person’s emotional reaction to decide how to respond in an uncertain situation.

• Social referencing provides infants with a method of learning about the environment through indirect experience.

Understanding and Responding to the Emotions of

Others • By toddlerhood, children use emotional signals to infer others’ internal

states and guide their own actions.

The Structure of Temperament • Three types of children described the majority of the Thomas and Chess sample:

• Easy children (40 percent of sample) quickly establish regular routines, are cheerful, and adapt easily to new experiences.

• Difficult children (10 percent of sample) are irregular in daily routines, slow to accept new experiences, and tend to react negatively and intensely.

• Slow-to-warm-up children (15 percent of sample) are inactive, have mild, low-key reactions to stimuli, and adjust slowly to new experiences.

The Structure of Temperament

According to Thomas and Chess

35 percent of children did not fit any of these categories, demonstrating blends of

characteristics instead.

The difficult temperamental type places children

at risk for adjustment problems.

Temperament and Child Rearing: The Goodness-of-

Fit Model

• The goodness-of-fit model explains how temperament and environmental pressures work together to produce favorable outcomes.

• Goodness-of-fit is an effective match between child-rearing environments and a child’s temperament, leading to healthy adjustment.

• Difficult infants are less likely than easy babies to receive sensitive care. (Evokes parental anxiety and anger.)

Temperament and Child Rearing: The Goodness-of-

Fit Model • Caregiving is not just responsive to the child’s temperament; it also

depends on life conditions and cultural values