Chapter 6

Psychosocial Development During the First Three Years

EMOTIONS

Subjective reactions to events and experiences that are associated with physiological and behavioral changes.

 Emotional development is an orderly process

building on simpler to more complex. See Table 6-1 (page 194)

EMOTIONS

Crying is first emotion noticed. Three distinct cries:1. hunger (or basic), characterized by rhythmic,

repetitive vocalization;2. anger, characterized by long and loud

verbalization;3. pain, characterized by a sudden, long cry

followed by a long silence as infant holds breath, followed by another wail.

EMOTIONSSmiling and laughingFrom birth. To caregivers by third week. Empathy: ability to react to another person’s

distress; putting self into another person’s shoes. Does not develop until second year; Due to ego centrism.

 Social referencing: process of incorporating facial

cues into response sequences, as well as using social cues.

EMOTIONSSelf-conscious emotions: embarrassment,

empathy, envy, develop after self-awareness between 15-24 months.

 

Self-evaluative emotions after age 3 (pride, shame, guilt).

 

Emotional neglect- failure to thrive.

Temperament

Person’s characteristic, biologically based way of approaching and reacting to people and situations. Consistent and enduring patterns that are fairly stable over time.

 

Temperament refers to a style of behavior: how a person does whatever they do

Temperament

Temperament affects the infant’s experience in two ways:

1. infants with different temperaments elicit different responses from others.

2. infants with different temperaments have different reactions to the same environment or events.

Thomas and Chess identified three types of temperament:

1. Easy babies: (40% of sample) were playful, regular in body functions, and adaptable. They approached new situations with interest and were moderate in their responses. They were the least likely to have problems later.

a. they had a positive moodb. high rhythmicityc. low or moderate intensity reactionsd. high adaptability

e. an approach orientation to new situations and stimuli.

f. As infants and young children, slept and ate regularly, were generally happy, and readily adjusted to new people and events

g. Thru later childhood and early adolescence, adjusted easily to changing school requirements and adapted and participated in games and other activities

h. Easy because they presented with few problems for parents, teachers, or peers.

i. They would be expected to have adaptive, normative interactions

2. Difficult babies (10% of sample) were negative, irregular, and unadaptable.

They withdrew from new situations and had intense reactions. Intense and frequent negative moods.

Cries often and loudly, laughs loudly. Respond poorly to change.

More likely to have difficulty or problems with their parents, school, and peers later in their development. 70% of the difficult children in the sample received psychiatric services while only 18% of the easy children did. They presented with 5 attributes:

They presented with 5 attributes:

• Low rhythmicity

• High intensity reactions

• A withdrawal orientation

• Slow adaptation

• Negative mood

All make for difficult social interactions.

As infants and young children, they ate and slept irregularly, took a long time to adjust to new situations, and were characterized by a great deal of crying.

Suspicious of strangers, reacts to frustrations with tantrums.

This pattern persisted into late childhood and early adolescence, and required parents, teachers, and peers to show both tolerance and patience in order to interact at all favorably with them.

3. Slow-to-Warm-Up (15% of sample) were low in activity and mild in their responses. They tended to withdraw from new situations and needed time to adapt to change. Negative initial response to new stimuli. Sleeps and eats more regular than difficult child, less regular than easy child.

They present with:• A low activity level;• A withdrawal orientation• Slow adaptability• A somewhat negative mood• Relatively low-reaction intensities• Interaction problems for parents, teachers,

requiring efforts to get the child involved in new activities and situations.

• This child’s mood and adaptability characteristics created a barrier for positive interactions with parents and teachers.

The remaining 35% unclassifiable.

They found that infants vary their responses to people and events, and therefore a “good” home or “bad” home may not always account for temperament problems.

 The key to healthy development is goodness of

fit between the child’s temperament and the demands made on the child in their home environment. A child’s environment should be in harmony with their temperament.

If the two influences are harmonized, one can expect healthy development of the child; if they are dissonant, behavioral problems are sure to ensure.

 

Environment must fit temperament.

A difficult child should not have new situations forced on them too quickly.

Easy child can be expected to adapt to sudden changes more readily.

 

Some biological determinants as well, although may or may not continue into adulthood.

Temperaments were fairly stable over time; Thomas et al demonstrated that a child’s ratings for each of the various temperamental attributes were stable over from infancy to adolescence

 

A mother with a difficult baby may be less responsive to their infants and less sensitive to changes in their babies emotional states.

Babies with difficult temperaments begin at an early age to cause problems between themselves and their parents: this can lead to a heavy-handed parental discipline and child rebellion may continue long after biologically determined temperamental predisposition has ceased to directly influence the child’s disposition.

 Restructuring the environment to better suit the older

child’s temperament may inadvertently reward the child for inappropriate behavior.

 Differences in temperament and change exist. Some

malleability possible.

Parents who place great importance upon the speed of their child’s physical and motor development may cause problems.

 Mother’s roleFeeding and physical careComforting by close body contactEmphasize verbal play Father’s roleHighly physical style of playMore time playing than care giving

How gender differences are shaped

• Through expectations

• Preferences of toys and play activities

• By second year, fathers talk more and spend more time with sons than daughters. Mothers do the same but for the daughter

Development issuesErik Erickson: Trust Versus MistrustEarliest is the oral-sensory stage demonstrated by

infant’s capacity to sleep peacefully, to take nourishment comfortably, and to excrete relaxfully.

 Situations of comfort and person’s associated

with these comforts become familiar and associates with a good feeling.

 Daily routines, consistency, and continuity in the

infant’s environment provide earliest basis for a sense of psychosocial identify.

Development issuesErik Erickson: Trust Versus MistrustProper ratio of trust and mistrust results in hope.

(Q: what are the potential ramifications if parent is untrustworthy, inconsistent, etc?)

 Lack of recognition can cause estrangement; a

sense of separation and abandonment. Perverted sense or opposite: idolism. To trust others is to trust self. The oral stage.

Development issues

Erik Erickson: Trust Versus Mistrust

*****Parents must maintain an adequate environment-supportive, nurturing, and loving- so that the child develops basic trust.

 

To help achieve this stage:

care for, feed, build a warm, affectionate relationship with child

Developing Attachments

The close, affective relationship formed between a child and one or more caregivers.

 

Attachment Theory

Attachment is an enduring emotional tie to a specific person.

Infants are attached when:

1. they stay close to a person;

2. becomes distressed when separated from that person;

3. shows joy and relief when the person returns; and

4. is orientated toward that person when they are not interacting- watches that person’s movements, listens for that person’s voice, and attempts to capture their attention whenever they can.

Bowlby: Four phases in the development of attachment:

1. Indiscriminate Sociability (birth to 2 months)Newborn cries to attract adults. Uses rooting, grasping,

and after middle of second month, smiling and vocalizations to keep adults near. Predisposed to initiate and respond to social interaction. Content as long as someone pays attention.

2. Discriminating Sociability (2 to 6 months)Begins to discriminate among people, to recognize

caregivers and show preferences for them. These are subtle changes. They sooth more easily when held and smiles more often at them. Begins to add playful behavior to repertoire for holding favored adult’s attention.

Bowlby: Specific Attachments (7 to 24 months)Emergence of intentional behavior and independent

locomotion. Enduring and affectionate attachments to specific people.

For first time, infant protests when the person they are attached to leaches. Caregivers are no longer replaceable. They know and make preferences known.

Can now use newly acquired mobility to stay close to attachment figures. Creeps, crawls to follow. Behavior is more purposeful and goal-directed. Uses motor abilities deliberately to influence others. These relationships are limited by egocentrism.

Bowlby: Specific Attachments (7 to 24 months)4. Partnerships (over 24 months)Bye age 2, child begins to understand that

other people have different needs and desires and begins to take these into account. Language will be added soon, which will be used to negotiate mutually agreeable plans with mother/care giver.

5. Goal Corrected PartnershipsMore mature relationships. Child becomes

more willing and better able to interact with peers and unfamiliar adults.

Three different patterns of response to mother’s presence or absence (Ainsworth).

Securely Attached Infants: (about 60% of sample) use mothers as a base for exploration. Stay close to mother and after a few months begin to explore room, toys, etc. Move back towards mother when stranger enters room. These infants had consistently sensitive, responsive mothers. Mothers were alert to infants signals, moods, and preferences; let baby stop to play during a meal if they want to; accepted interruptions and frustrations as part of being a mother. Cry/protest when mother leaves and greet happily upon her return. Cooperative and relatively free of anger.

Three different patterns of response to mother’s presence or absence (Ainsworth).

Ambivalently Attached Infants: (about 20% of sample) are reluctant to explore the room or play with toys. Some cling to mother, hiding from a stranger. Becomes anxious even before mother leaves. Intensely distressed when mothers leave, difficult to soothe when they return. Some push away angrily. May be afraid mother will never return and angry when they do.

Three different patterns of response to mother’s presence or absence (Ainsworth).

Avoidant Infants: (about 10% of sample) somewhat slow to explore. Rarely cry when mother leaves. They avoid their mothers when they return, ignoring their greetings. Some are friendlier to strangers than to mother. Seem almost afraid of mother. Dislike being held and being put down.

Main & Solomen (1986) identified a fourth attachment pattern: disorganized-disorientated attachment. Subtle and difficult to observe. Lacks organized strategy to deal with stranger anxiety.

Contradictory, repetitive, or misdirected behaviors (seeking closeness to stranger versus mother). Greet mother happily upon return but then turns away or approaches without looking at her. Appears confused and afraid. This is the least secure attachment. Mothers tend to be insensitive, intrusive, or abusive, or suffered unresolved loss. 10% of low risk and higher percent of high-risk populations. Factor for behavioral problems, especially aggression.

The mother’s of the ambivalent and avoidant infants tended to be rejecting, interfering, or inconsistent in their treatment. The concept of “sensitive responsiveness” is an important one. Mothering is not something a woman does to the baby, but that it is a reciprocal process, an active dialogue between mother and infant.

 Ainsworth argues that attachment promotes

autonomy. Disputes that infants tied to mother’s apron strings will grow into an immature adult.

Leah Matas and colleagues (1978) presented 2 year olds with difficult problems for their age. Those rated as securely attached as infants were enthusiastic about the task, listened to directions, tolerated failure, and asked for help when they needed it. Those rated as ambivalently or avoidant ignored directions, quickly became frustrated with the task, got angry at their mothers or at the materials, and gave up. The first group approached learning as a game, not a test, and performed better. These effects may well carry into later years.

Other researchers found that those who were securely attached as infants were better adjusted to school at 5 years that their insecure peers were. According to teachers and other observers, they were popular, outgoing, empathetic, and high in self-esteem. Children at age 5 who had been insecurely attached as infants were hesitant and shy or hostile and aggressive-less socially competent.

 The moral: mothers have a direct impact on the child’s

development. Stranger anxiety: difficulty with strangers. Separation anxiety: distress when caregiver leaves.

Emotional Communication

Mutual Regulation: Infant and caregiver respond appropriately and sensitively to each other’s mental and emotional states.

 

Social Referencing: the abilities to seek out emotional information to guide behavior. Observing another’s persons’ perceptions. Babies interpret their caregiver’s response to a new item.

Self-Concept

Our image of ourselves, our abilities and traits. Describes how we feel about ourselves.

 

Self-efficacy: sense of being able to master challenges and achieve goals. Develops 4-10 months.

Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt

• Anal-muscular stage in psychoanalytic scheme

• Learns what is expected of it, what its obligations and privileges are along with what limitations are placed upon it.

• Child is starving for new and more activity-orientated experiences; places new demand for self-control and for the acceptance from others in the environment.

Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt

• Adults must tame the child’s willfulness and utilize appropriate shame; yet encourage the child to stand on own two feet and to establish own sense of autonomy.

• The adults who exercise control must also be firmly reassuring.

• Child should be encouraged to experience situations that require the autonomy of free choice.

• Excessive shamefulness will only induce the child to be shameless or force it to attempt to get away with things by being seductive, sneaky, and sly.

Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt

• This stage promotes freedom of self-expression and lovingness.

• A sense of self-control provides a feeling of good will and pride; a sense of loss of self-control can cause a lasting feelings of shame and doubt.

• The virtue of Will emerges here: awareness and attention, manipulation, verbalization, and locomotion; can make free choices, to decide, to exercise self-restraint, and to apply oneself.

• Judicious: judges itself and others to differentiate between right and wrong.

Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt

• Develops sense of right and wrong of certain words and acts, preparing for next stage of feeling guilty.

****As the child develops bowels and bladder control, they should also develop a healthy attitude toward being independent and somewhat self-sufficient. If the child is made to feel that independent efforts are wrong, then shame and self-doubt develop instead of autonomy.

Socialization- the process of developing habits, skills, values, and motives that make them responsible, productive members of society. Compliance with parental expectations is first step. Internalize parent’s standards. See Table 6-4 (page 215)- how to deal with terrible twos

 

Self-regulation- control of own behavior to conform to caregiver’s demands or expectations, even when caregiver is absent (age 2).

Conscience- (8-10 months) internal standards of behavior, usually control’s conduct and produce emotional discomfort when violated.

 Inhibitory Control- conscious, effortful holding

back of impulses.  Committed compliance- do not need prompting.

older children. Situational compliance- need prompting;

ongoing parental supervision.

Impact of Working MothersNo significant negative impact was found.European American Children: negative impacts on

cognitive development at 15 months to 3 years. Questionable study.

 Impact of childcare• Income directly impacts quality of daycare options

and therefore directly impacts quality of care. • Shy and insecurely attached children experienced

greater stress. 

Impact of childcare- continued• Quality of care contributes to cognitive and

psychosocial competence. Structural characteristics: staff training, ratio of children to caregiver. Process characteristics: warmth, sensitivity, responsiveness of caregiver and the developmental appropriateness of activities.

• Stimulating interactions with responsive adults are crucial to early cognitive, linguistic, and psychosocial development. Low staff turnover is important, consistent caregivers.

 

Impact of childcare- continued

• The more time spent in childcare up to age 4½, more likely child was seen as aggressive, disobedient, and hard to get along with.

• Long days in daycare associated with stress for 3-4 year olds.

 

High quality day care had positive influence: • Low staff-child ratios• Small group sizes• Trained, sensitive and responsive caregivers who

provided positive interactions and language stimulation resulted in children with higher tests on language comprehension, cognition, and readiness for school.

• Developmental outcomes based on family characteristics (income, home environment, amount of mental stimulation from mother, mother’s sensitivity to child, strongly predicted outcomes regardless of how much time spent in daycare.

High quality day care had positive influence: • Maternal sensitivity was strongest predictor of

attachment.

• Childcare had no direct effect on attachment.

• However, unstable, poor quality, more time (10 or more hours week) than usual daycare were combined with insensitive, unresponsive mothering, insecure attachment was more likely. High quality daycare seemed to offset insensitive mothering.

• Impact for disadvantaged children even more important

Maltreatment & Abuse

Physical abuse: any contact that could or does result in physical harm; injury though punching, beating, kicking, burning, harsh punishment.

 

Neglect: failure to provide a child’s basic needs, including housing, medical treatment, nourishment, safe environment, protection, supervision.

 

Sexual abuse: any sexual activity or contact involving a minor that is sexual in nature; contact between an older person and a minor; nonconsensual contact.

Emotional maltreatment: acts of abuse or neglect that cause behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders. Includes rejections, terrorism, isolation, exploitation, degradation, ridicule, failure to provide emotional support.

 Approximately 60% of children are maltreated; 20%

physically abused; 1/3rd sexually abused. Abusive parents tend to be exhibit: depression, anger

problems, poor problem solving skills, have histories of abuse or neglect, substance abuse problems, emotionally distant from their children, isolated, poor relationship history. However, abuse and neglect are always a choice, not out of the parent’s control!

Impact of abuse

• Experience moderate to severe mental health problems and disorders

• Become abusers

• Continue to be victims

• Physical, cognitive, emotional, social impairment

• Brain injury, which results in all of the above

• Developmental impairment and delays

• Low self esteem, depression, anxiety, antisocial personalities