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chapter 6 Emotional and Social Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
This father takes time to build a strong, affectionate bond with his infant daughter. His warmth and sensitivity engender a sense of security in the baby—a vital foundation for all aspects of early development.
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chapter outline
Erikson’s Theory of Infant and Toddler Personality
Basic Trust versus Mistrust
Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt
Emotional Development
Development of Basic Emotions
Understanding and Responding to the Emotions of Others
Emergence of Self-Conscious Emotions
Beginnings of Emotional Self-Regulation
■ BIOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT Parental Depression and Child Development
Temperament and Development
The Structure of Temperament
Measuring Temperament
Stability of Temperament
Genetic and Environmental Influences
Temperament and Child Rearing: The Goodness-of-Fit Model
■ BIOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT Development of Shyness and Sociability
Development of Attachment
Bowlby’s Ethological Theory
Measuring the Security of Attachment
Stability of Attachment
Cultural Variations
Factors That Affect Attachment Security
Multiple Attachments
Attachment and Later Development
■ SOCIAL ISSUES: HEALTH Does Child Care in Infancy Threaten Attachment Security and
Later Adjustment?
■ CULTURAL INFLUENCES The Powerful Role of Paternal Warmth in Development
Self-Development
Self-Awareness
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Categorizing the Self
Self-Control
As Caitlin reached 8 months of age, her parents noticed that she had become more fearful.
One evening, when Carolyn and David left her with a babysitter, she wailed as they headed
for the door—an experience she had accepted easily a few weeks earlier. Caitlin and
Timmy’s caregiver Ginette also observed an increasing wariness of strangers. When she
turned to go to another room, both babies dropped their play to crawl after her. At the mail
carrier’s knock at the door, they clung to Ginette’s legs, reaching out to be picked up.
At the same time, each baby seemed more willful. Removing an object from the hand
produced little response at 5 months. But at 8 months, when Timmy’s mother, Vanessa, took
away a table knife he had managed to reach, Timmy burst into angry screams and could
not be consoled or distracted.
All Monica and Kevin knew about Grace’s first year was that she had been deeply loved by
her destitute, homeless mother. Separation from her, followed by a long journey to an
unfamiliar home, had left Grace in shock. At first she was extremely sad, turning away
when Monica or Kevin picked her up. But as Grace’s new parents held her close, spoke
gently, and satisfied her craving for food, Grace returned their affection. Two weeks after
her arrival, her despondency gave way to a sunny, easygoing disposition. She burst into a
wide grin, reached out at the sight of Monica and Kevin, and laughed at her brother Eli’s
funny faces. As her second birthday approached, she pointed to herself, exclaiming
“Gwace!” and laid claim to treasured possessions. “Gwace’s chicken!” she would announce
at mealtimes, sucking the marrow from the drumstick, a practice she had brought with her
from Cambodia.
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Taken together, the children’s reactions reflect two related aspects of personality
development during the first two years: close ties to others and a sense of self. We begin
with Erikson’s psychosocial theory, which provides an overview of personality
development during infancy and toddlerhood. Then, as we chart the course of emotional
development, we will discover why fear and anger became more apparent in Caitlin’s and
Timmy’s range of emotions by the end of the first year. Our attention then turns to
individual
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differences in temperament. We will examine genetic and environmental contributions to
these differences and their consequences for future development.
Next, we take up attachment to the caregiver, the child’s first affectionate tie. We will see
how the feelings of security that grow out of this important bond support the child’s sense
of independence and expanding social relationships.
Finally, we focus on early self-development. By the end of toddlerhood, Grace recognized
herself in mirrors and photographs, labeled herself as a girl, and showed the beginnings of
self-control. “Don’t touch!” she instructed herself one day as she resisted the desire to pull a
lamp cord out of its socket. Cognitive advances combine with social experiences to produce
these changes during the second year.
Erikson’s Theory of Infant and Toddler Personality
Our discussion of major theories in Chapter 1 revealed that the psychoanalytic perspective
is no longer in the mainstream of human development research. But one of its lasting
contributions is its ability to capture the essence of personality during each period of
development. Recall that Sigmund Freud believed that psychological health and
maladjustment could be traced to the quality of the child’s relationships with parents during
the early years. Although Freud’s preoccupation with the channeling of biological drives
and his neglect of important experiences beyond infancy and early childhood came to be
heavily criticized, the basic outlines of his theory were accepted and elaborated in several
subsequent theories. The most influential is Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory, also
introduced in Chapter 1.
Basic Trust versus Mistrust
Erikson accepted Freud’s emphasis on the importance of the parent–infant relationship
during feeding, but he expanded and enriched Freud’s view. A healthy outcome during
infancy, Erikson believed, does not depend on the amount of food or oral stimulation
offered but rather on the quality of caregiving: relieving discomfort promptly and
sensitively, holding the infant gently, waiting patiently until the baby has had enough milk,
and weaning when the infant shows less interest in breast or bottle.
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Erikson recognized that no parent can be perfectly in tune with the baby’s needs. Many
factors affect parental responsiveness—personal happiness, current life conditions (for
example, additional young children in the family), and culturally valued child-rearing
practices. But when the balance of care is sympathetic and loving, the psychological conflict
of the first year—basic trust versus mistrust—is resolved on the positive side. The trusting
infant expects the world to be good and gratifying, so he feels confident about venturing out
and exploring it. The mistrustful baby cannot count on the kindness and compassion of
others, so she protects herself by withdrawing from people and things around her.
Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt
With the transition to toddlerhood, Freud viewed the parents’ manner of toilet training as
decisive for psychological health. In Erikson’ view, toilet training is only one of many
influential experiences. The familiar refrains of newly walking, talking toddlers—“No!” “Do
it myself!”—reveal that they have entered a period of budding selfhood. They want to
decide for themselves, not just in toileting but also in other situations. The conflict of
toddlerhood, autonomy versus shame and doubt, is resolved favorably when parents
provide young children with suitable guidance and reasonable choices. A self-confident,
secure 2-year-old has parents who do not criticize or attack him when he fails at new skills
—using the toilet, eating with a spoon, or putting away toys. And they meet his assertions of
independence with tolerance and understanding—for example, by giving him an extra five
minutes to finish his play before leaving for the grocery store. In contrast, when parents are
over- or undercontrolling, the outcome is a child who feels forced and shamed and who
doubts his ability to control his impulses and act competently on his own.
In sum, basic trust and autonomy grow out of warm, sensitive parenting and reasonable
expectations for impulse control starting in the second year. If children emerge from the
first few years without sufficient trust in caregivers and without a healthy sense of
individuality, the seeds are sown for adjustment problems. Adults who have difficulty
establishing intimate ties, who are overly dependent on a loved one, or who continually
doubt their own ability to meet new challenges may not have fully mastered the tasks of
trust and autonomy during infancy and toddlerhood.
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On a visit to a science museum, a 2-year-old insists on exploring a flight simulator. As the mother supports her toddler’s desire to “do it myself,” she fosters a healthy sense of autonomy.
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Emotional Development
TAKE A MOMENT… Observe several infants and toddlers, noting the emotions each displays,
the cues you rely on to interpret the baby’s emotional state, and how caregivers respond.
Researchers have conducted many such observations to find out how babies convey their
emotions and interpret those of others. They have discovered that emotions play powerful
roles in organizing the attainments that Erikson regarded as so important: social
relationships, exploration of the environment, and discovery of the self (Halle, 2003; Saarni
et al., 2006).
Think back to the dynamic systems perspective introduced in Chapters 1 and 4. As you read
about early emotional development in the sections that follow, notice how emotions are an
integral part of young children’s dynamic systems of action. Emotions energize
development. At the same time, they are an aspect of the system that develops, becoming
more varied and complex as children reorganize their behavior to attain new goals
(Campos, Frankel, & Camras, 2004; Thompson, Winer, & Goodvin, 2011).
Because infants cannot describe their feelings, determining exactly which emotions they are
experiencing is a challenge. Cross-cultural evidence reveals that people around the world
associate photographs of different facial expressions with emotions in the same way
(Ekman, 2003; Ekman & Friesen, 1972). These findings inspired researchers to analyze
infants’ facial patterns to determine the range of emotions they display at different ages. But
to express a particular emotion, infants, children, and adults actually use diverse responses
—not just facial expressions but also vocalizations and body movements—which vary with
their developing capacities, goals, and contexts. Therefore, to infer babies’ emotions as
accurately as possible, researchers are best off attending to multiple interacting behavioral
cues and seeing how they vary across situations believed to elicit different emotions (Lewis,
2000, 2008).
Development of Basic Emotions
Basic emotions—happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust—are
universal in humans and other primates and have a long evolutionary history of promoting
survival. Do infants come into the world with the ability to express basic emotions?
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Although signs of some emotions are present, babies’ earliest emotional life consists of little
more than two global arousal states: attraction to pleasant stimulation and withdrawal from
unpleasant stimulation (Camras et al., 2003; Fox, 1991). Only gradually do emotions become
clear, well-organized signals.
According to one view, sensitive, contingent caregiver communication, in which parents
selectively mirror aspects of the baby’s diffuse emotional behavior, helps infants construct
emotional expressions that more closely resemble those of adults (Gergely & Watson, 1999).
With age, face, voice, and posture start to form organized patterns that vary meaningfully
with environmental events. For example, Caitlin typically responded to her parents’ playful
interaction with a joyful face, pleasant babbling, and a relaxed posture, as if to say, “This is
fun!” In contrast, an unresponsive parent often evokes a sad face, fussy sounds, and a
drooping body (sending the message, “I’m despondent”) or an angry face, crying, and “pick-
me-up” gestures (as if to say, “Change this unpleasant event!”) (Weinberg & Tronick, 1994;
Yale et al., 1999). Gradually, emotional expressions become well-organized and specific—
and therefore provide more precise information about the baby’s internal state.
Four basic emotions—happiness, anger, sadness, and fear—have received the most research
attention. Let’s see how they develop.
Happiness.
Happiness—expressed first in blissful smiles and later through exuberant laughter—
contributes to many aspects of development. When infants achieve new skills, they smile
and laugh, displaying delight in motor and cognitive mastery. As the smile encourages
caregivers to be affectionate and stimulating, the baby smiles even more (Aksan &
Kochanska, 2004). Happiness binds parent and baby into a warm, supportive relationship
that fosters the infant’s developing competencies.
During the early weeks, newborn babies smile when full, during REM sleep, and in response
to gentle touches and sounds, such as stroking of the skin, rocking, and the mother’s soft,
high-pitched voice. By the end of the first month, infants smile at dynamic, eye-catching
sights, such as a bright object jumping suddenly across their field of vision. Between 6 and
10 weeks, the parent’s communication evokes a broad grin called the social smile (Lavelli &
Fogel, 2005; Sroufe & Waters, 1976). These changes parallel the development of infant
perceptual capacities—in particular, sensitivity to visual patterns, including the human face
(see Chapter 4). And social smiling becomes better-organized and stable as babies learn to
use it to evoke and sustain pleasurable face-to-face interaction.
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Laughter, which appears around 3 to 4 months, reflects faster processing of information
than smiling. But, as with smiling, the first laughs occur in response to very active stimuli,
such as the parent saying playfully, “I’m gonna get you!” and kissing the baby’s tummy. As
infants understand more about their world, they laugh at events with subtler elements of
surprise, such as a silent game of peekaboo (Sroufe & Wunsch, 1972).
Around the middle of the first year, infants smile and laugh more when interacting with
familiar people, a preference that strengthens the parent–child bond. Between 8 and 10
months, infants more often interrupt their play with an interesting toy to relay their delight
to an attentive adult (Venezia et al., 2004). And like adults, 10- to 12-month-olds have several
smiles, which vary with context—a broad, “cheek-raised” smile in response to a parent’s
greeting; a reserved, muted smile for a friendly stranger; and a “mouth-open” smile during
stimulating play (Bolzani et al., 2002; Messinger & Fogel, 2007). By the end of the first year,
the smile has become a deliberate social signal.
Anger and Sadness.
Newborn babies respond with generalized distress to a variety of unpleasant experiences,
including hunger, painful medical procedures, changes in body temperature, and too much
or too little stimulation. From 4 to 6 months into the second year, angry expressions
increase in frequency and intensity (Braungart-Rieker, Hill-Soderlund, & Karrass, 2010).
Older infants also react with anger in a wider range of situations—when an interesting
object or event is removed, an expected pleasant event does not occur, their arms are
restrained, the caregiver leaves for a brief time, or they are put down for a nap (Camras et
al., 1992; Stenberg & Campos, 1990; Sullivan & Lewis, 2003).
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Biology and Environment Parental Depression and Child Development
About 8 to 10 percent of women experience chronic depression—mild to severe feelings of
sadness, distress, and withdrawal that continue for months or years. Often, the beginnings
of this emotional state cannot be pinpointed. In other instances, depression emerges or
strengthens after childbirth but fails to subside as the new mother adjusts to hormonal
changes in her body and gains confidence in caring for her baby. This is called postpartum
depression.
Although it is less recognized and studied, fathers, too, experience chronic depression.
About 3 to 5 percent of fathers report symptoms after the birth of a child (Madsen & Juhl,
2007; Thombs, Roseman, & Arthurs, 2010). Parental depression can interfere with effective
parenting and seriously impair children’s development. Genetic makeup increases the risk
of depressive illness, but social and cultural factors are also involved.
Maternal Depression
During Julia’s pregnancy, her husband, Kyle, showed so little interest in the baby that Julia
worried that having a child might be a mistake. Then, shortly after Lucy was born, Julia’s
mood plunged. She felt anxious and weepy, overwhelmed by Lucy’s needs, and angry at loss
of control over her own schedule. When Julia approached Kyle about her own fatigue and
his unwillingness to help with the baby, he snapped that she was overreacting. Julia’s
childless friends stopped by just once to see Lucy but did not call again.
Julia’s depressed mood quickly affected her baby. In the weeks after birth, infants of
depressed mothers sleep poorly, are less attentive to their surroundings, and have elevated
levels of the stress hormone cortisol (Field, 1998). The more extreme the depression and the
greater the number of stressors in a mother’s life (such as marital discord, little or no social
support, and poverty), the more the parent–child relationship suffers (Simpson et al., 2003).
Julia rarely smiled at, comforted, or talked to Lucy, who responded to her mother’s sad,
vacant gaze by turning away, crying, and often looking sad or angry herself (Feldman et al.,
2009; Field, 2011). Julia, in turn, felt guilty and inadequate, and her depression deepened.
By age 6 months, Lucy showed symptoms common in babies of depressed mothers—delays
in motor and mental development, an irritable mood, and attachment difficulties (Cornish
et al., 2005; McMahon et al., 2006).
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When maternal depression persists, the parent–child relationship worsens. Depressed
mothers view their infants more negatively than independent observers do (Forman et al.,
2007). And they use inconsistent discipline—sometimes lax, at other times too forceful. As
we will see in later chapters, children who experience these maladaptive parenting
practices often have serious adjustment problems. Some withdraw into a depressed mood
themselves; others become impulsive and aggressive. In one study, infants born to mothers
who were depressed during pregnancy were four times as likely as babies of nondepressed
mothers to have engaged in violent antisocial behavior (such as fighting, bullying, assault
with a weapon, and extreme bodily harm) by age 16, after other stressors in the mother’s
life that could contribute to youth antisocial conduct had been controlled (Hay et al., 2010).
Paternal Depression
Paternal depression is also linked to dissatisfaction with marriage and family life after
childbirth and to other life stressors, including job loss and divorce (Bielawska-Batorowicz
& Kossakowska-Petrycka, 2006). In a study of a large representative sample of British
parents and babies, researchers assessed depressive symptoms of fathers shortly after birth
and again the following year. Then they tracked the children’s development into the
preschool years. Persistent paternal depression was, like maternal depression, a strong
predictor of child behavior problems—especially overactivity, defiance, and aggression in
boys (Ramchandani et al., 2008).
Paternal depression is linked to frequent father–child conflict as children grow older (Kane
& Garber, 2004). Over time, children subjected to parental negativity develop a pessimistic
world view—one in which they lack self-confidence and perceive their parents and other
people as threatening. Children who constantly feel endangered are especially likely to
become overly aroused in stressful situations, easily losing control in the face of cognitive
and social challenges (Sturge-Apple et al., 2008). Although children of depressed parents
may inherit a tendency toward emotional and behavior problems, quality of parenting is a
major factor in their adjustment.
Interventions
Early treatment is vital to prevent parental depression from interfering with the parent–
child relationship. Julia’s doctor referred her to a therapist, who helped Julia and Kyle with
their marital problems. At times, anti-depressant medication is prescribed.
In addition to alleviating parental depression, therapy that encourages depressed mothers
to revise their negative views of their babies and to engage in emotionally positive,
responsive caregiving is vital for reducing young children’s attachment and other
developmental problems (Forman et al., 2007). When a depressed parent does not respond
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easily to treatment, a warm relationship with the other parent or another caregiver can
safeguard children’s development (Mezulis, Hyde, & Clark, 2004).
This father appears completely disengaged from his wife and toddler. If his depression continues, disruptions in the parent–child relationship will likely lead to serious child behavior problems.
Why do angry reactions increase with age? As infants become capable of intentional
behavior (see Chapter 5), they want to control their own actions and the effects they
produce. They are also more persistent about obtaining desired objects (Mascolo & Fischer,
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2007). Furthermore, older infants are better at identifying who caused them pain or
removed a toy. The rise in anger is also adaptive. New motor capacities enable an angry
infant to defend herself or overcome an obstacle (Izard & Ackerman, 2000). Finally, anger
motivates caregivers to relieve the baby’s distress and, in the case of separation, may
discourage them from leaving again soon.
Although expressions of sadness also occur in response to pain, removal of an object, and
brief separations, they are less frequent than anger (Alessandri, Sullivan, & Lewis, 1990).
But when caregiver–infant communication is seriously disrupted, infant sadness is common
—a condition that impairs all aspects of development (see the Biology and Environment box
above).
Fear.
Like anger, fear rises from the second half of the first year into the second year (Braungart-
Rieker, Hill-Soderland, & Karrass, 2010). Older infants hesitate before playing with a new
toy, and newly crawling infants soon back away from heights (see Chapter 4). But the most
frequent expression of fear is to unfamiliar adults, a response called stranger anxiety. Many
infants and toddlers are quite wary of strangers, although the reaction does not always
occur. It depends on several factors: temperament (some babies are generally more fearful),
past experiences with strangers, and the current situation. When an unfamiliar adult picks
up the infant in a new setting, stranger anxiety is likely. But if the adult sits still while the
baby moves around and a parent is nearby, infants often show positive and curious
behavior (Horner, 1980). The stranger’s style of interaction—expressing warmth, holding
out an attractive toy, playing a familiar game, and approaching slowly rather than abruptly
—reduces the baby’s fear.
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Cross-cultural research reveals that infant-rearing practices can modify stranger anxiety.
Among the Efe hunters and gatherers of the Republic of Congo, where the maternal death
rate is high, infant survival is safeguarded by a collective caregiving system in which,
starting at birth, Efe babies are passed from one adult to another. Consequently, Efe infants
show little stranger anxiety (Tronick, Morelli, & Ivey, 1992). In contrast, among infants in
Israeli kibbutzim (cooperative agricultural settlements), who live in isolated communities
vulnerable to terrorist attacks, wariness of strangers is widespread. By the end of the first
year, when infants look to others for cues about how to respond emotionally, kibbutz babies
display greater stranger anxiety than their city-reared counterparts (Saarni et al., 2006).
Stranger anxiety appears in many infants after 6 months of age. But this baby, safe in his mother’s arms, also expresses curiosity, reaching out warily toward an unfamiliar adult who eases his fear by smiling and approaching slowly.
LOOK AND LISTEN
While observing an 8- to 18-month-old with his or her parent, gently approach the baby,
offering a toy. Does the baby respond with stranger anxiety? To better understand the
baby’s behavior, ask the parent to describe his or her temperament and past experiences
with strangers.
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The rise in fear after age 6 months keeps newly mobile babies’ enthusiasm for exploration
in check. Once wariness develops, babies use the familiar caregiver as a secure base, or
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point from which to explore, venturing into the environment and then returning for
emotional support. As part of this adaptive system, encounters with strangers lead to two
conflicting tendencies: approach (indicated by interest and friendliness) and avoidance
(indicated by fear). The infant’s behavior is a balance between the two.
Eventually, as cognitive development enables toddlers to discriminate more effectively
between threatening and non-threatening people and situations, stranger anxiety and other
fears of the first two years decline. Fear also wanes as toddlers acquire more strategies for
coping with it, as you will see when we discuss emotional self-regulation.
Understanding and Responding to the Emotions of Others
Infants’ emotional expressions are closely tied to their ability to interpret the emotional
cues of others. We have seen that in the first few months, babies match the feeling tone of
the caregiver in face-to-face communication. Some researchers claim that infants respond
in kind to others’ emotions through a built-in, automatic process of emotional contagion
(Stern, 1985). Others, however, believe that infants acquire these emotional contingencies
through operant conditioning—for example, learning that a smile generally triggers
pleasurable feedback and that distress prompts a comforting response (Saarni et al., 2006).
Around 3 to 4 months, infants can match the emotion in a voice with the appropriate face of
a speaking person, and they become sensitive to the structure and timing of face-to-face
interactions. When they gaze, smile, or vocalize, they now expect their social partner to
respond in kind, and they reply with positive vocal and emotional reactions (Markova &
Legerstee, 2006; Rochat, Striano, & Blatt, 2002). Within these exchanges, babies become
increasingly aware of the range of emotional expressions (Montague & Walker-Andrews,
2001). Recall from Chapter 4 (see page 136) that out of this early imitative communication,
infants start to view others as “like me”—an awareness believed to lay the foundation for
understanding others’ thoughts and feelings (Meltzoff, 2007).
From 5 months on, infants perceive facial expressions as organized patterns (see Chapter 4).
Responding to emotional expressions as organized wholes suggests that these signals are
becoming meaningful to babies. As skill at establishing joint attention improves, infants
realize that an emotional expression not only has meaning but is also a meaningful reaction
to a specific object or event (Moses et al., 2001; Tomasello, 1999).
Once these understandings are in place, beginning at 8 to 10 months, infants engage in
social referencing—actively seeking emotional information from a trusted person in an
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uncertain situation (Mumme et al., 2007). Many studies show that the caregiver’s emotional
expression (happy, angry, or fearful) influences whether a 1-year-old will be wary of
strangers, play with an unfamiliar toy, or cross the deep side of the visual cliff (see page 143)
(de Rosnay et al., 2006; Stenberg, 2003; Striano & Rochat, 2000). The caregiver’s voice—either
alone or combined with a facial expression—is more effective than a facial expression alone
(Kim, Walden, & Knieps, 2010; Vaish & Striano, 2004). The voice conveys both emotional and
verbal information, and the baby need not turn toward the adult but, instead, can focus on
evaluating the novel event.
Parents can take advantage of social referencing to teach their baby how to react to many
everyday events. And around the middle of the second year, as toddlers begin to appreciate
that others’ emotional reactions may differ from their own, social referencing allows them
to compare their own and others’ assessments of events. In one study, an adult showed 14-
and 18-month-olds broccoli and crackers and acted delighted with one food but disgusted
with the other. When asked to share the food, 18-month-olds gave the adult whichever food
she appeared to like, regardless of their own preferences (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997).
In sum, in social referencing, toddlers move beyond simply reacting to others’ emotional
messages. They use those signals to evaluate the safety and security of their surroundings,
to guide their own actions, and to gather information about others’ intentions and
preferences. These experiences, along with cognitive and language development, probably
help toddlers refine the meanings of emotions—for example, happiness versus surprise,
anger versus fear—during the second year (Gendler, Witherington, & Edwards, 2008; Saarni
et al., 2006).
Emergence of Self-Conscious Emotions
Besides basic emotions, humans are capable of a second, higher-order set of feelings,
including guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, and pride. These are called self-conscious
emotions because each involves injury to or enhancement of our sense of self. We feel guilt
when we have harmed someone and want to correct the wrongdoing. When we are
ashamed or embarrassed, we have negative feelings about our behavior, and we want to
retreat so others will no longer notice our failings. In contrast, pride reflects delight in the
self’s achievements, and we are inclined to tell others what we have accomplished and to
take on further challenges (Saarni et al., 2006).
Self-conscious emotions appear in the middle of the second year, as 18- to 24-month-olds
become firmly aware of the self as a separate, unique individual. Toddlers show shame and
embarrassment by lowering their eyes, hanging their heads, and hiding their faces with
their hands. They show guiltlike reactions, too, like the 22-month-old who returned a toy she
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had grabbed and patted her upset playmate. Pride also emerges around this time, and envy
by age 3 (Barrett, 2005; Garner, 2003; Lewis et al., 1989).
Besides self-awareness, self-conscious emotions require an additional ingredient: adult
instruction in when to feel proud, ashamed, or guilty. Parents begin this tutoring early when
they say, “Look how far you can throw that ball!” or “You should feel ashamed for grabbing
that toy!” Self-conscious emotions play important roles in children’s achievement-related
and moral behaviors. The situations in which adults encourage these feelings vary from
culture to culture. In Western individualistic nations, most children are taught to feel pride
in personal
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achievement—throwing a ball the farthest, winning a game, and (later on) getting good
grades. In collectivist cultures such as China and Japan, calling attention to individual
success evokes embarrassment and self-effacement. And violating cultural standards by
failing to show concern for others—a parent, a teacher, or an employer—sparks intense
shame (Akimoto & Sanbonmatsu, 1999; Lewis, 1992).
A mother praises her 2-year-old’s success at tower-building. To experience self-conscious emotions, such as pride, young children need self-awareness as well as adult instruction.
Beginnings of Emotional Self-Regulation
Besides expressing a wider range of emotions, infants and toddlers begin to manage their
emotional experiences. Emotional self-regulation refers to the strategies we use to adjust
our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can accomplish our goals
(Eisenberg & Spinrad, 2004; Thompson & Goodvin, 2007). When you remind yourself that an
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anxiety-provoking event will be over soon, suppress your anger at a friend’s behavior, or
decide not to see a scary horror film, you are engaging in emotional self-regulation.
Emotional self-regulation requires voluntary, effortful management of emotions. This
capacity for effortful control improves gradually, as a result of development of the
prefrontal cortex and the assistance of caregivers, who help children manage intense
emotion and teach them strategies for doing so (Fox & Calkins, 2003; Rothbart, Posner, &
Kieras, 2006). Individual differences in control of emotion are evident in infancy and, by
early childhood, play such a vital role in children’s adjustment that—as we will see later—
effortful control is considered a major dimension of temperament. A good start in
regulating emotion during the first two years contributes greatly to autonomy and mastery
of cognitive and social skills (Eisenberg et al., 2004; Lawson & Ruff, 2004).
In the early months, infants have only a limited capacity to regulate their emotional states.
When their feelings get too intense, they are easily overwhelmed. They depend on the
soothing interventions of caregivers—being lifted to the shoulder, rocked, gently stroked,
and talked to softly—for distraction and reorienting of attention.
More effective functioning of the prefrontal cortex increases the baby’s tolerance for
stimulation. Between 2 and 4 months, caregivers build on this capacity by initiating face-to-
face play and attention to objects. In these interactions, parents arouse pleasure in the baby
while adjusting the pace of their behavior so the infant does not become overwhelmed and
distressed. As a result, the baby’s tolerance for stimulation increases further (Kopp &
Neufeld, 2003).
By 4 to 6 months, the ability to shift attention helps infants control emotion. Babies who
more readily turn away from unpleasant events or engage in self-soothing are less prone to
distress (Crockenberg & Leerkes, 2003). At the end of the first year, crawling and walking
enable infants to regulate emotion more effectively by approaching or retreating from
various situations.
Infants whose parents “read” and respond contingently and sympathetically to their
emotional cues tend to be less fussy and fearful, to express more pleasurable emotion, to be
more interested in exploration, and to be easier to soothe (Braungart-Rieker, Hill-Soderlund,
& Karrass, 2010; Crockenberg & Leerkes, 2004; Volling et al., 2002). In contrast, parents who
respond impatiently or angrily or who wait to intervene until the infant has become
extremely agitated reinforce the baby’s rapid rise to intense distress. When caregivers fail to
regulate stressful experiences for babies, brain structures that buffer stress may not develop
properly, resulting in an anxious, reactive child who has a reduced capacity for managing
emotional problems (Blair & Raver, 2012; Feldman, 2007).
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Caregivers also provide lessons in socially approved ways of expressing feelings. As early as
the first few months, parents encourage infants to suppress negative emotion by imitating
their expressions of interest, happiness, and surprise more often than their expressions of
anger and sadness. Boys get more of this training than girls, in part because boys have a
harder time regulating negative emotion (Else-Quest et al., 2006; Malatesta et al., 1986). As a
result, the well-known sex difference—females as emotionally expressive and males as
emotionally controlled—is promoted at a tender age. Collectivist cultures place particular
emphasis on socially appropriate emotional behavior. Compared with Americans, Japanese
and Chinese adults discourage the expression of strong emotion in babies (Fogel, 1993;
Kuchner, 1989). By the end of the first year, Chinese and Japanese infants smile and cry less
than American infants (Camras et al., 1998; Gartstein et al., 2010).
Toward the end of the second year, a vocabulary for talking about feelings—“happy,”
“surprised,” “scary,” “yucky,” “mad”—develops rapidly, but toddlers are not yet good at
using language to manage their emotions. Temper tantrums tend to occur when an adult
rejects their demands, particularly when toddlers are fatigued or hungry (Mascolo &
Fischer, 2007). Toddlers whose parents are emotionally sympathetic but set
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limits (by not giving in to tantrums), who distract the child by offering acceptable
alternatives, and who later suggest better ways to handle adult refusals display more
effective anger-regulation strategies and social skills during the preschool years (Lecuyer &
Houck, 2006).
Patient, sensitive parents also encourage toddlers to describe their internal states. Then,
when 2-year-olds feel distressed, they can guide caregivers in helping them (Cole,
Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010). For example, while listening to a story about monsters,
Grace whimpered, “Mommy, scary.” Monica put the book down and gave Grace a
comforting hug.
ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW Why do many infants show stranger anxiety in the second half of the first year?
What factors can increase or decrease wariness of strangers?
CONNECT Why do children of depressed parents have difficulty regulating emotion (see
pages 186–187)? What implications do their weak self-regulatory skills have for their
response to cognitive and social challenges?
APPLY At age 14 months, Reggie built a block tower and gleefully knocked it down. But at
age 2, he called to his mother and pointed proudly to his tall block tower. What explains
this change in Reggie’s emotional behavior?
REFLECT Describe several recent instances illustrating how you typically manage negative
emotion. How might your early experiences, gender, and cultural background have
influenced your style of emotional self-regulation?
Temperament and Development
From early infancy, Caitlin’s sociability was unmistakable. She smiled and laughed while
interacting with adults and, in her second year, readily approached other children.
Meanwhile, Monica marveled at Grace’s calm, relaxed disposition. At 19 months, she sat
contented in a highchair through a two-hour family celebration at a restaurant. In contrast,
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Timmy was active and distractible. Vanessa found herself chasing him as he dropped one
toy, moved on to the next, and climbed on chairs and tables.
When we describe one person as cheerful and “upbeat,” another as active and energetic,
and still others as calm, cautious, persistent, or prone to angry outbursts, we are referring to
temperament—early-appearing, stable individual differences in reactivity and self-
regulation. Reactivity refers to quickness and intensity of emotional arousal, attention, and
motor activity. Self-regulation, as we have seen, refers to strategies that modify that
reactivity (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). The psychological traits that make up temperament are
believed to form the cornerstone of the adult personality.
In 1956, Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess initiated the New York Longitudinal Study, a
groundbreaking investigation of the development of temperament that followed 141
children from early infancy well into adulthood. Results showed that temperament can
increase a child’s chances of experiencing psychological problems or, alternatively, protect a
child from the negative effects of a highly stressful home life. At the same time, Thomas and
Chess (1977) discovered that parenting practices can modify children’s temperaments
considerably.
These findings stimulated a growing body of research on temperament, including its
stability, biological roots, and interaction with child-rearing experiences. Let’s begin to
explore these issues by looking at the structure, or makeup, of temperament and how it is
measured.
The Structure of Temperament
Thomas and Chess’s model of temperament inspired all others that followed. When detailed
descriptions of infants’ and children’s behavior obtained from parent interviews were rated
on nine dimensions of temperament, certain characteristics clustered together, yielding
three types of children:
● The easy child (40 percent of the sample) quickly establishes regular routines in infancy,
is generally cheerful, and adapts easily to new experiences.
● The difficult child (10 percent of the sample) is irregular in daily routines, is slow to
accept new experiences, and tends to react negatively and intensely.
● The slow-to-warm-up child (15 percent of the sample) is inactive, shows mild, low-key
reactions to environmental stimuli, is negative in mood, and adjusts slowly to new
experiences.
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Note that 35 percent of the children did not fit any of these categories. Instead, they showed
unique blends of temperamental characteristics.
The difficult pattern has sparked the most interest because it places children at high risk for
adjustment problems—both anxious withdrawal and aggressive behavior in early and
middle childhood (Bates, Wachs, & Emde, 1994; Ramos et al., 2005; Thomas, Chess, & Birch,
1968). Compared with difficult children, slow-to-warm-up children present fewer problems
in the early years. However, they tend to show excessive fearfulness and slow, constricted
behavior in the late preschool and school years, when they are expected to respond actively
and quickly in classrooms and peer groups (Chess & Thomas, 1984; Schmitz et al., 1999).
Today, the most influential model of temperament is Mary Rothbart’s, described in Table
6.1. It combines related traits proposed by Thomas and Chess and other researchers,
yielding a concise list of just six dimensions. For example, “distractibility” and “attention
span and persistence” are considered opposite ends of the same dimension, which is labeled
“attention span/persistence.” A unique feature of Rothbart’s model is inclusion of both
“fearful distress” and “irritable distress,” which distinguish between reactivity triggered by
fear and reactivity due to frustration. And the model deletes overly broad dimensions, such
as
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regularity of body functions and intensity of reaction (Rothbart, Ahadi, & Evans, 2000;
Rothbart & Mauro, 1990). A child who is regular in sleeping is not necessarily regular in
eating or bowel habits. And a child who smiles and laughs intensely is not necessarily
intense in fear, irritability, or motor activity.
TABLE 6.1 Rothbart’s Model of Temperament
DIMENSION DESCRIPTION
REACTIVITY
Activity level Level of gross-motor activity
Attention span/persistence Duration of orienting or interest
Fearful distress Wariness and distress in response to intense or novel stimuli, including time to adjust to new situations
Irritable distress Extent of fussing, crying, and distress when desires are frustrated
Positive affect Frequency of expression of happiness and pleasure
SELF-REGULATION
Effortful control Capacity to voluntarily suppress a dominant, reactive response in order to plan and execute a more adaptive response
Rothbart’s dimensions represent the three underlying components included in the
definition of temperament: (1) emotion (“fearful distress,” “irritable distress,” “positive
affect,” and “soothability”), (2) attention (“attention span/persistence”), and (3) action
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(“activity level”). According to Rothbart, individuals differ not only in their reactivity on
each dimension but also in the self-regulatory dimension of temperament, effortful control
—the capacity to voluntarily suppress a dominant response in order to plan and execute a
more adaptive response (Rothbart, 2003; Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Variations in effortful
control are evident in how effectively a child can focus and shift attention, inhibit impulses,
and manage negative emotion.
Beginning in early childhood, effortful control predicts favorable development and
adjustment in cultures as diverse as China and the United States (Zhou, Lengua, & Wang,
2009). Positive outcomes include persistence, task mastery, academic achievement,
cooperation, moral maturity (such as concern about wrongdoing and willingness to
apologize), and positive social behaviors of sharing and helpfulness (Eisenberg, 2010; Harris
et al., 2007; Kochanska & Aksan, 2006; Posner & Rothbart, 2007; Valiente et al., 2010).
Effortful control is also associated with children’s resistance to stress (David & Murphy,
2007). Perhaps children high in effortful control are better able to shift attention away from
disturbing events and their own anxiety to more positive features of their social
environments.
TAKE A MOMENT… Turn back to page 162 in Chapter 5 to review the concept of executive
function, and note its resemblance to effortful control. These converging concepts, which
are associated with similar positive outcomes, reveal that the same mental activities lead to
effective regulation in both the cognitive and emotional/social domains.
Measuring Temperament
Temperament is often assessed through interviews or questionnaires given to parents.
Behavior ratings by pediatricians, teachers, and others familiar with the child and
laboratory observations by researchers have also been used. Parental reports are
convenient and take advantage of parents’ depth of knowledge about their child across
many situations (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003). Although information from parents has been
criticized as biased, parental reports are moderately related to researchers’ observations of
children’s behavior (Majdandžić & van den Boom, 2007; Mangelsdorf, Schoppe, & Buur,
2000). And parent perceptions are useful for understanding how parents view and respond
to their child.
Observations by researchers in the home or laboratory avoid the subjectivity of parental
reports but can lead to other inaccuracies. In homes, observers find it hard to capture rare
but important events, such as infants’ response to frustration. And in the unfamiliar lab
setting, fearful children who calmly avoid certain experiences at home may become too
upset to complete the session (Wachs & Bates, 2001). Still, researchers can better control
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children’s experiences in the lab. And they can conveniently combine observations of
behavior with physiological measures to gain insight into the biological bases of
temperament.
Most neurobiological research has focused on children who fall at opposite extremes of the
positive-affect and fearful-distress dimensions of temperament: inhibited, or shy, children,
who react negatively to and withdraw from novel stimuli, and uninhibited, or sociable,
children, who display positive emotion to and approach novel stimuli. As the Biology and
Environment box on page 192 reveals, biologically based reactivity—evident in heart rate,
hormone levels, and measures of brain activity—differentiates children with inhibited and
uninhibited temperaments.
Stability of Temperament
Young children who score low or high on attention span, irritability, sociability, shyness, or
effortful control tend to respond similarly when assessed again several months to a few
years later and, occasionally, even into the adult years (Caspi et al., 2003; Kochanska &
Knaack, 2003; Majdandžić & van den Boom, 2007; Rothbart, Ahadi, & Evans, 2000; van den
Akker et al., 2010). However, the overall stability of temperament is low in infancy and
toddlerhood and only moderate from the preschool years on (Putnam, Samson, & Rothbart,
2000).
Why isn’t temperament more stable? A major reason is that temperament itself develops
with age. To illustrate, let’s look at irritability and activity level. Recall from Chapter 3 that
most babies fuss and cry in the early months. As infants better regulate their attention and
emotions, many who initially seemed irritable become calm and content. In the case of
activity level, the meaning of the behavior changes. At first, an active, wriggling infant tends
to be highly aroused and uncomfortable, whereas an inactive baby is often alert and
attentive. Once infants move on their own, the reverse is so! An active crawler is usually
alert and interested in exploration, whereas an inactive baby may be fearful and
withdrawn.
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Biology and Environment Development of Shyness and Sociability
Two 4-month-old babies, Larry and Mitch, visited the laboratory of Jerome Kagan, who
observed their reactions to various unfamiliar experiences. When exposed to new sights
and sounds, such as a moving mobile decorated with colorful toys, Larry tensed his
muscles, moved his arms and legs with agitation, and began to cry. In contrast, Mitch
remained relaxed and quiet, smiling and cooing.
As toddlers, Larry and Mitch returned to the laboratory, where they experienced several
procedures designed to induce uncertainty. Electrodes were placed on their bodies and
blood pressure cuffs on their arms to measure heart rate; toy robots, animals, and puppets
moved before their eyes; and unfamiliar people behaved in unexpected ways or wore novel
costumes. While Larry whimpered and quickly withdrew, Mitch watched with interest,
laughed, and approached the toys and strangers.
On a third visit, at age 4½, Larry barely talked or smiled during an interview with an
unfamiliar adult. In contrast, Mitch asked questions and communicated his pleasure at
each new activity. In a playroom with two unfamiliar peers, Larry pulled back and
watched, while Mitch quickly made friends.
In longitudinal research on several hundred children, Kagan found that about 20 percent of
4-month-old babies were, like Larry, easily upset by novelty; 40 percent, like Mitch, were
comfortable, even delighted, with new experiences. About 20 to 30 percent of these groups
retained their temperamental styles as they grew older (Kagan, 2003; Kagan & Saudino,
2001; Kagan et al., 2007). But most children’s dispositions became less extreme over time.
Biological makeup and child-rearing experiences jointly influenced stability and change in
temperament.
Neurobiological Correlates of Shyness and Sociability
Individual differences in arousal of the amygdala, an inner brain structure devoted to
processing emotional information, contribute to these contrasting temperaments. In shy,
inhibited children, novel stimuli easily excite the amygdala and its connections to the
prefrontal cortex and the sympathetic nervous system, which prepares the body to act in
the face of threat. In sociable, uninhibited children, the same level of stimulation evokes
minimal neural excitation (Kagan & Fox, 2006). While viewing photos of unfamiliar faces,
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adults who had been classified as inhibited in the second year of life showed greater fMRI
activity in the amygdala than adults who had been uninhibited as toddlers (Schwartz et al.,
2003). And additional neurobiological responses known to be mediated by the amygdala
distinguish these two emotional styles:
● Heart rate. From the first few weeks of life, the heart rates of shy children are
consistently higher than those of sociable children, and they speed up further in
response to unfamiliar events (Schmidt et al., 2007; Snidman et al., 1995).
● Cortisol. Saliva concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol tend to be higher, and to
rise more in response to a stressful event, in shy than in sociable children (Schmidt et
al., 1997, 1999; Zimmermann & Stansbury, 2004).
● Pupil dilation, blood pressure, and skin surface temperature. Compared with sociable
children, shy children show greater pupil dilation, rise in blood pressure, and cooling
of the fingertips when faced with novelty (Kagan et al., 1999, 2007).
Furthermore, shy infants and preschoolers show greater EEG activity in the right than in
the left frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, which is associated with negative emotional
reactivity; sociable children show the opposite pattern (Fox et al., 2008; Kagan et al., 2007).
Neural activity in the amygdala, which is transmitted to the frontal lobes, probably
contributes to these differences.
Child-Rearing Practices
According to Kagan, extremely shy or sociable children inherit a physiology that biases
them toward a particular temperamental style. Yet heritability research indicates that
genes contribute only modestly to shyness and sociability (Kagan & Fox, 2006).
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A strong physiological response to uncertain situations prompts this toddler to cling to her father. With patient but insistent encouragement, her parents can help her overcome the urge to retreat.
Child-rearing practices affect the chances that an emotionally reactive baby will become a
fearful child. Warm, supportive parenting reduces shy infants’ and preschoolers’ intense
physiological reaction to novelty, whereas cold, intrusive parenting heightens anxiety
(Coplan, Arbeau, & Armer, 2008; Hane et al., 2008). And if parents overprotect infants and
young children who dislike novelty, they make it harder for their child to overcome an urge
to retreat. Parents who make appropriate demands for their child to approach new
experiences help shy youngsters develop strategies for regulating fear (Rubin & Burgess,
2002).
When inhibition persists, it leads to excessive cautiousness, low self-esteem, and loneliness.
In adolescence, persistent shyness increases the risk of severe anxiety, especially social
phobia—intense fear of being humiliated in social situations (Kagan & Fox, 2006). For
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inhibited children to acquire effective social skills, parenting must be tailored to their
temperaments—a theme we will encounter again in this and later chapters.
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These discrepancies help us understand why long-term prediction from early temperament
is best achieved after age 3, when styles of responding are better established (Roberts &
DelVecchio, 2000). In line with this idea, between age 2½ and 3, children improve
substantially and also perform more consistently across a wide range of tasks requiring
effortful control, such as waiting for a reward, lowering their voice to a whisper, succeeding
at games like “Simon Says,” and selectively attending to one stimulus while ignoring
competing stimuli (Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000; Li-Grining, 2007). Researchers
believe that around this time, areas in the prefrontal cortex involved in suppressing
impulses develop rapidly (Gerardi-Caulton, 2000; Rothbart & Bates, 2006).
Nevertheless, the ease with which children manage their reactivity in early childhood
depends on the type and strength of the reactive emotion involved. Preschoolers who were
highly fearful as toddlers score slightly better than their agemates in effortful control. In
contrast, angry, irritable toddlers tend to be less effective at effortful control at later ages
(Bridgett et al., 2009; Kochanska & Knaack, 2003).
In sum, many factors affect the extent to which a child’s temperament remains stable,
including development of the biological systems on which temperament is based, the child’s
capacity for effortful control, and the success of her efforts, which depend on the quality
and intensity of her emotional reactivity. When we consider the evidence as a whole, the
low to moderate stability of temperament makes sense. It also confirms that experience can
modify biologically based temperamental traits considerably, although children rarely
change from one extreme to another—that is, shy toddlers practically never become highly
sociable, and irritable toddlers seldom become easy-going. With these ideas in mind, let’s
turn to genetic and environmental contributions to temperament and personality.
Genetic and Environmental Influences
The word temperament implies a genetic foundation for individual differences in
personality. Research indicates that identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins
across a wide range of temperamental and personality traits (Bouchard, 2004; Bouchard &
Loehlin, 2001; Caspi & Shiner, 2006; Goldsmith, Pollak, & Davidson, 2008). In Chapter 2, we
noted that heritability estimates suggest a moderate role for heredity in temperament and
personality: About half of individual differences have been attributed to differences in
genetic makeup.
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Nevertheless, genetic influences vary with the temperamental trait and with the age of
individuals studied. For example, heritability estimates are higher for expressions of
negative emotion than for positive emotion. And the role of heredity is considerably less in
infancy than in childhood and later years, when temperament becomes more stable (Wachs
& Bates, 2001).
Although genetic influences are clear, environment is also powerful. For example,
persistent nutritional and emotional deprivation profoundly alters temperament, resulting
in mal-adaptive emotional reactivity. Recall from Chapter 4 that even after dietary
improvement, children exposed to severe malnutrition in infancy remain more distractible
and fearful than their agemates. And infants reared in deprived orphanages are easily
overwhelmed by stressful events. Their poor regulation of emotion results in inattention
and weak impulse control, including frequent expressions of anger (see page 127).
Other evidence confirms that heredity and environment often jointly contribute to
temperament, since a child’s approach to the world affects the experiences to which she is
exposed—an instance of gene–environment correlation (see page 72 in Chapter 2). To see
how this works, let’s look at ethnic and gender differences.
Ethnic and Gender Differences.
Compared with American Caucasian infants, Chinese and Japanese babies tend to be less
active, irritable, vocal, more easily soothed when upset, and better at quieting themselves
(Kagan et al., 1994; Lewis, Ramsay, & Kawakami, 1993). Chinese and Japanese babies are
also more fearful and inhibited, remaining closer to their mothers in an unfamiliar
playroom and displaying more anxiety when interacting with a stranger (Chen, Wang, &
DeSouza, 2006).
These variations may have genetic roots, but they are supported by cultural beliefs and
practices. Japanese mothers usually say that babies come into the world as independent
beings who must learn to rely on their mothers through close physical contact. American
mothers typically believe just the opposite—that they must wean babies away from
dependency toward autonomy. And while Asian cultures tend to view calmness as an ideal
emotional state, Americans highly value the arousal and excitement generated by new
places and activities (Kagan, 2010). Consistent with these beliefs, Asian mothers interact
gently, soothingly, and gesturally with their babies, whereas Caucasian mothers use a more
active, stimulating, verbal approach (Rothbaum et al., 2000a). Also, recall from our
discussion of emotional self-regulation that Chinese and Japanese adults discourage babies
from expressing strong emotion, which contributes further to their infants’ tranquility.
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Similarly, gender differences in temperament are evident as early as the first year,
suggesting a genetic foundation. Boys are more active and daring, more irritable when
frustrated, and slightly more impulsive—factors that contribute to their higher injury rates
throughout childhood and adolescence. And girls’ large advantage in effortful control
undoubtedly contributes to their greater compliance, better school performance, and lower
incidence of behavior problems (Eisenberg et al., 2004; Else-Quest et al., 2006). At the same
time, parents more often encourage their young sons to be physically active and their
daughters to seek help and physical closeness—through the toys they provide (trucks and
footballs for boys, dolls and tea sets for girls) and through more positive reactions when the
child exhibits temperamental traits consistent with gender stereotypes (Bryan & Dix, 2009;
Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006).
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Children’s Unique Experiences.
In families with several children, an additional influence on temperament is at work. TAKE
A MOMENT… Ask several parents to describe each of their children’s personalities. You will
see that they often look for differences between siblings: “She’s a lot more active,” “He’s
more sociable,” “She’s far more persistent.” As a result, parents often regard siblings as
more distinct than other observers do. In a large study of 1- to 3-year-old twin pairs, parents
rated identical twins as resembling each other less in temperament than researchers’
ratings indicated. And whereas researchers rated fraternal twins as moderately similar,
parents viewed them as somewhat opposite in temperamental style (Saudino, 2003).
Parents’ tendency to emphasize each child’s unique qualities affects their child-rearing
practices. In an investigation of identical-twin toddlers, mothers’ differential treatment
predicted differences in psychological adjustment. The twin who received more warmth
and less harshness was more positive in mood and social behavior (Deater-Deckard et al.,
2001). Each child, in turn, evokes responses from caregivers that are consistent with
parental beliefs and the child’s developing temperament.
Besides different experiences within the family, siblings have distinct experiences with
teachers, peers, and others in their community that affect personality development. And in
middle childhood and adolescence, they often seek ways to differ from one another. For all
these reasons, both identical and fraternal twins tend to become increasingly dissimilar in
personality with age (Loehlin & Martin, 2001; McCartney, Harris, & Bernieri, 1990). In sum,
temperament and personality can be understood only in terms of complex
interdependencies between genetic and environmental factors.
Temperament and Child Rearing: The Goodness-of-Fit Model
If a child’s disposition interferes with learning or getting along with others, adults must
gently but consistently counteract the child’s maladaptive style. Thomas and Chess (1977)
proposed a goodness-of-fit model to describe how temperament and environment together
can produce favorable outcomes. Goodness of fit involves creating child-rearing
environments that recognize each child’s temperament while encouraging more adaptive
functioning.
Difficult children (who withdraw from new experiences and react negatively and intensely)
frequently experience parenting that fits poorly with their dispositions, putting them at high
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risk for later adjustment problems. By the second year, their parents tend to resort to angry,
punitive discipline, which undermines the development of effortful control. As the child
reacts with defiance and disobedience, parents become increasingly stressed (Bridgett et al.,
2009; Paulussen-Hoogeboom et al., 2007). As a result, they continue their coercive tactics
and also discipline inconsistently, at times rewarding the child’s noncompliance by giving in
to it. These practices sustain and even increase the child’s irritable, conflict-ridden style
(van Aken et al., 2007; Pesonen et al., 2008).
A parent’s firm but affectionate approach to discipline can help temperamentally difficult children gain in effortful control, managing negative emotion.
In contrast, when parents are positive and sensitive, which helps babies regulate emotion,
difficultness declines by age 2 or 3 (Feldman, Greenbaum, & Yirmiya, 1999). In toddlerhood
and childhood, parental sensitivity, support, clear expectations, and limits foster effortful
control, also reducing the likelihood that difficultness will persist (Cipriano & Stifter, 2010;
Raikes et al., 2007).
Recent evidence indicates that temperamentally difficult children function much worse
than other children when exposed to inept parenting, yet benefit most from good parenting
(Pluess & Belsky, 2011). Using molecular genetic analyses, researchers are investigating
gene–environment interactions (see page 71 in Chapter 2) that explain this finding. In one
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study, 2-year-olds with a chromosome 17 gene that interferes with functioning of the
neurotransmitter serotonin (involved in regulating negative mood) became increasingly
irritable as their mothers’ anxiety about parenting increased (Ivorra et al., 2010). Maternal
anxiety had little impact on toddlers without this genetic marker. In another investigation,
preschoolers with this gene benefited, especially, from positive parenting. With affection
and support, their capacity for effortful control equaled that of agemates with a low-risk
genotype (Kochanska, Philibert, & Barry, 2009).
Cultural values also affect the fit between parenting and child temperament, as research in
China illustrates. In the past, collectivist values, which discourage self-assertion, led Chinese
adults to evaluate shy children positively (Chen, Rubin, & Li, 1995; Chen et al., 1998). But
rapid expansion of a market economy in China, which requires assertiveness and sociability
for success, may be responsible for a change in Chinese parents’ and
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teachers’ attitudes toward childhood shyness (Chen, Wang, & DeSouza, 2006; Yu, 2002). In a
study of Shanghai fourth graders, the association between shyness and adjustment changed
over time. Whereas shyness was positively correlated with teacher-rated competence, peer
acceptance, leadership, and academic achievement in 1990, these relationships weakened in
1998 and reversed in 2002, when they mirrored findings of Western research (see Figure
6.1) (Chen et al., 2005). But in rural areas of China, positive valuing of shyness persists, and
shy children in rural communities continue to enjoy high social status and are well-adjusted
(Chen, Wang, & Cao, 2011). Cultural context makes a difference in whether shy children fare
well or poorly.
An effective match between rearing conditions and child temperament is best accomplished
early, before unfavorable temperament–environment relationships produce
maladjustment. Both difficult and shy children benefit from warm, accepting parenting that
makes firm but reasonable demands for mastering new experiences. The goodness-of-fit
model reminds us that children have unique dispositions that adults must accept. Parents
can neither take full credit for their children’s virtues nor be blamed for all their faults. But
parents can turn an environment that exaggerates a child’s problems into one that builds on
the child’s strengths.
As we will see next, goodness of fit is also at the heart of infant–caregiver attachment. This
first intimate relationship grows out of interaction between parent and baby, to which the
emotional styles of both partners contribute.
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FIGURE 6.1 Changes over time in correlations between shyness and adjustment among Chinese fourth graders.
In 1990, shy Chinese children appeared well-adjusted. But as China’s market economy expanded and valuing of self-assertion and sociability increased, the direction of the correlations shifted. In 2002, shyness was negatively associated with adjustment. These findings are for teacher-rated competence and peer acceptance. Those for leadership (holding offices in student organizations) and academic achievement changed similarly.
(Adapted from Chen et al., 2005.)
ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW How do genetic and environmental factors work together to influence
temperament? Cite several examples from research.
CONNECT Explain how findings on ethnic and gender differences in temperament illustrate
gene–environment correlation, discussed on page 72 in Chapter 2.
APPLY Mandy and Jeff are parents of 2-year-old inhibited Sam and 3-year-old difficult
Maria. Explain the importance of effortful control to Mandy and Jeff, and suggest ways they
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can strengthen it in each of their children.
REFLECT How would you describe your temperament as a young child? Do you think your
temperament has remained stable, or has it changed? What factors might be involved?
Development of Attachment
Attachment is the strong affectionate tie we have with special people in our lives that leads
us to feel pleasure when we interact with them and to be comforted by their nearness in
times of stress. By the second half of the first year, infants have become attached to familiar
people who have responded to their needs.
TAKE A MOMENT… Watch how babies of this age single out their parents for special
attention. When the parent enters the room, the baby breaks into a broad, friendly smile.
When she picks him up, he pats her face, explores her hair, and snuggles against her. When
he feels anxious or afraid, he crawls into her lap and clings closely.
Freud first suggested that the infant’s emotional tie to the mother is the foundation for all
later relationships. Contemporary research indicates that—although the parent–infant bond
is vitally important—later development is influenced not just by early attachment
experiences but also by the continuing quality of the parent–child relationship.
Attachment has also been the subject of intense theoretical debate. Recall that the
psychoanalytic perspective regards feeding as the central context in which caregivers and
babies build this close emotional bond. Behaviorism, too, emphasizes the importance of
feeding, but for different reasons. According to a well-known behaviorist explanation,
infants learn to prefer the mother’s soft caresses, warm smiles, and tender words because
these events are paired with tension relief as she satisfies the baby’s hunger.
Although feeding is an important context for building a close relationship, attachment does
not depend on hunger satisfaction. In the 1950s, a famous experiment showed that rhesus
monkeys reared with terry-cloth and wire-mesh “surrogate
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mothers” clung to the soft terry-cloth substitute, even though the wire-mesh “mother” held
the bottle and infants had to climb onto it to be fed (Harlow & Zimmerman, 1959). Human
infants, too, become attached to family members who seldom feed them, including fathers,
siblings, and grandparents. And toddlers in Western cultures who sleep alone and
experience frequent daytime separations from their parents sometimes develop strong
emotional ties to cuddly objects, such as blankets and teddy bears, that play no role in infant
feeding!
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Baby monkeys reared with “surrogate mothers” preferred to cling to a soft terry-cloth “mother” over a wire-mesh “mother” holding a bottle—evidence that parent–infant attachment is based on more than satisfaction of hunger.
Bowlby’s Ethological Theory
Today, ethological theory of attachment, which recognizes the infant’s emotional tie to the
caregiver as an evolved response that promotes survival, is the most widely accepted view.
John Bowlby (1969), who first applied this idea to the infant–caregiver bond, retained the
psychoanalytic idea that quality of attachment to the caregiver has profound implications
for the child’s feelings of security and capacity to form trusting relationships.
At the same time, Bowlby was inspired by Konrad Lorenz’s studies of imprinting (see
Chapter 1). Bowlby believed that the human infant, like the young of other animal species, is
endowed with a set of built-in behaviors that help keep the parent nearby to protect the
infant from danger and to provide support for exploring and mastering the environment
(Waters & Cummings, 2000). Contact with the parent also ensures that the baby will be fed,
but Bowlby pointed out that feeding is not the basis for attachment. Rather, attachment can
best be understood in an evolutionary context in which survival of the species—through
ensuring both safety and competence—is of utmost importance.
According to Bowlby, the infant’s relationship with the parent begins as a set of innate
signals that call the adult to the baby’s side. Over time, a true affectionate bond forms,
supported by new cognitive and emotional capacities as well as by a history of warm,
sensitive care. Attachment develops in four phases:
1. Preattachment phase (birth to 6 weeks). Built-in signals—grasping, smiling, crying, and
gazing into the adult’s eyes—help bring newborn babies into close contact with other
humans, who comfort them. Babies of this age recognize their own mother’s smell,
voice, and face (see Chapters 3 and 4). But they are not yet attached to her, since they do
not mind being left with an unfamiliar adult.
2. “Attachment-in-the-making” phase (6 weeks to 6–8 months). During this phase, infants
respond differently to a familiar caregiver than to a stranger. For example, at 4 months,
Timmy smiled, laughed, and babbled more freely when interacting with his mother and
quieted more quickly when she picked him up. As infants learn that their own actions
affect the behavior of those around them, they begin to develop a sense of trust—the
expectation that the caregiver will respond when signaled—but they still do not protest
when separated from her.
3. “Clear-cut” attachment phase (6–8 months to 18 months–2 years). Now attachment to
the familiar caregiver is evident. Babies display separation anxiety, becoming upset
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when their trusted caregiver leaves. Like stranger anxiety (see page 186), separation
anxiety does not always occur; it depends on infant temperament and the current
situation. But in many cultures, separation anxiety increases between 6 and 15 months.
Besides protesting the parent’s departure, older infants and toddlers try hard to
maintain her presence. They approach, follow, and climb on her in preference to
others. And they use the familiar caregiver as a secure base from which to explore.
4. Formation of a reciprocal relationship (18 months to 2 years and on). By the end of the
second year, rapid growth in representation and language permits toddlers to
understand some of the factors that influence the parent’s coming and going and to
predict her return. As a result, separation protest declines. Now children negotiate with
the care-giver, using requests and persuasion to alter her goals. For example, at age 2,
Caitlin asked Carolyn and David to read a story before leaving her with a babysitter.
The extra time with her parents, along with a better understanding of where they were
going (“to have dinner with Uncle Charlie”) and when they would be back (“right after
you go to sleep”), helped Caitlin withstand her parents’ absence.
LOOK AND LISTEN
Watch an 8- to 18-month-old at play for 20 to 30 minutes. Describe the baby’s use of the
parent or other familiar caregiver as a secure base from which to explore.
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Because this 2-year-old has the language and representational skills to predict his mother’s return, separation anxiety declines. He accepts his mother’s departure.
According to Bowlby (1980), out of their experiences during these four phases, children
construct an enduring affectionate tie to the caregiver that they can use as a secure base in
the parents’ absence. This image serves as an internal working model, or set of expectations
about the availability of attachment figures and their likelihood of providing support during
times of stress. The internal working model becomes a vital part of personality, serving as a
guide for all future close relationships (Bretherton & Munholland, 2008).
Consistent with these ideas, as early as the second year, toddlers form attachment-related
expectations about parental comfort and support. In one study, securely attached 12- to 16-
month-olds looked longer at a video of an unresponsive caregiver (inconsistent with their
expectations) than a video of a responsive caregiver. Insecurely attached toddlers, in
contrast, did not distinguish between the two (Johnson, Dweck, & Chen, 2007; Johnson et al.,
2010). With age, children continually revise and expand their internal working model as
their cognitive, emotional, and social capacities increase and as they interact with parents
and form other bonds with adults, siblings, and friends.
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Measuring the Security of Attachment
Although all family-reared babies become attached to a familiar caregiver by the second
year, the quality of this relationship varies. Some infants appear relaxed and secure in the
presence of the caregiver; they know they can count on her for protection and support.
Others seem anxious and uncertain.
A widely used laboratory procedure for assessing the quality of attachment between 1 and 2
years of age is the Strange Situation. In designing it, Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues
(1978) reasoned that securely attached infants and toddlers should use the parent as a
secure base from which to explore an unfamiliar playroom. In addition, when the parent
leaves, an unfamiliar adult should be less comforting than the parent. The Strange Situation
takes the baby through eight short episodes in which brief separations from and reunions
with the parent occur (see Table 6.2).
TABLE 6.2 Episodes in the Strange Situation
EPISODE EVENTS ATTACHMENT BEHAVIOR OBSERVED
1 Researcher introduces parent and baby to playroom and then leaves.
2 Parent is seated while baby plays with toys.
Parent as a secure base
3 Stranger enters, is seated, and talks to parent.
Reaction to unfamiliar adult
4 Parent leaves room. Stranger responds to baby and offers comfort if baby is upset.
Separation anxiety
5 Parent returns, greets baby, and offers comfort if necessary. Stranger leaves room.
Reaction to reunion
6 Parent leaves room. Separation anxiety
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EPISODE EVENTS ATTACHMENT BEHAVIOR OBSERVED
7 Stranger enters room and offers comfort.
Ability to be soothed by stranger
8 Parent returns, greets baby, offers comfort if necessary, and tries to reinterest baby in toys.
Reaction to reunion
Note: Episode 1 lasts about 30 seconds; each of the remaining episodes lasts about 3 minutes. Separation episodes are cut short if the baby becomes very upset. Reunion episodes are extended if the baby needs more time to calm down and return to play.
Source: Ainsworth et al., 1978.
Observing infants’ responses to these episodes, researchers identified a secure attachment
pattern and three patterns of insecurity; a few babies cannot be classified (Ainsworth et al.,
1978; Barnett & Vondra, 1999; Main & Solomon, 1990; Thompson, 2006). Although separation
anxiety varies among the groups, the baby’s reunion responses define attachment quality.
TAKE A MOMENT… From the description at the beginning of this chapter, which pattern do
you think Grace displayed after adjusting to her adoptive family?
● Secure attachment. These infants use the parent as a secure base. When separated, they
may or may not cry, but if they do, it is because the parent is absent and they prefer her
to the stranger. When the parent returns, they actively seek contact, and their crying is
reduced immediately. About 60 percent of North American infants in middle-SES
families show this pattern. (In low-SES families, a smaller proportion of babies show the
secure pattern, with higher proportions falling into the insecure patterns.)
● Avoidant attachment. These infants seem unresponsive to the parent when she is
present. When she leaves, they usually are not distressed, and they react to the stranger
in much the same way as to the parent. During reunion, they
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avoid or are slow to greet the parent, and when picked up, they often fail to cling. About
15 percent of North American infants in middle-SES families show this pattern.
● Resistant attachment. Before separation, these infants seek closeness to the parent and
often fail to explore. When the parent leaves, they are usually distressed, and on her
return they combine clinginess with angry, resistive behavior, sometimes hitting and
pushing. Many continue to cry after being picked up and cannot be comforted easily.
About 10 percent of North American infants in middle-SES families show this pattern.
● Disorganized/disoriented attachment. This pattern reflects the greatest insecurity. At
reunion, these infants show confused, contradictory behaviors—for example, looking
away while the parent is holding them or approaching the parent with flat, depressed
emotion. Most display a dazed facial expression, and a few cry out unexpectedly after
having calmed down or display odd, frozen postures. About 15 percent of North
American infants in middle-SES families show this pattern.
An alternative method, the Attachment Q-Sort, suitable for children between 1 and 4 years,
depends on home observation (Waters et al., 1995). Either the parent or a highly trained
observer sorts 90 behaviors (“Child greets mother with a big smile when she enters the
room,” “If mother moves very far, child follows along”) into nine categories ranging from
“highly descriptive” to “not at all descriptive” of the child. Then a score, ranging from high
to low in security, is computed.
Because the Q-Sort taps a wider array of attachment-related behaviors than the Strange
Situation, it may better reflect the parent–infant relationship in everyday life. However, the
Q-Sort method is time-consuming, requiring a nonparent informant to spend several hours
observing the child before sorting the descriptors, and it does not differentiate between
types of insecurity. The Q-Sort responses of expert observers correspond well with babies’
secure-base behavior in the Strange Situation, but parents’ Q-Sorts do not (van IJzendoorn et
al., 2004). Parents of insecure children, especially, may have difficulty accurately reporting
their child’s attachment behaviors.
Stability of Attachment
Research on the stability of attachment patterns between 1 and 2 years of age yields a wide
range of findings (Thompson, 2000, 2006). A close look at which babies stay the same and
which ones change yields a more consistent picture. Quality of attachment is usually secure
and stable for middle-SES babies experiencing favorable life conditions. And infants who
move from insecurity to security typically have well-adjusted mothers with positive family
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and friendship ties. Perhaps many became parents before they were psychologically ready
but, with social support, grew into the role.
In contrast, in low-SES families with many daily stresses and little social support,
attachment generally moves away from security or changes from one insecure pattern to
another (Belsky et al., 1996; Fish, 2004; Levendosky et al., 2011; Vondra et al., 2001). In one
long-term follow-up of a poverty-stricken sample, many securely attached infants ended up
insecure when reassessed in early adulthood. Child maltreatment, maternal depression, and
poor family functioning in adolescence distinguished these young people from the few who
stayed securely attached (Weinfield, Sroufe, & Egeland, 2000; Weinfield, Whaley, & Egeland,
2004).
These findings indicate that securely attached babies more often maintain their attachment
status than insecure babies. The exception is disorganized/disoriented attachment, an
insecure pattern that is either highly stable or that consistently predicts insecurity of
another type in adolescence and early adulthood (Aikens, Howes, & Hamilton, 2009; Hesse &
Main, 2000; Sroufe et al., 2005; Weinfield, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004). As you will soon see,
many disorganized/disoriented infants and children experience extremely negative
caregiving, which may disrupt emotional self-regulation so severely that confused,
ambivalent feelings toward parents often persist.
Cultural Variations
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FIGURE 6.2 A cross-cultural comparison of infants’ reactions in the Strange Situation.
A high percentage of German babies seem avoidantly attached, whereas a substantial number of Japanese infants appear resistantly attached. Note that these responses may not reflect true insecurity. Instead, they are probably due to cultural differences in child-rearing practices.
(Adapted from van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988; van IJzendoorn & Sagi-Schwartz, 2008.)
Cross-cultural evidence indicates that attachment patterns may have to be interpreted
differently in certain cultures. For example, as Figure 6.2 reveals, German infants show
considerably more avoidant attachment than American babies do.
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But German parents value independence and encourage their infants to be nonclingy
(Grossmann et al., 1985). In contrast, a study of infants of the Dogon people of Mali, Africa,
revealed that none showed avoidant attachment to their mothers (True, Pisani, & Oumar,
2001). Even when grandmothers are primary caregivers (as they are with firstborn sons),
Dogon mothers remain available, holding their babies close and nursing promptly in
response to hunger and distress.
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Dogon mothers of Mali, West Africa, stay close to their babies and respond promptly and gently to infant hunger and distress. With their mothers consistently available, none of the Dogon babies show avoidant attachment.
Japanese infants, as well, rarely show avoidant attachment (refer again to Figure 6.2).
Rather, many are resistantly attached, but this reaction may not represent true insecurity.
Japanese mothers rarely leave their babies in others’ care, so the Strange Situation probably
induces greater stress in them than in infants who experience frequent maternal
separations (Takahashi, 1990). Also, Japanese parents view the attention seeking that is part
of resistant attachment as a normal indicator of infants’ efforts to satisfy dependency and
security needs (Rothbaum et al., 2007). Despite such cultural variations, the secure pattern is
still the most common attachment quality in all societies studied (van IJzendoorn & Sagi-
Schwartz, 2008).
Factors That Affect Attachment Security
What factors might influence attachment security? Researchers have looked closely at four
important influences: (1) early availability of a consistent caregiver, (2) quality of
caregiving, (3) the baby’s characteristics, and (4) family context, including parents’ internal
working models.
Early Availability of a Consistent Caregiver.
What happens when a baby does not have the opportunity to establish a close tie to a
caregiver? To find out, researchers followed the development of infants in a British
institution with a good caregiver–child ratio and a rich selection of books and toys.
However, staff turnover was so rapid that the average child had 50 caregivers by age 4½!
Many of these children became “late adoptees” who were placed in homes after age 4. Most
developed deep ties with their adoptive parents, indicating that a first attachment can
develop as late as 4 to 6 years of age (Hodges & Tizard, 1989; Tizard & Rees, 1975). But these
children were more likely to display attachment difficulties, including an excessive desire
for adult attention, “overfriendliness” to unfamiliar adults and peers, failure to check back
with the parent in anxiety-arousing situations, and few friendships.
Children who spent their first year or more in deprived Eastern European orphanages—
though also able to bond with their adoptive parents—show elevated rates of attachment
insecurity (van den Dries et al., 2009; Smyke et al., 2010). And they, too, are at high risk for
emotional and social difficulties. Whereas many are indiscriminately friendly, others are
sad, anxious, and withdrawn. These symptoms typically persist and are associated with
wide-ranging mental health problems in middle childhood and adolescence, including
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cognitive impairments, inattention and hyperactivity, depression, and either social
avoidance or aggressive behavior (Kreppner et al., 2007, 2010; Rutter et al., 2007, 2010;
Zeanah, 2000).
Furthermore, as early as 7 months, institutionalized children show reduced ERP brain
waves in response to facial expressions of emotion and have trouble discriminating such
expressions—outcomes that suggest disrupted formation of neural structures involved in
“reading” emotions (Parker et al., 2005). Consistent with these findings, in adopted children
with longer institutional stays, the volume of the amygdala (see page 192) is atypically large
(Tottenham et al., 2011). The larger the amygdala, the worse adopted children perform on
tasks assessing understanding of emotion and the poorer their emotional self-regulation.
Overall, the evidence indicates that fully normal emotional development depends on
establishing a close tie with a caregiver early in life.
Quality of Caregiving.
Dozens of studies report that sensitive caregiving—responding promptly, consistently, and
appropriately to infants and holding them tenderly and carefully—is moderately related to
attachment security in diverse cultures and SES groups (Belsky & Fearon, 2008; De Wolff &
van IJzendoorn, 1997; van IJzendoorn et al., 2004). In contrast, insecurely attached infants
tend to have mothers who engage in less physical contact, handle them awkwardly or
“routinely,” and are sometimes resentful and rejecting, particularly in response to infant
distress (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Isabella, 1993; McElwain & Booth-LaForce, 2006; Pederson &
Moran, 1996).
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This mother and baby engage in a sensitively tuned form of communication called interactional synchrony, in which they match emotional states, especially positive ones. Among Western infants, this style of communication predicts secure attachment.
Also, in studies of Western babies, a special form of communication called interactional
synchrony separates the experiences of secure from insecure babies. It is best described as a
sensitively tuned “emotional dance,” in which the caregiver responds to infant signals in a
well-timed, rhythmic, appropriate fashion. In addition, both partners match emotional
states, especially the positive ones (Bigelow et al., 2010; Isabella & Belsky, 1991; Nievar &
Becker, 2008). Earlier we saw that sensitive face-to-face play, in which interactional
synchrony occurs, also helps infants regulate emotion.
Cultures, however, vary in their view of sensitivity toward infants. Among the Gusii people
of Kenya, for example, mothers rarely cuddle, hug, or interact playfully with their babies,
although they are very responsive to their infants’ needs. Yet most Gusii infants appear
securely attached (LeVine et al., 1994). This suggests that security depends on attentive
caregiving, not necessarily on moment-by-moment contingent interaction. Puerto Rican
mothers, who highly value obedience and socially appropriate behavior, often physically
direct and limit their babies’ actions—a caregiving style linked to attachment security in
Puerto Rican culture (Carlson & Harwood, 2003). Yet in many Western cultures, such
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physical control and restriction of exploration predict insecurity (Belsky & Fearon, 2008;
Whipple, Bernier, & Mageau, 2011).
Compared with securely attached infants, avoidant babies tend to receive overstimulating,
intrusive care. Their mothers might, for example, talk energetically to them while they are
looking away or falling asleep. By avoiding the mother, these infants appear to be escaping
from overwhelming interaction. Resistant infants often experience inconsistent care. Their
mothers are unresponsive to infant signals. Yet when the baby begins to explore, these
mothers interfere, shifting the infant’s attention back to themselves. As a result, the baby is
overly dependent as well as angry at the mother’s lack of involvement (Cassidy & Berlin,
1994; Isabella & Belsky, 1991).
Highly inadequate caregiving is a powerful predictor of disruptions in attachment. Child
abuse and neglect (topics we will consider in Chapter 8) are associated with all three forms
of attachment insecurity. Among maltreated infants, disorganized/disoriented attachment is
especially high (van IJzendoorn, Schuengel, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1999). Persistently
depressed mothers, mothers with very low marital satisfaction, and parents suffering from
a traumatic event, such as serious illness or loss of a loved one, also tend to promote the
uncertain behaviors of this pattern (Campbell et al., 2004; Madigan et al., 2006; Moss et al.,
2005). And some mothers of disorganized/disoriented infants engage in frightening,
contradictory, and unpleasant behaviors, such as looking scared, teasing the baby, holding
the baby stiffly at a distance, roughly pulling the baby by the arm, or seeking reassurance
from the upset child (Abrams, Rifkin, & Hesse, 2006; Lyons-Ruth, Bronfman, & Parsons, 1999;
Moran et al., 2008).
Infant Characteristics.
Because attachment is the result of a relationship that builds between two partners, infant
characteristics should affect how easily it is established. In Chapter 3 we saw that
prematurity, birth complications, and newborn illness make caregiving more taxing. In
families under stress, these difficulties are linked to attachment insecurity (Poehlmann &
Fiese, 2001). But at-risk newborns whose parents have the time and patience to care for
them fare quite well in attachment security (Brisch et al., 2005; Cox, Hopkins, & Hans, 2000).
Babies whose temperament is emotionally reactive and difficult are more likely to develop
later insecure attachments (van IJzendoorn et al., 2004; Vaughn, Bost, & van IJzendoorn,
2008). Again, however, caregiving is involved. In a study extending from birth to age 2,
difficult infants more often had highly anxious mothers—a combination that, by the second
year, often resulted in a “disharmonious relationship” characterized by both maternal
insensitivity and attachment insecurity (Symons, 2001).
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Other research focusing on disorganized/disoriented attachment has uncovered gene–
environment interactions (Gervai, 2009). In one investigation, mothers’ experience of
unresolved loss of a loved one or other trauma was associated with attachment
disorganization only in infants with a chromosome-11 gene linked to deficient self-
regulation (van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2006). Babies with this genetic
marker, who face special challenges in managing intense emotion, were more negatively
affected by maternal adjustment problems.
If children’s temperaments determined attachment security, we would expect attachment,
like temperament, to be at
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least moderately heritable. Yet the heritability of attachment is virtually nil (Roisman &
Fraley, 2008). In fact, about two-thirds of siblings establish similar attachment patterns with
their parent, although the siblings often differ in temperament (Cole, 2006; Dozier et al.,
2001). This suggests that most parents try to adjust their caregiving to each child’s individual
needs.
Why don’t infant characteristics show strong relationships with attachment quality? Their
influence probably depends on goodness of fit. From this perspective, many child attributes
can lead to secure attachment as long as caregivers sensitively adjust their behavior to fit
the baby’s needs (Seifer & Schiller, 1995). Interventions that teach parents to interact with
difficult-to-care-for infants are highly successful in enhancing both sensitive care and
attachment security (Velderman et al., 2006). But when parents’ capacity is strained—by
their own personalities or by stressful living conditions—then infants with illnesses,
disabilities, and difficult temperaments are at risk for attachment problems.
Family Circumstances.
Shortly after Timmy’s birth, his parents divorced and his father moved to a distant city.
Anxious and distracted, Vanessa placed 1-month-old Timmy in Ginette’s child-care home
and began working 50-hour weeks to make ends meet. On days Vanessa stayed late at the
office, a babysitter picked Timmy up, gave him dinner, and put him to bed. Once or twice a
week, Vanessa went to get Timmy from child care. As he neared his first birthday, Vanessa
noticed that unlike the other children, who reached out, crawled, or ran to their parents,
Timmy ignored her.
Timmy’s behavior reflects a repeated finding: Job loss, a failing marriage, and financial
difficulties can undermine attachment by interfering with parental sensitivity. These
stressors can also affect babies’ sense of security directly, by altering the emotional climate
of the family (for example, exposing them to angry adult interactions) or by disrupting
familiar daily routines (Finger et al., 2009; Raikes & Thompson, 2005). (See the Social Issues:
Health box on pages 202–203 to find out how child care affects early emotional
development.) Social support fosters attachment security by reducing parental stress and
improving the quality of parent–child communication (Belsky & Fearon, 2002b; Moss et al.,
2005). Ginette’s sensitivity was helpful, as was the parenting advice Vanessa received from
Ben, a psychologist. As Timmy turned 2, his relationship with his mother seemed warmer.
Parents’ Internal Working Models.
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Parents bring to the family context their own history of attachment experiences, from
which they construct internal working models that they apply to the bonds they establish
with their children. Monica, who recalled her mother as tense and preoccupied, expressed
regret that they had not had a closer relationship. Is her image of parenthood likely to affect
Grace’s attachment security?
To assess parents’ internal working models, researchers ask them to evaluate childhood
memories of attachment experiences (Main & Goldwyn, 1998). Parents who discuss their
childhoods with objectivity and balance, regardless of whether their experiences were
positive or negative, tend to have securely attached children. In contrast, parents who
dismiss the importance of early relationships or describe them in angry, confused ways
usually have insecurely attached children and are less warm, sensitive, and encouraging of
learning and mastery (Behrens, Hesse, & Main, 2007; Coyl, Newland, & Freeman, 2010;
Steele, Steele, & Fonagy, 1996; van IJzendoorn, 1995).
But we must not assume any direct transfer of parents’ childhood experiences to quality of
attachment with their own children. Internal working models are reconstructed memories
affected by many factors, including relationship experiences over the life course,
personality, and current life satisfaction. Longitudinal research reveals that negative life
events can weaken the link between an individual’s own attachment security in infancy and
a secure internal working model in adulthood. And insecurely attached babies who become
adults with insecure internal working models often have lives that, based on self-reports in
adulthood, are filled with family crises (Waters et al., 2000; Weinfield, Sroufe, & Egeland,
2000).
In sum, our early rearing experiences do not destine us to become either sensitive or
insensitive parents. Rather, the way we view our childhoods—our ability to come to terms
with negative events, to integrate new information into our working models, and to look
back on our own parents in an understanding, forgiving way—is far more influential in
how we rear our children than the actual history of care we received (Bretherton &
Munholland, 2008).
Multiple Attachments
Babies develop attachments to a variety of familiar people—not just mothers but also
fathers, grandparents, siblings, and professional caregivers. Although Bowlby (1969)
believed that infants are predisposed to direct their attachment behaviors to a single special
person, especially when they are distressed, his theory allowed for these multiple
attachments.
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Fathers.
When anxious or unhappy, most babies prefer to be comforted by their mother. But this
preference typically declines over the second year. And when babies are not distressed,
they approach, vocalize to, and smile equally often at both parents (Bornstein, 2006; Parke,
2002).
Fathers’ sensitive caregiving and interactional synchrony with infants, like mothers’, predict
attachment security (Lundy, 2003; van IJzendoorn et al., 2004). But as infancy progresses,
mothers and fathers in many cultures, including Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Israel,
Italy, Japan, and the United States, tend to interact differently with their babies. Mothers
devote more time to physical care and expressing affection, fathers to playful interaction
(Freeman & Newland, 2010; Roopnarine et al., 1990).
Mothers and fathers also play differently. Mothers more often provide toys, talk to infants,
and gently play conventional
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games like pat-a-cake and peekaboo. In contrast, fathers—especially with their infant sons—
tend to engage in highly stimulating physical play with bursts of excitement that increase as
play progresses (Feldman, 2003). As long as fathers are also sensitive, this stimulating,
startling play style helps babies regulate emotion in intensely arousing situations, including
novel physical environments and play with peers (Cabrera et al., 2007; Hazen et al., 2010;
Paquette, 2004). In a German study, fathers’ sensitive, challenging play with preschoolers
predicted favorable emotional and social adjustment from kindergarten to early adulthood
(Grossmann et al., 2008).
Social Issues: Health Does Child Care in Infancy Threaten Attachment Security and Later Adjustment?
Are infants who experience daily separation from their employed parents and early
placement in child care at risk for attachment insecurity and development problems? Some
researchers think so, but others disagree. Let’s look closely at the evidence.
Attachment Quality
Some studies suggest that babies placed in full-time child care before 12 months of age are
more likely to display insecure attachment in the Strange Situation (Belsky, 2001, 2005). But
the best current evidence—from the National Institute of Child Health and Development
(NICHD) Study of Early Child Care, the largest longitudinal investigation to date, including
more than 1,300 infants and their families—confirms that nonparental care by itself does
not affect attachment quality (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1997, 2001).
Rather, the relationship between child care and emotional well-being depends on both
family and child-care experiences.
Family Circumstances
We have seen that family conditions affect children’s attachment security and later
adjustment. Findings of the NICHD Study confirmed that parenting quality, assessed using a
combination of maternal sensitivity and HOME scores (see page 171 in Chapter 5), exerted a
more powerful impact on children’s adjustment than did exposure to child care (NICHD
Early Childhood Research Network, 1998; Watamura et al., 2011).
For employed parents, balancing work and caregiving can be stressful. Mothers who are
fatigued and anxious because they feel overloaded by work and family pressures may
respond less sensitively to their babies, thereby risking the infant’s security. And as
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paternal involvement in caregiving has risen (see page 203), many more U.S. fathers in
dual-earner families also report work–family life conflict (Galinsky, Aumann, & Bond,
2009).
Quality and Extent of Child Care
Nevertheless, poor-quality child care may contribute to a higher rate of insecure
attachment. In the NICHD Study, when babies were exposed to combined home and child-
care risk factors—insensitive caregiving at home along with insensitive caregiving in child
care, long hours in child care, or more than one child-care arrangement—the rate of
attachment insecurity increased. Overall, mother–child interaction was more favorable
when children attended higher-quality child care and also spent fewer hours in child care
(NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1997, 1999).
Furthermore, when these children reached age 3, a history of higher-quality child care
predicted better social skills (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2002b). However,
at age 4½ to 5, children averaging more than 30 child-care hours per week displayed more
behavior problems, especially defiance, disobedience, and aggression. For those who had
been in child-care centers as opposed to family child-care homes, this outcome persisted
through elementary school (Belsky et al., 2007; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network,
2003a, 2006).
But these findings do not necessarily mean that child care causes behavior problems.
Rather, heavy exposure to substandard care, which is widespread in the United States, may
promote these difficulties, especially when combined with family risk factors. A closer look
at the NICHD participants during the preschool years revealed that those in both poor-
quality home and child-care environments fared worst in social skills and problem
behaviors, whereas those in both high-quality home and child-child care environments
fared best. In between were preschoolers in high-quality child care but poor-quality homes
(Watamura et al., 2011). These children benefited from the protective influence of high-
quality child care.
Evidence from other industrialized nations confirms that full-time child care need not
harm children’s development. In Australia, for example, infants who spend full days in
government-funded, high-quality child-care centers have a higher rate of secure
attachment than infants informally cared for by relatives, friends, or babysitters. And
amount of time spent in child care is unrelated to Australian children’s behavior problems
(Love et al., 2003).
Still, some children may be particularly stressed by long child-care hours. Many infants,
toddlers, and preschoolers attending child-care centers for full days show a mild increase
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in saliva concentrations of cortisol across the day—a pattern that does not occur on days
they spend at home. In one study, children rated as highly fearful by their caregivers
experienced an especially sharp increase in cortisol levels (Watamura et al., 2003).
Inhibited children may find the constant company of large numbers of peers particularly
stressful.
Conclusions
Taken together, research suggests that some infants may be at risk for attachment
insecurity and later adjustment problems due to inadequate child care, long hours in such
care, and the joint pressures their parents experience from full-time employment and
parenthood. But it is inappropriate to use these findings to justify a reduction in child-care
services. When family incomes are limited or mothers who want to work are forced to stay
at home, children’s emotional security is not promoted.
Instead, it makes sense to increase the availability of high-quality child care and to relieve
work–family-life conflict by providing parents with paid employment leave (see page 105 in
Chapter 3) and opportunities for part-time work. In the NICHD study, part-time (as opposed
to full-time) employment during the baby’s first year was associated with greater maternal
sensitivity and a higher-quality home environment, which yielded more favorable
development in early childhood (Brooks-Gunn, Han, & Waldfogel, 2010).
Finally, for child care to foster attachment security, the professional caregiver’s relationship
with the baby is vital. When caregiver–child ratios are generous, group sizes are small, and
caregivers are educated about child development and child rearing, caregivers’ interactions
are more positive and children develop more favorably (McCartney et al., 2007; NICHD
Early Child Care Research Network, 2000b, 2002a, 2006). Child care with these
characteristics can become part of an ecological system that relieves parental and child
stress, thereby promoting healthy attachment and development.
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High-quality child care, with generous caregiver–child ratios, small group sizes, and knowledgeable caregivers, can be part of a system that promotes all aspects of development, including attachment security.
Play is a vital context in which fathers build secure attachments (Newland, Coyl, & Freeman,
2008). It may be especially influential in cultures such as Japan, where long work hours
prevent most fathers from sharing in infant caregiving (Hewlett, 2004). In many Western
nations, however, a strict division of parental roles—mother as caregiver, father as
playmate—has changed over the past several decades in response to women’s workforce
participation and to cultural valuing of gender equality.
LOOK AND LISTEN
Observe parents at play with infants at home or a family gathering. Describe both
similarities and differences in mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors. Are your observations
consistent with research findings?
A recent U.S. national survey of several thousand employed workers indicated that U.S.
fathers under age 29 devote about 85 percent as much time to children as mothers do—on
average, just over 4 hours per workday, nearly double the hours young fathers reported
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three decades ago. Although fathers age 29 to 42 spend somewhat less time with children,
their involvement has also increased substantially (see Figure 6.3). Today, nearly one-third
of U.S. employed women say that their spouse or partner shares equally in or takes most
responsibility for child-care tasks (Galinsky, Aumann, & Bond, 2009). Paternal availability to
children is fairly similar across SES and ethnic groups, with one exception: Hispanic fathers
spend more time engaged, probably because of the particularly high value that Hispanic
cultures place on family involvement (Cabrera & García Coll, 2004; Parke et al., 2004).
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FIGURE 6.3 Average amount of time per workday U.S. employed mothers and fathers reported spending with their children (age 12 and younger) in 1977 and
2008.
In national surveys of several thousand employed parents, mothers’ time with children remained fairly stable from 1977 to 2008; fathers’ time increased substantially.
(Adapted from Galinsky, Aumann, & Bond, 2009.)
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Cultural Influences The Powerful Role of Paternal Warmth in Development
In studies of many societies and ethnic groups around the world, researchers coded
paternal expressions of love and nurturance—evident in such behaviors as cuddling,
hugging, comforting, playing, verbally expressing love, and praising the child’s behavior.
Fathers’ affectionate involvement predicted later cognitive, emotional, and social
competence as strongly as did mothers’ warmth—and occasionally more strongly (Rohner
& Veneziano, 2001; Veneziano, 2003). And in Western cultures, paternal warmth and secure
attachment protected children against a wide range of difficulties, including childhood
emotional and behavior problems and adolescent substance abuse and delinquency (Grant
et al., 2000; Michiels et al., 2010; Nelson & Coyne, 2009; Tacon & Caldera, 2001).
Fathers who devote little time to physical caregiving express warmth through play. In a
German study, fathers’ play sensitivity—accepting toddlers’ play initiatives, adapting play
behaviors to toddlers’ capacities, and responding appropriately to toddlers’ expressions of
emotion—predicted children’s secure internal working models of attachment during
middle childhood and adolescence (Grossmann et al., 2002). Through play, fathers seemed
to transfer to young children a sense of confidence about parental support, which may
strengthen their capacity to master many later challenges.
What factors promote paternal warmth? Cross-cultural research reveals a consistent
association between the amount of time fathers spend near infants and toddlers and their
expressions of caring and affection (Rohner & Veneziano, 2001). Consider the Aka hunters
and gatherers of Central Africa, where fathers spend more time in physical proximity to
their babies than in any other known society. Aka fathers are within arm’s reach of infants
more than half the day, and they pick up, cuddle, and play with their babies at least five
times as often as fathers in other hunting-and-gathering societies. Why are Aka fathers so
involved? The bond between Aka husband and wife is unusually cooperative and intimate.
Throughout the day, couples share hunting, food preparation, and social and leisure
activities. The more time Aka parents are together, the greater the father’s loving
interaction with his baby (Hewlett, 1992).
In Western cultures as well, happily married fathers whose partners cooperate with them
in parenting spend more time with and interact more effectively with infants. In contrast,
marital dissatisfaction is associated with insensitive paternal care (Brown et al., 2010;
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Lundy, 2002; Sevigny & Loutzenhiser, 2010). Clearly, fathers’ warm relationships with their
partners and their babies are closely linked. Evidence for the power of paternal affection,
reported in virtually every culture and ethnic group studied, is reason to encourage and
support fathers in nurturing care of young children.
In diverse cultures, fathers’ warmth predicts long-term favorable cognitive, emotional, and social development.
Mothers in dual-earner families tend to engage in more playful stimulation of their babies
than mothers who are at home full-time (Cox et al., 1992). But fathers who are primary
caregivers retain their arousing play style (Lamb & Oppenheim, 1989). These highly
involved fathers typically are less gender-stereotyped in their beliefs; have sympathetic,
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friendly personalities; often had fathers who were more involved in rearing them; and
regard parenthood as an especially enriching experience (Cabrera et al., 2000; Levy-Shiff &
Israelashvili, 1988).
Fathers’ involvement with babies unfolds within a complex system of family attitudes and
relationships. A warm marital bond promotes both parents’ sensitivity and involvement
and children’s attachment security, but it is particularly important for fathers (Brown et al.,
2010; Lamb & Lewis, 2004). See the Cultural Influences box above for cross-cultural
evidence documenting this conclusion—and also highlighting the powerful role of paternal
warmth in children’s development.
Siblings.
Despite declines in family size, 80 percent of North American and European children grow
up with at least one sibling (Dunn, 2004). The arrival of a new baby is a difficult experience
for most preschoolers, who often become demanding, clingy, and deliberately naughty for a
time. Attachment security also declines, especially for children over age 2 (old
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enough to feel threatened and displaced) and for those with mothers under stress (Baydar,
Greek, & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Teti et al., 1996).
Applying What We Know Encouraging Affectionate Ties Between Infants and Their Preschool Siblings
Suggestion Description
Spend extra time with the older child.
To minimize the older child’s feelings of being deprived of affection and attention, set aside time to spend with her. Fathers can be especially helpful, planning special outings with the preschooler and taking over care of the baby so the mother can be with the older child.
Handle sibling misbehavior with patience.
Respond patiently to the older sibling’s misbehavior and demands for attention, recognizing that these reactions are temporary. Give the preschooler opportunities to feel proud of being more grown-up than the baby. For example, encourage the older child to assist with feeding, bathing, dressing, and offering toys, and show appreciation for these efforts.
Discuss the baby’s wants and needs.
By helping the older sibling understand the baby’s point of view, parents can promote friendly, considerate behavior. Say, for example, “He’s so little that he just can’t wait to be fed,” or “He’s trying to reach his rattle, and he can’t.”
Express positive emotion toward your partner and engage in effective coparenting.
When parents mutually support each other’s parenting behavior, their good communication helps the older sibling cope adaptively with jealousy and conflict.
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Yet resentment is only one feature of a rich emotional relationship that soon develops
between siblings. Older children also show affection and concern—kissing and patting the
baby and calling out, “Mom, he needs you,” when the infant cries. By the end of the first
year, babies usually spend much time with older siblings and are comforted by the presence
of a preschool-age brother or sister during short parental absences. Throughout childhood,
children continue to treat older siblings as attachment figures, turning to them for comfort
in stressful situations when parents are unavailable (Seibert & Kerns, 2009).
Nevertheless, individual differences in sibling relationships emerge soon after the new
baby’s arrival. Certain temperamental traits—high emotional reactivity or activity level—
increase the chances of sibling conflict (Brody, Stoneman, & McCoy, 1994; Dunn, 1994). And
maternal warmth toward both children is related to positive sibling interaction and to
preschoolers’ support of a distressed younger sibling (Volling, 2001; Volling & Belsky, 1992).
In contrast, maternal harshness and lack of involvement are linked to antagonistic sibling
relationships (Howe, Aquan-Assee, & Bukowski, 2001).
Finally, a good marriage and effective coparenting are linked to preschool siblings’ capacity
to cope adaptively with jealousy and conflict (Volling, McElwain, & Miller, 2002). Perhaps
good communication between parents serves as a model of effective problem solving. It
may also foster a generally happy family environment, giving children less reason to feel
jealous.
Refer to Applying What We Know above for ways to promote positive sibling relationships
between babies and preschoolers. Siblings offer a rich social context in which young
children learn and practice a wide range of skills, including affectionate caring, conflict
resolution, and control of hostile and envious feelings.
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The arrival of a baby brother or sister is a difficult experience for most preschoolers. Maternal warmth toward both children assures the older sibling of continuing parental love and is related to positive sibling interaction.
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Attachment and Later Development
According to psychoanalytic and ethological theories, the inner feelings of affection and
security that result from a healthy attachment relationship support all aspects of
psychological development. Consistent with this view, an extended longitudinal study found
that preschoolers who had been securely attached as babies were rated by their teachers as
higher in self-esteem, social skills, and empathy than were their insecurely attached
counterparts, who displayed more behavior problems. When studied again at age 11 in
summer camp, children who had been secure infants continued to be more socially
competent, as judged by camp counselors. And as these well-functioning school-age children
became adolescents and young adults, they continued to benefit from more supportive
social networks, formed more stable and gratifying romantic relationships, and attained
higher levels of education (Elicker, Englund, & Sroufe, 1992; Sroufe, 2002; Sroufe et al.,
2005).
For some researchers, these findings indicate that secure attachment in infancy causes
improved cognitive, emotional, and social competence in later years. Yet contrary evidence
exists. In other longitudinal studies, secure infants generally fared better than insecure
infants, but not always (Fearon et al., 2010; McCartney et al., 2004; Schneider, Atkinson, &
Tardif, 2001; Stams, Juffer, & van IJzendoorn, 2002).
What accounts for this inconsistency? Mounting evidence indicates that continuity of
caregiving determines whether attachment security is linked to later development (Lamb et
al., 1985; Thompson, 2006). Children whose parents respond sensitively not just in infancy
but also in later years are likely to develop favorably. In contrast, children of parents who
react insensitively or who, over a long period, are exposed to a negative family climate tend
to establish lasting patterns of avoidant, resistant, or disorganized behavior and are at
greater risk for developmental difficulties.
A close look at the relationship between parenting and children’s adjustment supports this
interpretation. Disorganized/disoriented attachment, a pattern associated with serious
parental psychological problems and highly maladaptive caregiving, is strongly linked to
both internalizing and externalizing difficulties in childhood (Lyons-Ruth, Easterbrooks, &
Cibelli, 1997; Moss et al., 2006). And when a large sample of children were tracked from ages
1 to 3 years, those experiencing secure attachment followed by sensitive parenting scored
highest in cognitive, emotional, and social outcomes. Those experiencing insecure
attachment followed by parental insensitivity scored lowest, while those with mixed
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histories of attachment and maternal sensitivity scored in between (Belsky & Fearon,
2002a).
Although a secure attachment in infancy does not guarantee good parenting, it does launch
the parent–child relationship on a positive path. An early warm, positive parent–child tie,
sustained over time, predicts a more confident and complex self-concept, more advanced
emotional understanding, more effective social skills, a stronger sense of moral
responsibility, and higher motivation to achieve in school (Thompson, 2006, 2008). But the
effects of early attachment security are conditional—dependent on the quality of the baby’s
future relationships. Finally, as we will see again in future chapters, attachment is just one
of the complex influences on children’s psychological development.
ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW What factors explain stability in attachment pattern for some children and change
for others? Are these factors also involved in the link between attachment in infancy and
later development? Explain.
CONNECT List the diverse factors that affect the parent–infant child bond, and discuss how
research confirms the role of each level of ecological systems theory in attachment security.
APPLY What attachment pattern did Timmy display when Vanessa arrived home from
work, and what factors probably contributed to it?
REFLECT How would you characterize your internal working model? What factors, in
addition to your relationship with your parents, might have influenced it?
Self-Development
Infancy is a rich formative period for the development of both physical and social
understanding. In Chapter 5, you learned that infants develop an appreciation of the
permanence of objects. In this chapter, we have seen that over the first year, infants
recognize and respond appropriately to others’ emotions and distinguish familiar from
unfamiliar people. That both objects and people achieve an independent, stable existence
for the infant implies that knowledge of the self as a separate, permanent entity is also
emerging.
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Self-Awareness
When Carolyn held Caitlin in front of a mirror, as early as the first few months Caitlin
smiled and returned friendly behaviors to her image. At what age did she realize that the
charming baby gazing and smiling back was herself?
Beginnings of Self-Awareness.
At birth, infants sense that they are distinct from their surroundings. For example,
newborns display a stronger rooting reflex in response to external stimulation (an adult’s
finger touching their cheek) than to self-stimulation (their own hand contacting their cheek)
(Rochat & Hespos, 1997). Newborns’ remarkable capacity for intermodal perception (see
page 145 in Chapter 4) supports the beginnings of self-awareness (Rochat, 2003). As they feel
their own touch, feel and watch their limbs move, and feel and hear
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themselves cry, babies experience intermodal matches that differentiate their own body
from surrounding bodies and objects.
Over the first few months, infants distinguish their own visual image from other stimuli, but
their self-awareness is limited—expressed only in perception and action. When shown two
side-by-side video images of their kicking legs, one from their own perspective (camera
behind the baby) and one from an observer’s perspective (camera in front of the baby), 3-
month-olds looked longer at the observer’s view (Rochat, 1998). By 4 months, infants look
and smile more at video images of others than at video images of themselves, indicating that
they treat another person (as opposed to the self) as a social partner (Rochat & Striano,
2002).
Self-Recognition.
During the second year, toddlers become consciously aware of the self’s physical features.
In several studies, 9- to 28-month-olds were placed in front of a mirror. Then, under the
pretext of wiping the baby’s face, each mother rubbed red dye on her child’s nose or
forehead. Younger babies typically touched the mirror as if the red mark had nothing to do
with themselves. But those older than 20 months touched or rubbed their noses or
foreheads, indicating awareness of their unique appearance (Bard et al., 2006; Lewis &
Brooks-Gunn, 1979).
Around age 2, self-recognition—identification of the self as a physically unique being—is
well under way. Children point to themselves in photos and refer to themselves by name or
with a personal pronoun (“I” or “me”) (Lewis & Ramsay, 2004). Soon children identify
themselves in images with less detail and fidelity than mirrors. Around age 2½, most reach
for a sticker surreptitiously placed on top of their heads when shown themselves in a live
video, and around age 3 most recognize their own shadow (Cameron & Gallup, 1988;
Suddendorf, Simcock, & Nielsen, 2007).
Nevertheless, toddlers make scale errors, attempting to do things that their body size makes
impossible. For example, they will try to put on dolls’ clothes, sit in a doll-sized chair, or
walk through a doorway too narrow for them to pass through (Brownell, Zerwas, & Ramani,
2007; DeLoache, Uttal, & Rosengren, 2004). Possibly, toddlers lack an accurate understanding
of their own body dimensions. Alternatively, they may simply be exploring the
consequences of squeezing into restricted spaces, as they are far less likely to try when the
risk of harming themselves is high (the too-narrow doorway is next to a ledge where they
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could fall) (Franchak & Adolph, 2012). Scale errors decline around age 2, but many 2½-year-
olds still make them.
What experiences contribute to gains in self-awareness? During the first year, as infants act
on the environment, they probably notice effects that help them sort out self, other people,
and objects (Nadel, Prepin, & Okanda, 2005; Rochat, 2001). For example, batting a mobile
and seeing it swing in a pattern different from the infant’s own actions informs the baby
about the relation between self and physical world. Smiling and vocalizing at a caregiver
who smiles and vocalizes back helps clarify the relation between self and social world. The
contrast between these experiences helps infants sense that they are separate from external
reality.
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This 20-month-old’s response to her mirror image indicates that she recognizes her unique physical features and is aware of herself as a separate being, distinct from other people and objects.
Cultural variations exist in early self-development. Urban German and Greek toddlers attain
mirror self-recognition earlier than toddlers of the Nso people of Cameroon, a collectivist
farming society that highly values social harmony and responsibility to others (Keller et al.,
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2004, 2005). Compared to their German and Greek counterparts, Nso mothers engage in less
face-to-face communication and object stimulation and more body contact and physical
stimulation of their babies. German and Greek practices reflect a distal parenting style
common in cultures that emphasize independence; the Nso practice a proximal parenting
style typical in cultures that promote interdependence. In line with these differences, Nso
proximal parenting is associated with later attainment of self-recognition but earlier
emergence of toddlers’ compliance with adult requests (see Figure 6.4 on page 208).
Self-Awareness and Early Emotional and Social Development.
Self-awareness quickly becomes a central part of children’s emotional and social lives.
Recall that self-conscious emotions depend on a strengthening sense of self. Self-awareness
also leads to first efforts to appreciate others’ perspectives. Older toddlers who have
experienced sensitive
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caregiving draw on their advancing cognitive, language, and social skills to express first
signs of empathy—the ability to understand another’s emotional state and feel with that
person, or respond emotionally in a similar way. For example, they communicate concern
when others are distressed and may offer what they themselves find comforting—a hug, a
reassuring comment, or a favorite doll or blanket (Hoffman, 2000; Moreno, Klute, &
Robinson, 2008).
FIGURE 6.4 Self-recognition and compliance among Nso and Greek toddlers.
At 10 and 20 months, toddlers were tested for mirror self-recognition and for compliance (they were told not to open a transparent container with an attractive food). Among Greek toddlers, whose culture values independence, many more had attained self-recognition. But Nso toddlers, reared in an interdependent culture, were greatly advanced in compliance (following directions without prompting), whereas Greek toddlers either needed reminders or did not comply.
(Adapted from Keller et al., 2004.)
At the same time, toddlers demonstrate clearer awareness of how to upset others. One 18-
month-old heard her mother talking to another adult about an older sibling: “Anny is really
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frightened of spiders” (Dunn, 1989, p. 107). The innocent-looking toddler ran to the
bedroom, returned with the toy spider, and pushed it in front of Anny’s face!
Categorizing the Self
By the end of the second year, language becomes a powerful tool in self-development.
Between 18 and 30 months, children develop a categorical self as they classify themselves
and others on the basis of age (“baby,” “boy,” or “man”), sex (“boy” or “girl”), physical
characteristics (“big,” “strong”), and even goodness versus badness (“I a good girl.” “Tommy
mean!”) and competencies (“Did it!” “I can’t”) (Stipek, Gralinski, & Kopp, 1990).
Toddlers use their limited understanding of these social categories to organize their own
behavior. As early as 17 months, they select and play in a more involved way with toys that
are stereotyped for their own gender—dolls and tea sets for girls, trucks and cars for boys.
Their ability to label their own gender predicts a sharp rise in these play preferences over
the next few months (Zosuls et al., 2009). Then parents encourage gender-typed behavior by
responding more positively when toddlers display it (Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006). As
we will see in Chapter 8, gender typing increases dramatically in early childhood.
Self-Control
Self-awareness also contributes to effortful control, evident in toddlers’ strengthening
capacity to inhibit impulses, manage negative emotion, and behave in socially acceptable
ways. Indeed, a firmer sense of self may underlie the increasing stability and organization
of effortful control in the third year (see page 193). To behave in a self-controlled fashion,
children must think of themselves as separate, autonomous beings who can direct their own
actions. And they must have the representational and memory capacities to recall a
caregiver’s directive (“Caitlin, don’t touch that light socket!”) and apply it to their own
behavior.
As these capacities emerge between 12 and 18 months, toddlers first become capable of
compliance. They show clear awareness of caregivers’ wishes and expectations and can
obey simple requests and commands. And as every parent knows, they can also decide to do
just the opposite! But for most, assertiveness and opposition occur alongside compliance
with an eager, willing spirit, which suggests that the child is beginning to adopt the adult’s
directives as his own (Dix et al., 2007; Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000). Compliance
quickly leads to toddlers’ first consciencelike verbalizations—for example, correcting the
self by saying “No!” before touching a delicate object or jumping on the sofa.
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This toddler demonstrates compliance and the beginnings of self-control as she helps her father wash dishes. She eagerly joins in the task, suggesting that she is adopting the adult’s directives as her own.
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Applying What We Know Helping Toddlers Develop Compliance and Self-Control
Suggestion Rationale
Respond to the toddler with sensitivity and encouragement.
Toddlers whose parents are sensitive and supportive actively resist at times, but they are also more compliant and self-controlled.
Provide advance notice when the toddler must stop an enjoyable activity.
Toddlers find it more difficult to stop a pleasant activity that is already under way than to wait before engaging in a desired action.
Offer many prompts and reminders.
Toddlers’ ability to remember and comply with rules is limited; they need continuous adult oversight and patient assistance.
Respond to self-controlled behavior with verbal and physical approval.
Praise and hugs reinforce appropriate behavior, increasing the likelihood that it will occur again.
Encourage selective and sustained attention (see Chapter 5, page 163).
Development of attention is related to self- control. Children who can shift attention from a captivating stimulus and focus on a less attractive alternative are better at controlling their impulses.
Support language development (see Chapter 5, page 179).
In the second year, children begin to use language to remind themselves of adult expectations and to delay gratification.
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Suggestion Rationale
Gradually increase rules in a manner consistent with the toddler’s developing capacities.
As cognition and language improve, toddlers can follow more rules related to safety, respect for people and property, family routines, manners, and simple chores.
Researchers often study self-control by giving children tasks that, like the situations just
mentioned, require delay of gratification—waiting for an appropriate time and place to
engage in a tempting act. Between ages 1½ and 3, children show an increasing capacity to
wait before eating a treat, opening a present, or playing with a toy (Vaughn, Kopp, &
Krakow, 1984). Children who are advanced in development of attention and language tend
to be better at delaying gratification (Else-Quest et al., 2006). These findings help explain
why girls are typically more self-controlled than boys.
Like effortful control in general, young children’s capacity to delay gratification is
influenced by both biologically based temperament and quality of caregiving (Kochanska &
Aksan, 2006; Kochanska & Knaack, 2003). Inhibited children find it easier to wait than
angry, irritable children do. But toddlers who experience parental warmth and simple (as
opposed to lengthy, detailed) statements that patiently redirect their behavior are more
likely to be cooperative and resist temptation (Blandon & Volling, 2008; Hakman & Sullivan,
2009). Such parenting—which encourages and models patient, nonimpulsive behavior—is
particularly important for temperamentally reactive children. In one study, anger-prone 7-
month-olds with gentle, responsive mothers became eagerly compliant 15-month-olds
(Kochanska, Aksan, & Carlson, 2005). Angry infants with insensitive mothers, by contrast,
developed into strikingly uncooperative toddlers.
As self-control improves, parents gradually increase the range of rules they expect toddlers
to follow, from safety and respect for property and people to family routines, manners, and
simple chores (Gralinski & Kopp, 1993). Still, toddlers’ control over their own actions
depends on constant parental oversight and reminders. Several prompts (“Remember, we’re
going to go in just a minute”) and gentle insistence were usually necessary to get Caitlin to
stop playing so that she and her parents could go on an errand. Applying What We Know
above summarizes ways to help toddlers develop compliance and self-control.
As the second year of life drew to a close, Carolyn, Monica, and Vanessa were delighted at
their children’s readiness to learn the rules of social life. As we will see in Chapter 8,
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advances in cognition and language, along with parental warmth and reasonable demands
for maturity, lead preschoolers to make tremendous strides in this area.
ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW What competencies are necessary for the emergence of compliance and self-
control?
CONNECT What type of early parenting fosters the development of emotional self-
regulation, secure attachment, and self-control? Why, in each instance, is it effective?
APPLY Len, a caregiver of 1- and 2-year-olds, wonders whether toddlers recognize
themselves. List signs of self-recognition in the second year that Len can observe.
REFLECT Do you think that “the terrible twos,” a commonly used expression to characterize
toddler behavior, is an apt description? Explain.
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SUMMARY
Erikson’s Theory of Infant and Toddler Personality (p. 184)
According to Erikson’s psychosocial theory, how do infants and toddlers resolve the
psychological conflicts of the first two years?
● Warm, responsive caregiving leads infants to resolve the psychological conflict of basic
trust versus mistrust on the positive side. During toddlerhood, autonomy versus shame
and doubt is resolved favorably when parents provide appropriate guidance and
reasonable choices. If children emerge from the first few years without sufficient trust
and autonomy, the seeds are sown for adjustment problems.
Emotional Development (p. 185)
Describe the development of basic emotions over the first year.
● During the first half-year, basic emotions gradually become clear, well-organized
signals. The social smile appears between 6 and 10 weeks, laughter around 3 to 4
months. Happiness strengthens the parent–child bond and both reflects and supports
physical and cognitive mastery.
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● Anger and fear, especially in the form of stranger anxiety, increase in the second half of
the first year as infants’ cognitive and motor capacities improve. Newly mobile babies
use the familiar caregiver as a secure base from which to explore.
Summarize changes during the first two years in understanding others’ emotions,
expression of self-conscious emotions, and emotional self-regulation.
● The ability to understand others’ emotional expressions improves over the first year. At
8 to 10 months, infants engage in social referencing, actively seeking emotional
information from caregivers in uncertain situations. By the middle of the second year,
toddlers appreciate that others’ emotional reactions may differ from their own.
● During toddlerhood, self-awareness and adult instruction provide the foundation for
self-conscious emotions, such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, and pride.
Emotional self-regulation emerges as the prefrontal cortex functions more effectively
and as caregivers build on the infants’ increasing tolerance for stimulation. When
caregivers are emotionally sympathetic but set limits, children develop more effective
anger-regulation strategies in the preschool years.
Temperament and Development (p. 190)
What is temperament, and how is it measured?
● Temperament refers to early-appearing, stable individual differences in reactivity and
self-regulation. The New York Longitudinal Study identified three patterns: the easy
child, the difficult child, and the slow-to-warm-up child. Mary Rothbart’s model of
temperament includes effortful control, the ability to regulate one’s reactivity.
● Temperament is assessed through parental reports, behavior ratings by others familiar
with the child, and laboratory observations. Most neurobiological research has focused
on distinguishing inhibited, or shy, children from uninhibited, or sociable, children.
What roles do heredity and environment play in the stability of temperament?
● Temperament shows only low to moderate stability. Gene–environment correlation
influences the experiences to which children are exposed, and experience modifies
temperamental traits. Ethnic and gender differences may have a genetic foundation but
are supported by cultural beliefs and practices.
● According to the goodness-of-fit model, parenting practices that fit well with the child’s
temperament help children achieve more adaptive functioning. Temperamentally
difficult children are especially responsive to both positive and negative parenting.
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Development of Attachment (p. 195)
Describe the development of attachment during the first two years.
● Ethological theory, the most widely accepted perspective on attachment, recognizes the
infant’s emotional tie to the caregiver as an evolved response that promotes survival. In
early infancy, a set of built-in behaviors encourages the parent to remain close to the
baby.
● Around 6 to 8 months, separation anxiety and use of the caregiver as a secure base
indicate that a true attachment bond has formed. As representation and language
develop, separation protest declines. From early caregiving experiences, children
construct an internal working model that guides future close relationships.
How do researchers measure attachment security, what factors affect it, and what are its
implications for later development?
● Using the Strange Situation, a laboratory technique for assessing the quality of
attachment between 1 and 2 years, researchers have identified four attachment
patterns: secure, avoidant, resistant, and disorganized/disoriented. The Attachment Q-
Sort, a home observation method suitable for 1- to 4-year-olds, yields a score ranging
from high to low in security.
● Securely attached babies more often maintain their attachment pattern than insecure
babies, although the disorganized/disoriented pattern is highly stable. Cultural
conditions must be considered in interpreting attachment patterns.
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● Attachment quality is influenced by early availability of a consistent caregiver, quality
of caregiving, the fit between the baby’s temperament and parenting practices, and
family circumstances. Sensitive caregiving is moderately related to attachment security.
In Western cultures, interactional synchrony characterizes the experiences of securely
attached babies.
● Continuity of caregiving is the crucial factor determining whether attachment security
is linked to later development. If caregiving improves, children can recover from an
insecure attachment history.
Describe infants’ capacity for multiple attachments.
● Infants develop strong affectionate ties to fathers, who tend to engage in more exciting,
physical play with babies than mothers do. Early in the first year, infants begin to build
rich emotional relationships with siblings that mix affection and caring with rivalry
and resentment. Individual differences in the quality of sibling relationships are
influenced by temperament and parenting.
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Self-Development (p. 206)
Describe the development of self-awareness in infancy and toddlerhood, along with the
emotional and social capacities it supports.
● At birth, infants sense that they are physically distinct from their surroundings, an
awareness that is promoted by their capacity for intermodal perception. Around age 2,
self-recognition—identification of the self as a physically unique being—is well under
way. However, toddlers make scale errors, attempting to do things that their body size
makes impossible.
● Self-awareness is associated with the beginnings of empathy, the ability to feel with
another person. As language strengthens and toddlers compare themselves to others,
they develop a categorical self based on age, sex, physical characteristics, goodness
versus badness, and competencies.
● Self-awareness provides the foundation for the emergence of compliance between 12
and 18 months and gains in delay of gratification between 1½ and 3 years. Children
who are advanced in development of attention and language and who have warm,
encouraging parents tend to be more self-controlled.
Important Terms and Concepts
attachment (p. 195)
Attachment Q-Sort (p. 198)
autonomy versus shame and doubt (p. 184)
avoidant attachment (p. 197)
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basic emotions (p. 185)
basic trust versus mistrust (p. 184)
categorical self (p. 208)
compliance (p. 208)
delay of gratification (p. 209)
difficult child (p. 190)
disorganized/disoriented attachment (p. 198)
easy child (p. 190)
effortful control (p. 191)
emotional self-regulation (p. 189)
empathy (p. 208)
ethological theory of attachment (p. 196)
goodness-of-fit model (p. 194)
inhibited, or shy, child (p. 191)
interactional synchrony (p. 200)
internal working model (p. 197)
resistant attachment (p. 198)
scale errors (p. 207)
secure attachment (p. 197)
secure base (p. 187)
self-conscious emotions (p. 188)
self-recognition (p. 207)
sensitive caregiving (p. 199)
separation anxiety (p. 196)
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slow-to-warm-up child (p. 190)
social referencing (p. 188)
social smile (p. 185)
stranger anxiety (p. 186)
Strange Situation (p. 197)
temperament (p. 190)
uninhibited, or sociable, child (p. 191)
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milestones Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
Birth–6 months
PHYSICAL
■ Height and weight increase rapidly. (120)
■ Newborn reflexes decline. (107–108)
■ Distinguishes basic tastes and odors; shows preference for sweet-tasting foods. (112)
■ Responses can be classically and operantly conditioned. (133–134)
■ Habituates to unchanging stimuli; recovers to novel stimuli. (134–135)
■ Sleep is increasingly organized into a night–day schedule. (128)
■ Holds head up, rolls over, and grasps objects. (137, 139)
■ Perceives auditory and visual stimuli as organized patterns. (140, 142, 144)
■ Shows sensitivity to motion, then binocular, and finally pictorial depth cues. (142)
■ Recognizes and prefers human facial pattern; recognizes features of mother’s face.
(145)
■ Masters a wide range of intermodal (visual, auditory, and tactile) relationships. (146)
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COGNITIVE
■ Engages in immediate and deferred imitation of adults’ facial expressions. (135–136,
156)
■ Repeats chance behaviors that lead to pleasurable and interesting results. (153–154)
■ Has some awareness of many physical properties (including object permanence) and
basic numerical knowledge. (155, 160)
■ Recognition memory for visual events improves. (163)
■ Attention becomes more efficient and flexible. (163)
■ Forms categories based on objects’ similar physical properties. (165–166)
LANGUAGE
■ Coos and, by end of this period, babbles. (176)
■ Begins to establish joint attention with caregiver, who labels objects and events. (176)
EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL
■ Social smile and laughter emerge. (185)
■ Matches feeling tone of caregiver in face-to-face communication; later, expects
matched responses. (188)
■ Emotional expressions become well-organized and meaningfully related to
environmental events. (185)
■ Regulates emotion by shifting attention and self-soothing. (189)
■ Awareness of self as physically distinct from surroundings increases. (206–207)
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7–12 months
PHYSICAL
■ Approaches adultlike sleep–wake schedule. (128)
■ Sits alone, crawls, and walks. (137)
■ Reaching and grasping improve in flexibility and accuracy; shows refined pincer grasp.
(140)
■ Intermodal perception continues to improve. (146)
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COGNITIVE
■ Engages in intentional, or goal-directed, behavior. (154)
■ Finds object hidden in an initial location. (154)
■ Recall memory improves, as indicated by gains in deferred imitation of adults’ actions
with objects. (156–157, 164)
■ Solves simple problems by analogy to a previous problem. (157)
■ Categorizes objects on the basis of subtle sets of features, even when the perceptual
contrast between categories is minimal. (165)
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LANGUAGE
■ Babbling expands to include many sounds of spoken languages and patterns of the
child’s language community. (176)
■ Joint attention with caregiver becomes more accurate. (176)
■ Takes turns in games, such as pat-a-cake and peekaboo. (176)
■ Comprehends some word meanings. (176)
■ Uses preverbal gestures (showing, pointing) to influence others’ behavior. (176)
■ Around end of this period, understands displaced reference of words and says first
words. (157, 176)
212
213
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EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL
■ Smiling and laughter increase in frequency and expressiveness. (185–186)
■ Anger and fear increase in frequency and intensity. (185–186)
■ Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety appear. (186, 196)
■ Uses caregiver as a secure base for exploration. (187–188)
■ Shows “clear-cut” attachment to familiar caregivers. (196)
■ Increasingly detects the meaning of others’ emotional expressions and engages in
social referencing. (188)
■ Regulates emotion by approaching and retreating from stimulation. (189)
13–18 months
PHYSICAL
■ Height and weight gain are rapid, but not as great as in first year. (120)
■ Walking is better coordinated. (138)
■ Manipulates small objects with improved coordination. (140)
COGNITIVE
■ Explores the properties of objects by acting on them in novel ways. (154)
■ Searches in several locations for a hidden object. (154)
■ Engages in deferred imitation of adults’ actions with objects over longer delays and
across a change in context—for example, from child care to home. (156)
■ Sustained attention improves. (163)
■ Recall memory improves further. (164)
■ Sorts objects into categories. (166)
■ Realizes that pictures can symbolize real objects. (158)
LANGUAGE
■ Steadily adds to vocabulary. (175, 177)
■ By end of this period, produces 50 words. (175)
EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL
■ Joins in play with familiar adults and siblings. (201–202, 205)
■ Realizes that others’ emotional reactions may differ from one’s own. (188)
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■ Complies with simple directives. (208)
19–24 months
PHYSICAL
■ Jumps, walks on tiptoe, and runs. (137)
■ Manipulates small objects with good coordination. (140)
COGNITIVE
■ Solves simple problems suddenly, through representation. (154)
■ Finds a hidden object that has been moved while out of sight. (154)
■ Engages in make-believe play, using simple actions experienced in everyday life. (154,
168)
■ Engages in deferred imitation of actions an adult tries to produce, even if not fully
realized. (157)
■ Categorizes objects conceptually, on the basis of common function or behavior. (166)
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LANGUAGE
■ Produces 200 to 250 words. (175)
■ Combines two words. (177)
EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL
■ Self-conscious emotions (shame, embarrassment, guilt, envy, and pride) emerge. (188–
189)
■ Acquires a vocabulary for talking about feelings. (189)
■ Begins to use language to assist with emotional self-regulation. (189–190)
■ Begins to tolerate caregiver’s absences more easily; separation anxiety declines. (197)
■ Recognizes image of self and, by end of this period, uses own name or personal
pronoun to refer to self. (207)
■ Less often makes scale errors. (207)
■ Shows signs of empathy. (207–208)
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■ Categorizes self and others on the basis of age, sex, physical characteristics, and
goodness and badness. (208)
■ Shows gender-stereotyped toy preferences. (208)
■ Self-control, as indicated by delay of gratification, emerges.
Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate the page or pages on which each milestone is discussed.
