Chapter 7: Study Questions
Factors that influence the relationship between child care and attachment quality.
A. Attachment Quality B. Family Circumstances C.Quality and Extent of Child Care
Describe fathers differ relate to and interact with babies.
Anxiety as mothers about separating from their child and just as much concern about the impact of these daily separations on the child's well-being. Tend to engage in highly stimulating physical play with bursts of excitement and surprise that increase as play progresses. Playmate Playful interaction. Play is a vital context to build secure attachments.
At approximately what age do infants' emotional expressions become well-organized?
Around 6 months, face, gaze, voice, and posture form organized patterns that vary meaningfully with environmental events.
goodness-of-fit model
Explain how temperament and environment can together produce favorable outcomes. Involves creating child-rearing environments that recognize each child's temperament while simultaneously encouraging more adaptive functioning.
Dimension of temperament identified by Mary Rothbart - Irritable distress
Extent of fussing, crying, and distress when desires are frustrated
True or False: Infants come into the world with the ability to express all of the basic emotions.
False 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. Only gradually do emotions become clear, well-organized signals
True or False: Temper tantrums occur because toddlers cannot yet use language to manage their emotions and control their anger.
False: Temper tantrums tend to occur because toddlers cannot control the intense anger that often arises when an adult rejects their demands, particularly when they are fatigued or hungry. The psychological traits that make up temperament are believed to form the cornerstone of the adult personality.
Slow-to-warm-up child
Inactive; reacts mildly to environmental stimuli.
Disadvantages of using parent reports to assess children's temperament
Information can biased.
Difficult child
Irregular in daily routines; reacts negatively and intensely. Of the three styles of temperament, this pattern places children at highest risk for adjustment problems.
Heritability research indicates that genes contribute (modestly / substantially) to shyness and sociability.
Modestly
skipped-generation family
Nearly 2.4 million U.S. children—4 to 5 percent of the child population—live with their grandparents but apart from parents
Why can observations of temperament by researchers at home be misleading?
Observers find it hard to capture all relevant information, especially events that are rare but important, such as infants' response to frustration.
An example of a situation in which an infant is likely to express sadness
Occurs often when infants are deprived of a familiar, loving caregiver and when parent-infant interaction is seriously disrupted. In several studies, researchers had parents assume either a still-faced, unreactive pose or a depressed emotional state. Their 2- to 7-month-olds tried facial expressions, vocalizations, and body movements to get their mother or father to respond again. When these efforts failed, they turned away, frowned, and cried . The still-face reaction is identical among American, Canadian, and Chinese babies, suggesting that it is a built-in withdrawal response to caregivers' lack of communication.
Ways mothers can promote positive relationships between infants and their preschool-age siblings.
Spend extra time with the older child. Discuss the baby's wants and needs. Express positive emotion toward your partner and engage in joint problem solving. Handle sibling misbehavior with patience.
self-regulation
Strategies that modify one's reactivity.
emotional self-regulation
Strategies we use to adjust our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can accomplish our goals.
Factors that influence infants' and toddlers' reactions to strangers.
Temperament (some babies are generally more fearful), Past experiences with strangers. The current situation. 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.
stranger anxiety
The most frequent expression of fear in infancy is this response to unfamiliar adults.
Attachment Quality - Factor that influence the relationship between child care and attachment quality
The rate of insecurity among child-care infants is somewhat higher than among non-child-care infants—about 36 versus 29 percent.
True or False: Toddlers who experience parental warmth and gentle encouragement are more likely to be cooperative and advanced in self-control.
True Toddlers who experience parental warmth and gentle encouragement are more likely to be cooperative and advanced in self-control.
Basic emotions
Universal in humans and other primates and have a long evolutionary history of promoting survival.
Emotional expressions
Vary with a person's developing capacities, goals, and context, meaning that researchers must interpret multiple cues in order to understand babies' emotions.
Provide an example of how caregiver communication affects an infant's emotional development.
Videotaping the facial expressions of her daughter from 6 to 14 weeks, Linda Camras found that in the early weeks, the baby displayed a fleeting angry face as she was about to cry and a sad face as her crying waned. These expressions first appeared on the way to or away from full-blown distress and were not clearly linked to the baby's experiences and desires. With age, she was better able to sustain an angry signal when she encountered a blocked goal and a sad signal when she could not overcome an obstacle.
Which interactions first evoke the social smile, and when does it develop?
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. Happiness binds parent and baby into a warm, supportive relationship that fosters the infant's developing competencies.
temperament
When we describe one person as cheerful and "upbeat," another as active and energetic, and still others as calm, cautious, or prone to angry outbursts,. Early-appearing, stable individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation.
Expanding on Freud's views, Erikson emphasized the importance of the (quantity / quality) of caregiving in promoting successful development during infancy.
quality
Laughter, which appears around 3 to 4 months, reflects (faster / slower) processing of information than does smiling.
Faster
Dimension of temperament identified by Mary Rothbart - Positive affect
Frequency of expression of happiness and pleasure
Explain how family attitudes and relationships affect fathers' caregiving and involvement with infants.
iInvolvement with babies occurs within a complex system of family attitudes and relationships. When both mothers and fathers believe that men are capable of nurturing infants, devote more time to caregiving. A warm marital bond and supportive coparenting. Promote both parents' sensitivity and involvement and children's attachment security, but it is especially important for fathers.
Dimension of temperament identified by Mary Rothbart - Attention span/persistence
Duration of orienting or interest
Examples of basic emotions
Happiness Interest Surprise Fear Anger Sadness Disgust
amygdala
Area of the brain Kagan believes contributes to individual differences in arousal. An inner brain structure that controls avoidance reactions. Contributes to contrasting temperaments.
Categories children can use to refer to themselves and others by the end of the second year.
Basis of age (baby, boy, or man) Sex (boy or girl) Physical characteristics (big, strong) Goodness and badness (I good girl. Tommy mean!). Self's competencies (Did it!, I can't)
Explain how psychological conflict of the first year, basic trust versus mistrust can be positively resolved.
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
Which attachment pattern is consistently related to fear, anxiety, anger, and aggression during the preschool and school years?
Disorganized/disoriented attachment Show inappropriate role reversals: In an apparent effort to compensate for their parent's confused communication, they use either exaggerated comforting or hostility to try to control the parent's behavior.
Because infants are unable to describe their feelings, observations offer the most useful evidence of infant emotions. List two reasons why this evidence can still be unreliable.
Infants, children, and adults use diverse responses to express a particular emotion. Generally do not display a fearful facial expression, though they do show other signs of fear—drawing back and refusing to crawl over the deep side. The same general response can express several emotions. Depending on the situation, a smile might convey joy, embarrassment, contempt, or a social greeting.
Dimension of temperament identified by Mary Rothbart - Activity level
Level of gross-motor activity
In a longitudinal study conducted by Sroufe and his collaborators, how did camp counselors rate their peer interactions at age 11?
More favorable relationships with peers Closer friendships Better social skills
In which ethnic groups are grandparents most likely to assume the parenting role?
More often in African-American, Hispanic, and Native-American families than in Caucasian families.
Describe how mothers and fathers differ in the way they relate to and interact with babies.
More often provide toys Talk to infants Gently play conventional games like pat-a-cake and peekaboo. Care-giver Devote more time to physical care and expressing affection
Describe how the growth of self-awareness leads to the development of empathy.
Older toddlers who have experienced sensitive caregiving and emotionally available parents draw on their advancing cognitive, language, and social skills to express first signs of _______.
Easy child
Quickly establishes regular routines in infancy; adapts to new experiences.
reactivity
Quickness and intensity of emotional arousal, attention, and motor activity.
Physiological correlates of approach-withdrawal behavior - Cortisol
Saliva concentrations of the ___________ tend to be higher, and to rise more in response to a stressful event, in shy than in sociable children.
Empathy
The ability to understand another's emotional state and feel with that person, or respond emotionally in a similar way.
Factors that promote paternal warmth
The amount of time fathers spend near infants and toddlers and their expressions of caring and affection. Fathers in gratifying marriages feel more confident about their parenting skills and spend more time with and interact more effectively with their infants. Mothers' and fathers' warm interactions with each other and with their babies are closely linked.
effortful control
The capacity to voluntarily suppress a dominant response in order to plan and execute a more adaptive response.
Developmental milestones that are essential for the development of self-control.
Think of themselves as separate, autonomous beings who can direct their own actions. Must have the representational and memory capacities to recall a caregiver's directive ("Caitlin, don't touch that light socket!") Apply it to their own behavior.
By the end of the second year, gains in representation and language lead to new ways of regulating emotion. Explain how this occurs.
A vocabulary for talking about feelings—"happy," "love," "surprised," "scary," "yucky," "mad"—develops rapidly after 18 months, but toddlers are not yet good at using language to manage their emotions. Toddlers whose parents are emotionally sympathetic but set limits (by not giving in to tantrums) Who distract the child by offering acceptable alternatives. Who later suggest better ways to handle adult refusals display more effective anger-regulation strategies and social skills during the preschool years. 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. Older toddlers' use of words to label emotions shows that they have a remarkable understanding of themselves and others as emotional beings. The more parents label and talk about mental states in the second year, the greater their 2-year-olds' emotion vocabulary and ability to identify how others feel from situational cues—for example, a cartoon of a child being chased by a lion.
True or False: As early as 18 months, toddlers have an understanding of their own body dimensions and no longer make scale errors.
False Toddlers lack an objective understanding of their own body dimensions. They make scale errors, attempting to do things that their body size makes impossible. For example, they will try to put on dolls' clothes, fit themselves into a doll-sized chair, or walk through a doorway too narrow for them to pass through. Scale errors decline around age 2, but many 2½-year-olds still make them. Young preschoolers are still learning to process physical information about their own bodies in the same way they do for other objects.
Describe ethnic differences in early temperament
Compared with Caucasian-American infants, Chinese and Japanese babies tend to be less active, irritable, and vocal, more easily soothed when upset, and better at quieting themselves.
Physiological correlates of approach-withdrawal behavior - Pupil dilation, blood pressure, and skin surface temperature
Compared with sociable children, shy children show greater _________ & ________ of the fingertips when faced with novelty.
Advantages of using parent reports to assess children's temperament
Convenient. Take advantage of parents' depth of knowledge about their child across many situations. Parent perceptions are vital for understanding how parents view and respond to their child.
How does sensitive caregiving promote early self-development?
Display more complex self-related actions during play, such as making a doll labeled as the self take a drink or kiss a teddy bear. Show greater knowledge of their own physical features—for example, in labeling body parts. And 18-month-olds who often establish joint attention with their caregivers are advanced in mirror self-recognition. Joint attention offers toddlers many opportunities to engage in social referencing—to compare their own and others' reactions to objects and events—which may enhance toddlers' awareness of their own physical uniqueness.
Infants' emotional responsiveness at the age of - 4 to 5 months
Distinguish positive from negative emotion in voices, and soon after, they do so in facial expressions. Become better at matching specific facial and vocal displays of emotion.
True or False: Most children's dispositions become more extreme as they grow older because environmental factors have little effect on temperament.
False But most children's dispositions became less extreme over time. Genetic makeup and child-rearing experiences jointly influenced stability and change in temperament.
self-recognition
identification of the self as a physically unique being
Family Circumstances - Factor that influence the relationship between child care and attachment quality
For employed parents, balancing work and child care 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 paternal involvement in caregiving has risen. Many more U.S. fathers in dual-earner families also report work-family life conflict. Other employed parents may value and encourage their infant's independence. Or their babies may be unfazed by the Strange Situation because they are used to separating from their parents In these cases, avoidance in the Strange Situation may represent healthy autonomy, not insecurity.
How does peer interaction promote the development of verbal communication?
Form of mutual imitation involving jumping, chasing, or banging a toy. These imitative, turn-taking games create joint understandings. Reciprocal play and positive emotion are especially frequent in toddlers' interactions with familiar agemates, suggesting that they are building true peer relationships.
Explain how caregivers contribute to children's style of emotional self-regulation.
A good start in regulating emotion during the first two years contributes greatly to autonomy and mastery of cognitive and social skills. Poorly regulated toddlers, by contrast, are likely to be delayed in mental development and to have behavior problems in the preschool years and are at risk for long-lasting problems. 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 for distraction and reorienting of attention—being lifted to the shoulder, rocked, gently stroked, and talked to softly. 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 own behavior so the infant does not become overwhelmed and distressed. By 4 to 6 months, the ability to shift attention and to engage in self-soothing helps infants control emotion. Babies who more readily turn away from unpleasant events or engage in self-soothing are less prone to distress. Contribute to the child's style of emotional self-regulation. Infants whose parents "read" and respond contingently and sympathetically to their emotional cues tend to be less fussy, to express more pleasurable emotion, to be more interested in exploration, and to be easier to soothe/ 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. This makes it harder for parents to soothe the baby in the future—and for the baby to learn to calm herself. When caregivers fail to regulate stressful experiences for infants who cannot yet regulate them for themselves, brain structures that buffer stress may fail to develop properly, resulting in an anxious, reactive child who has a reduced capacity for regulating emotion problems
Social referencing
Actively seeking emotional information from a trusted person in an uncertain situation. 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. The adult's voice—either alone or combined with a facial expression—is more effective than a facial expression alone. 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. 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 of the same valence—for example, happiness versus surprise, anger versus fear—during the second year.
Besides self-awareness, what ingredient is required for children to experience self-conscious emotions?
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!"
Physiological correlates of approach-withdrawal behavior.
Amygdala Heart rate Cortisol Pupil dilation, blood pressure, and skin surface temperature
Example of how toddlers use categories to organize their own behavior.
As early as 17 months, children 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. Parents encourage gender-typed behavior by responding more positively when toddlers display it.
Why does frequency and intensity of infants' angry reactions increase with age?
As infants become capable of intentional behavior. They want to control their own actions and the effects they produce. They are also more persistent about obtaining desired objects. Older infants are better at identifying who caused them pain or removed a toy. Their anger is particularly intense when a caregiver from whom they have come to expect warm behavior causes discomfort. The rise in anger is also adaptive. New motor capacities enable an angry infant to defend herself or overcome an obstacle. Finally, anger motivates caregivers to relieve the infant's distress and, in the case of separation, may discourage them from leaving again soon.
self-conscious emotions examples
Ashamed or embarrassed, we have negative feelings about our behavior, and we want to retreat so others will no longer notice our failings. 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. Show shame and embarrassment by lowering their eyes, hanging their heads, and hiding their faces with their hands. They show guilt like reactions, too. Pride also emerges around this time, and envy by age 3.
Dimension of temperament identified by Mary Rothbart - Effortful control
Capacity to voluntarily suppress a dominant, reactive response in order to plan and execute a more adaptive response
Describe sex differences in early temperament
Boys are more active and daring Boys ,ore irritable when frustrated Boys more likely to express high-intensity pleasure in play. Boys slightly more impulsive than girl Girls tend to be more anxious and timid. Girls advantage in effortful control undoubtedly contributes to their greater cooperativeness, better school performance, and lower incidence of behavior problems.
How does the dynamic systems perspective help us understand how basic emotions become clear and well-organized?
Children coordinate separate skills into more effective, emotionally expressive systems as the central nervous system develops and the child's goals and experiences change.
Provide an example illustrating how, by age 2, self-recognition is well under way.
Children point to themselves in photos and refer to themselves by name or with a personal pronoun ("I" or "me"). And soon they will 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. As _________ takes shape, older toddlers also construct an explicit body self-awareness. At the end of the second year, they realize that their own body can serve as an obstacle.
attention and language
Children who are advanced in____________ are often better than their peers at delaying gratification.
Some researchers have suggested that continuity of caregiving determines whether attachment is linked to later development. Briefly explain this relationship.
Children whose parents respond sensitively not just in infancy but also in later years are likely to develop favorably. In contrast, children whose parents 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. Parents of disorganized/disoriented infants tend to have serious psychological problems or engage in highly maladaptive caregiving—conditions that usually persist and that are strongly linked to poor adjustment in children. Those with histories of secure attachment followed by sensitive parenting scored highest in cognitive, emotional, and social outcomes. Those with histories of insecure attachment followed by insensitive parenting scored lowest, while those with mixed histories of attachment and maternal sensitivity scored in between. Specifically, insecurely attached infants whose mothers became more positive and supportive in early childhood showed signs of developmental recovery. An early warm, positive parent-child tie, sustained over time, promotes many aspects of children's development: a more confident and complex self-concept, more advanced emotional understanding, more favorable relationships with teachers and peers, more effective social skills, a stronger sense of moral responsibility, and higher motivation to achieve in school.
How do expressions of happiness change between early infancy and the end of the first year?
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, eyecatching sights, such as a bright object jumping suddenly across their field of vision. And as infants attend to the parent's face, and the parent talks and smiles, babies knit their brows, open their mouths to coo, and move their arms and legs excitedly, Gradually becoming more emotionally positive until, between 6 and 10 weeks, the parent's communication evokes a broad grin called the social smile. These changes parallel the development of infant perceptual capacities—in particular, sensitivity to visual patterns, including the human face. And social smiling becomes better-organized and stable as babies learn to use it to evoke and sustain pleasurable face-to-face interaction with the parent. Around the middle of the first year, babies smile and laugh more often 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. 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. By the end of the first year, the smile has become a deliberate social signal.
True or False: All children fit into one of the three temperament categories described above.
False 35 percent of the children did not fit any of these categories. Instead, they showed unique blends of temperamental characteristics.
In what way did Erikson expand upon Freud's view of development during toddlerhood?
Freud viewed the parent's manner of toilet training as decisive for psychological health. In Erikson's 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 new period of budding selfhood. They want to decide for themselves, not just in toileting but also in other situations.
Physiological correlates of approach-withdrawal behavior - Heart rate
From the first few weeks of life, _________ of shy children are consistently higher than those of sociable children, and they speed up further in response to unfamiliar events.
Why can assuming the parenting role be stressful for grandparents?
Generally step in when parents' troubled lives threaten children's well-being. For example: substance abuse child abuse and neglect mental illness adolescent parenthood Often these families take in two or more children.
How does the goodness-of-fit model help to explain why children with difficult temperaments are at high risk for future adjustment problems?
Helps explain why 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 risk for later adjustment problems. As infants, they are less likely to receive sensitive caregiving. 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. As a result, they continue their coercive tactics and also discipline inconsistently, sometimes rewarding the child's noncompliance by giving in to it. These practices sustain and even increase the child's irritable, conflict-ridden style. When parents are positive and sensitive, which helps infants and toddlers regulate emotion, difficultness declines by age 2 or 3.
Ways child-care settings can foster attachment security.
High-quality child-care centers have a higher rate of secure attachment than infants informally cared for by relatives, friends, or babysitters.
In a longitudinal study conducted by Sroufe and his collaborators, how did teachers rate preschoolers who were securely attached as babies?
Higher in self-esteem, social skills, and empathy than were their insecurely attached counterparts, who displayed more behavior problems.
self-conscious emotions
Humans are capable of a second, higher-order set of feelings, including guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, and pride. Called this because each involves injury to or enhancement of our sense of self.
Physiological correlates of approach-withdrawal behavior - Amygdala
In shy, inhibited children, novel stimuli easily excite the _________ and its connections to the cerebral cortex and 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. In support of this theory, while viewing photos of unfamiliar faces, adults who had been classified as inhibited in the second year of life showed greater fMRI activity in the ______ than adults who had been uninhibited as toddlers
Fear reactions (increase / decrease) during the second half of the first year.
Increase
How does a secure base aid infants' exploration of the environment?
Infants use the familiar caregiver as _______ , or 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.
Based on findings from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, what factors contribute to higher rates of attachment insecurity?
Insensitive care-giving at home along with insensitive caregiving in child care Long hours in child care More than one child-care arrangement
Ethnic differences affect parent-child interaction and, in turn, affect the development of temperament.
Japanese mothers usually say that babies come into the world as independent beings who must learn to rely on their parents through close physical contact. American mothers typically believe just the opposite—that they must wean babies away from dependency toward autonomy. Asian cultures tend to view calmness as an ideal emotional state. Americans highly value the arousal and excitement generated by new places and activities. Consistent with these beliefs, Asian mothers interact gently, soothingly, and gesturally with their babies, whereas Caucasian mothers use a more active, stimulating, verbal approach. Chinese and Japanese adults discourage babies from expressing strong emotion, which contributes further to their infants' tranquility.
.Quality and Extent of Child Care - Factors that influence the relationship between child care and attachment quality
Long periods spent in poor-quality child care may contribute to a higher rate of insecure attachment. Child care alone did not contribute to attachment insecurity. But when babies were exposed to combined home and child-care risk factors—insensitive care-giving at home along with insensitive caregiving in child care, long hours in child care, or more than one child-care arrangement—the rate of insecurity increased Overall, mother-child interaction was more favorable when children attended higher-quality child care and also spent fewer hours in child care
Infants' emotional responsiveness at the age of - 7 and 12 month
Look longer at an appropriate face-voice pairing (such as a happy face with a happy voice) than at an inappropriate one (a happy face with an angry voice) Responding to emotional expressions as organized wholes suggests that these signals are becoming meaningful to babies. Attend to facial expressions reveal reorganized brain-wave patterns resembling those of adults, suggesting enhanced processing of emotional cues. 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.
Maternal employment
Mothers in dual-earner families tend to engage in more playful stimulation of their babies than mothers who are at home full-time. But fathers who are primary caregivers retain their arousing play style. These highly involved fathers are less gender-stereotyped in their beliefs, Have sympathetic, friendly personalities More involved in rearing them. Regard parenthood as an especially enriching experience.
Explain how children reared in the same family develop distinct temperamental styles.
Parents' tendency to emphasize each child's unique qualities affects ______. Different experiences within the family. The twin who received more warmth and less harshness was more positive in mood and social behavior. Each child, in turn, evokes responses from caregivers that are consistent with parental beliefs and the child's developing temperament. Siblings have distinct experiences with teachers, peers, and others in their community that affect development. And in middle childhood and adolescence, siblings often seek ways to differ from one another.
Explain the link between attachment to a sensitive caregiver and early peer relationships
Peer sociability is present in the first two years and is promoted by the early caregiver-child bond. Babies learn how to send and interpret emotional signals in their first peer associations. Toddlers who have a warm parental relationship or who attend high-quality child care with a small group size and a generous caregiver-child ratio—features that promote warm, stimulating caregiving and secure attachment to professional caregivers—engage in more positive and extended peer exchanges. These children, in turn, display more socially competent behavior as preschoolers.
Dimensions of temperament identified by Mary Rothbart.
REACTIVITY: Activity level Attention span/persistence Fearful distress Irritable distress SELF-REGULATION: Effortful control
Describe negative reactions of preschool-age sibling when a baby arrives.
Resentment. Difficult because they realize that they must now share their parents' attention and affection—often become demanding, clingy, and deliberately naughty for a time. Attachment security also typically declines, especially for children over age 2 (old enough to feel threatened and displaced) and for those with mothers under stress.
Explain how the conflict of autonomy versus shame and doubt can be positively resolved.
Resolved favorably when parents provide young children with suitable guidance and reasonable choices. 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.
Ways adults can help toddlers develop compliance and self-control.
Respond to the toddler with sensitivity and encouragement. Provide advance notice when the toddler must stop an enjoyable activity. Offer many prompts and reminders. Respond to self-controlled behavior with verbal and physical approval. Encourage selective and sustained attention Support language development. Gradually increase rules in a manner consistent with the toddler's developing capacities.
Important findings from the New York longitudinal study of temperament.
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. Thomas and Chess discovered that parenting practices can modify children's emotional styles considerably.
Why do both identical and fraternal twins tend to become increasingly dissimilar from one another over time?
See answer for explain how children reared in the same family develop distinct temperamental styles. .
Infants' emotional responsiveness at the age of - 3 to 4 months
Sensitive to the structure and timing of face-to-face interaction. 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/ Within these exchanges, they become increasingly aware of the range of emotional expressions. 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.
Describe positive reactions of preschool-age sibling when a baby arrives.
Show affection and concern—kissing and patting the baby and calling out, "Mom, he needs you," when the infant cries
Once toddlers become capable of compliance, do they always obey requests and demands? Explain.
Show clear awareness of caregivers' wishes and expectations and can obey simple requests and commands. Defiance in preschoolers is associated with negative parent-child relationships and poor adjustment, toddlers who sometimes strongly resist parental demands tend to have sensitive, supportive parents with whom they interact positively. These parents recognize the young child's need for self-assertion and autonomy. Active resistance in toddlerhood does not predict later, persisting defiance. Assertiveness and opposition occur alongside compliance with an eager, willing spirit. Suggests that the child is beginning to adopt the adult's directives as his own.
emotional contagion
Some researchers believe that babies first respond to others' emotions through the automatic process of __________ Infant matches the feeling tone of the caregiver in face-to-face communication. Others, believe infants gradually develop emotional responses through operant conditioning.
Psychological conflict of the first year, basic trust versus mistrust.
The trusting infant expects the world to be good and gratifying. As a result, he feels confident about venturing out and exploring it, and he emerges from this stage well-prepared for the challenges of toddlerhood. The mistrustful baby cannot count on the kindness and compassion of others, so she protects herself by withdrawing from people and things around her.
effortful control
The voluntary, effortful management of emotions. Develops gradually with the assistance of caregivers and the continued development of the prefrontal cortex.
True or False: The situations in which adults encourage children's expressions of self-conscious emotions vary from culture to culture.
True In Western individualistic nations, most children are taught to feel pride over personal 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
True or False: Child rearing plays an important role in modifying biologically based temperamental traits.
True Evidence confirms that child rearing plays an important role in modifying biologically based temperamental traits. Toddlers and young preschoolers who have fearful or negative, irritable temperaments but experience patient, supportive parenting are better at managing their reactivity and are especially likely to decline in difficultness.
True or False: Over the first few months, an infant's self-awareness is limited and is expressed only in perception and action. Provide two examples that prove or disprove this statement.
True 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. In another video-image comparison, they looked longer at a reversal of their leg positions than at a normal view. This suggests that young babies have a sense of their own body as a distinct entity, since they have habituated to it, as indicated by their interest in novel views of the body. By 4 months, infants look and smile more at video images of others than video images of themselves, indicating that they distinguish between the two and treat another person (as opposed to the self) as a potential social partner.
True or False: American infants placed in full-time child care before 12 months of age are more likely than home-reared infants to display insecure attachments.
True American infants placed in full-time child care before 12 months of age are more likely than home-reared infants to display insecure attachments.
True or False: Evidence confirms that the development of temperament is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. (
True Evidence confirms that heredity and environment often jointly contribute to temperament. A child's approach to the world affects the experiences to which she is exposed—an instance of genetic-environmental correlation.
True or False: Fathers' warmth toward their children predicts later cognitive, emotional, and social competencies as strongly as mothers' warmth.
True Fathers' warmth contributes greatly to children's long-term favorable development. 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' sustained affectionate involvement predicted later cognitive, emotional, and social competence as strongly as did mothers' warmth—and occasionally more strongly
True or False: Temperamental stability from one age period to the next is generally low to moderate.
True Temperamental stability from one age period to the next is generally low to moderate. Long-term predictions about early temperament are best achieved after age 3, when styles of responding are better established
Why can observations of temperament by researchers in a laboratory be misleading
Unfamiliar setting = fearful children who calmly avoid certain experiences in different location may become too upset to complete the session. Can better control children's experiences in this environment. Conveniently combine observations of behavior with physiological measures to gain insight into the biological basis of temperament.
Why is effortful control important?
Variations in _______ are evident in how effectively a child can focus and shift attention, inhibit impulses, and manage negative emotion. Predicts favorable development and adjustment. 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.
Dimension of temperament identified by Mary Rothbart - Fearful distress
Wariness and distress in response to intense or novel stimuli, including time to adjust to new situations
How do 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. Parents overprotect infants and young children who dislike novelty, they make it harder for the child to overcome an urge to retreat. Parents who make appropriate demands for their child to approach new experiences help shy youngsters overcome fear . 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.
Sex differences affect parent-child interaction and, in turn, affect the development of temperament.
Within 24 hours after birth (before they have had much experience with the baby), parents already perceive male and female newborns differently. Sons are rated as larger, better coordinated, more alert, and stronger. Daughters as softer, weaker, and more delicate and awkward. In line with these gender-stereotyped beliefs, parents more often encourage their young sons to be physically active and assertive 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) Through more positive reactions when their child exhibits temperamental traits consistent with gender stereotypes.
