Understanding Personality Phases & Attachment in Infant Development: Psychoanalytic Theory | Study notes Human Development

Chapter 6 - OUTLINE

I. ERIKSON'S THEORY OF INFANT AND TODDLER PERSONALITY (pp. 178-179)

A. One lasting contribution of psychoanalytic theory is its ability to capture the essence of

personality development during each phase of life. Erikson characterized each Freudian stage as

an inner conflict that is resolved positively or negatively depending on the child's experiences

with caregivers.

B. Basic Trust versus Mistrust

1. Freud's first psychosexual stage is the oral stage, in which infants obtain pleasure through the

mouth.

2. Erikson believed that a healthy outcome in infancy depended on the quality of the mother's

behavior during feeding, and not the amount of food or oral stimulation offered.

3. Basic trust versus mistrust is the conflict during infancy in Erikson's psychosocial theory.

The dilemma is resolved positively if caregiving is sympathetic and loving.

C. Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt

1. Freud's second stage is the anal stage, during which toddlers take pleasure in retaining and

releasing urine and feces at will.

2. In Erikson's theory, autonomy versus shame and doubt is the conflict of toddlerhood. It is

resolved positively if parents provide suitable guidance and appropriate choices.

II. EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT (pp. 179-184)

A. Development of Some Basic Emotions

1. Basic emotions are those that can be directly inferred from facial expressions, such as

happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust.

2. Happiness

a. Happiness binds parent and baby and fosters the infant's developing competence.

b. The social smile-the smile evoked by the stimulus of the human face-first appears

between 6 and 10 weeks.

c. Laughter first appears around 3 to 4 months in response to active stimuli.

3. Anger and Fear

a. Anger is expressed during the first months when babies cry in response to unpleasant

experiences.

b. Fear rises during the second half of the first year.

c. Stranger anxiety is an expression of fear in response to unfamiliar adults. It depends on

the infant's temperament, past experiences with strangers, and the situation in which

baby and stranger meet.

d. The rise in anger and fear after 6 months of age is significant for several reasons

including survival value as babies move on their own, keeping babies' enthusiasm for

exploration in check, and as strong social signals to motivate caregivers.

e. Cognitive development plays an important role in infants' angry and fearful reactions.

f. Culture can modify these emotions through infant rearing practices.

B. Understanding and Responding to the Emotions of Others

l. Between 7 and 10 months, infants perceive facial expressions as organized patterns, and they

can match the emotional tone of a voice with the appropriate face of a speaking person.

2. Social referencing occurs when an infant relies on a trusted person's emotional reaction to

decide how to respond in an uncertain situation.

3. Social referencing provides infants with a method of learning about the environment through

indirect experience.

C. Emergence of Self-Conscious Emotions

1. Self-conscious emotions appear at the end of the second year. They involve injury to or

enhancement of the sense of self and include shame, embarrassment, guilt, envy, and

pride.

2. Self-conscious emotions assist children in acquiring socially valued behaviors and goals.

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Chapter 6 - OUTLINE

I. ERIKSON'S THEORY OF INFANT AND TODDLER PERSONALITY (pp. 178-179) A. One lasting contribution of psychoanalytic theory is its ability to capture the essence of personality development during each phase of life. Erikson characterized each Freudian stage as an inner conflict that is resolved positively or negatively depending on the child's experiences with caregivers. B. Basic Trust versus Mistrust

Freud's first psychosexual stage is the oral stage, in which infants obtain pleasure through the mouth.
Erikson believed that a healthy outcome in infancy depended on the quality of the mother's behavior during feeding, and not the amount of food or oral stimulation offered.
Basic trust versus mistrust is the conflict during infancy in Erikson's psychosocial theory. The dilemma is resolved positively if caregiving is sympathetic and loving. C. Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt
Freud's second stage is the anal stage, during which toddlers take pleasure in retaining and releasing urine and feces at will.
In Erikson's theory, autonomy versus shame and doubt is the conflict of toddlerhood. It is resolved positively if parents provide suitable guidance and appropriate choices. II. EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT (pp. 179-184) A. Development of Some Basic Emotions
Basic emotions are those that can be directly inferred from facial expressions, such as happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust.
Happiness a. Happiness binds parent and baby and fosters the infant's developing competence. b. The social smile-the smile evoked by the stimulus of the human face-first appears between 6 and 10 weeks. c. Laughter first appears around 3 to 4 months in response to active stimuli.
Anger and Fear a. Anger is expressed during the first months when babies cry in response to unpleasant experiences. b. Fear rises during the second half of the first year. c. Stranger anxiety is an expression of fear in response to unfamiliar adults. It depends on the infant's temperament, past experiences with strangers, and the situation in which baby and stranger meet. d. The rise in anger and fear after 6 months of age is significant for several reasons including survival value as babies move on their own, keeping babies' enthusiasm for exploration in check, and as strong social signals to motivate caregivers. e. Cognitive development plays an important role in infants' angry and fearful reactions. f. Culture can modify these emotions through infant rearing practices. B. Understanding and Responding to the Emotions of Others l. Between 7 and 10 months, infants perceive facial expressions as organized patterns, and they can match the emotional tone of a voice with the appropriate face of a speaking person.
Social referencing occurs when an infant relies on a trusted person's emotional reaction to decide how to respond in an uncertain situation.
Social referencing provides infants with a method of learning about the environment through indirect experience. C. Emergence of Self-Conscious Emotions
Self-conscious emotions appear at the end of the second year. They involve injury to or enhancement of the sense of self and include shame, embarrassment, guilt, envy, and pride.
Self-conscious emotions assist children in acquiring socially valued behaviors and goals.

D. The Beginnings of Emotional Self-Regulation

Emotional self-regulation refers to the strategies used to adjust emotional states to a comfortable level of intensity.
By the end of the first year, babies' ability to move around permits them to regulate feelings more effectively by approaching or retreating from various stimuli.
American culture encourages positive feelings more often than negative ones.
Infant boys get more training in hiding their unhappiness than do girls. Also, cultures that stress collectivism over individualism usually place greater emphasis on socially appropriate emotional behavior.
Growth in representation and language permits toddlers to describe their emotions. III. TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT (pp. 184-189) A. Temperament refers to stable individual differences in quality and intensity of emotional reaction. B. Thomas and Chess initiated the New York Longitudinal Study, which was a comprehensive examination of temperament. Results indicate:
Temperament is somewhat predictive of psychological adjustment.
Parenting practices can modify children's emotional styles. C. The Structure of Temperament
The easy child quickly establishes regular routines in infancy, is generally cheerful, and adapts easily to new experiences.
The difficult child is irregular in daily routines, is slow to accept new experiences, and tends to react negatively and intensely.
The slow-to-warm-up child is inactive, shows mild, low-key reactions to environmental stimuli, is negative in mood, and adjusts slowly when faced with new experiences.
Some children do not fit any of these patterns, but rather show blends of different temperament characteristics.
Researchers have shown the most interest in the difficult pattern, since it places children at high risk for adjustment problems.
Rothbart and Mauro have devised a second model of temperament combining dimensions of Thomas and Chess and other researchers that overlap. D. Measuring Temperament
Temperament is usually assessed through parent interviews and questionnaires, behavior ratings by medical professionals or caregivers, and direct researcher observation.
Recently, physiological measures have been used to supplement these techniques, in hopes of identifying biological processes at the heart of temperamental styles. E. Stability of Temperament
The findings of many studies provide support for the stability of temperament. However, when the evidence is examined carefully, temperamental stability from one age period to the next is generally low to moderate.
Temperament is least stable during infancy because early behaviors change quickly with brain development and sensitive caregiving.
Research suggests that temperament can be modified by experience. F. Genetic Influences
Findings of twin studies reveal that identicals are more similar than fraternals across a wide range of temperamental traits and personality measures.
About half of the individual differences among us can be traced to differences in our genetic makeup.
Ethnic and sex differences in early temperament exist, implying a role for heredity. G. Environmental Influences
Heredity and environment often combine to strengthen the stability of temperament.
Some differences in early temperament are encouraged by cultural beliefs and practices. For example, Japanese mothers do more comforting and American mothers more stimulating.

Avoidant attachment describes infants who are usually not distressed by parental separation and who avoid the parent when she returns.
Resistant attachment identifies infants who remain close to the parent before departure and display angry, resistive behavior when she returns.
Disorganized/disoriented attachment characterizes infants who respond in a confused, contradictory way when reunited with parents. This pattern seems to reflect the greatest insecurity. I.. Stability of Attachment and Cultural Variations
Securely attached babies more often maintain their attachment status than do insecure babies.
For middle-SES families with stable life conditions, attachment quality is usually secure and fairly stable into childhood years.
German parents encourage their infants to be independent, which may explain why more German infants show avoidant attachment than American babies do.
Japanese infants display more resistant attachment responses. Japanese mothers rarely leave their babies in the care of strange people, which might cause the Strange Situation to be more stressful for these infants.
The secure attachment pattern is the most common in all societies studied. J. Factors That Affect Attachment Security
Opportunity for Attachment a. In a series of studies, Spitz observed that institutionalized infants experienced emotional difficulties, wept and withdrew from their surroundings, lost weight, and had difficulty sleeping. b. Institutionalized babies had emotional difficulties not because they were separated from their mothers, but because they were prevented from forming a bond with one or a few adults. c. One study shows that most "late adoptees" placed in homes after age 4 developed deep ties with their adoptive parents, indicating that a first attachment bond can develop as late as 4 to 6 years. d. Throughout childhood and adolescence, youngsters who were institutionalized babies were more likely to display emotional and social problems.
Quality of Caregiving a. Research findings indicate that securely attached infants have mothers who respond promptly to infant signals, express positive emotion, and handle their babies tenderly and carefully. b. Insecurely attached infants have mothers who dislike physical contact, handle them awkwardly, and behave insensitively when meeting the baby's needs. c. Interactional synchrony is best described as a sensitively tuned "emotional dance," in which the caregiver responds to infant signals in a well-timed, appropriate fashion, and both partners match emotional states, especially the positive ones. d. Although secure attachment depends on attentive caregiving, its association with immediate contingent interaction is probably limited to certain cultures. e. Avoidant infants tend to receive caregiving that is overstimulating and intrusive. f. Child abuse and neglect are associated with all three forms of insecure attachment.
Infant Characteristics a. Since attachment is the result of a relationship between baby and caregiver, infant characteristics should affect how easily it is established. b. The role of infant temperament in attachment security has been intensely debated. For example, babies who are irritable and fearful may react to brief separations with intense anxiety, regardless of parents' sensitivity. c. However, some studies suggest that caregiving may account for a correlation between proneness to distress in early infancy and later insecure attachment.

d. A major reason that temperament and other infant characteristics are not strongly related to attachment quality may be that their influence depends on goodness of fit. 4_._ Family Circumstances a. When families experience major life changes, the quality of attachment changes- sometimes in a positive and at other times in a negative direction. b. Family transitions affect parent-child interaction and, in turn, the attachment bond. c. Parents bring to the family context a long history of attachment experiences, out of which they construct internal working models that they apply to the bonds established with their babies. d. Mothers who show objectivity and balance in discussing their childhoods tend to have securely attached infants. e. Mothers who dismiss the importance of early relationships or describe them in angry, confused ways usually have insecurely attached babies. f. We must be careful not to assume any direct transfer of parents' childhood experiences to quality of attachment with their own children. K. Multiple Attachments l. Bowlby believed that infants are predisposed to direct their attachment behaviors to a single attachment figure. This preference typically declines over the second year of life.

Fathers (pp. 195) a. Fathers' sensitive caregiving predicts secure attachment. b. Mothers spend more time in physical care, while fathers spend more time in playful interaction. As a result, babies tend to look to their mothers when distressed and to their fathers for playful stimulation. c. Highly involved fathers are less gender stereotyped in their beliefs, have sympathetic, friendly personalities, and regard parenthood as an especially enriching experience. d. A warm, gratifying marital relationship supports both parents' involvement with babies
Siblings a. Eighty percent of American children grow up with at least one sibling. b. Conflict between siblings increases when one member of a sibling pair is emotionally intense or highly active. c. Secure infant-mother attachment and warmth toward both children are related to positive sibling interaction, whereas coldness is associated with sibling friction. d. Setting aside special times to devote to the older child supports sibling harmony L. Attachment and Later Development
Quality of attachment to the mother in infancy is related to cognitive and social development in early childhood.
Continuity of caregiving may determine whether attachment insecurity is linked to later problems. V. SELF-DEVELOPMENT DURING THE FIRST TWO YEARS (pp. 198-201) A. Self-Awareness
Emergence of the I-Self and the Me-Self a. The I-self, a sense of self as subject or agent who is separate from but attends to and acts on objects and other people, emerges in the first year. b. During the second year, toddlers start to construct another aspect of self, the me-self, a reflective observer who treats the self as an object of knowledge and evaluation. c. The I-self and me-self are fostered by sensitive caregiving.
Self-Awareness and Early Emotional and Social Development a. Self-awareness quickly becomes a central part of children's emotional and social lives b. Self-awareness leads to a child's first efforts to appreciate another's perspective and is accompanied by the first signs of empathy-the ability to understand another's emotional state and feel with that person.

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