31.1 Introduction: Infant, Child, and Adolescent Development
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Table 31.1-5
Emotional Development
Stages First Seen
Emotional Skills
Emotional Behavior
Gestational–Infancy: 0–2 yrs
0–2 mos onward
Love, evoked by touching
Social smile and joy shown
Fear, evoked by loud noise
Responds to emotions of others
Rage, evoked by body restrictions
All emotions there
Brain pathways for emotion forming
3–4 mos onward
Self-regulation of emotions starts;
brain pathways of emotion growing
Laughter possible and more control over smiles; anger
shown
7–12 mos
Self-regulation of emotion grows
Able to elicit more responsiveness
Increased intensity of basic three
Denies to cope with stress
1–2 yrs
Shame and pride appear; envy,
embarrassment appear
Displaces onto other children
Some indications of empathy starting; expressions of feeling:
“I like you, Daddy” “I’m sorry”
Likes attention and approval; enjoys play alone or next to
peers
Early Childhood: 2–5 yrs
3–6 yrs
Can understand causes of many
emotions
Can begin to find ways for regulating
emotions and for expressing them
Identifies with adult to cope
Empathy increases with understanding
More response and less reaction; self-regulation: “Use your
words to say that you are angry with him”
Aggression becomes competition
By age 5, shows sensitivity to criticism and cares about
feelings of others
Middle Childhood: 5–11 yrs
Ego rules until age 6
7–11 yrs
Can react to the feelings of others
More aware of other’s feelings
Empathy becomes altruism: “I feel so bad about their fire,
I’m going to give them some of my things”
Superego dominates
Table 31.1-6
Temperament—Newborn to 6 Years
Dimension
Description
Activity level
Percent of time spent in activities
Distractibility
Degree to which stimuli are
allowed to alter behavior
Adaptability
Ease moving into change
Attention span
Amount of time spent on
attending
Intensity
Energy level
Threshold of responsiveness Intensity required for response
Quality of mood
Amount positive compared to
amount negative behavior
Rhythmicity
Regulation of functions
Approach/withdrawal
Response to new situations
(or other primary caregiver) during the second 6 months of life
can lead to depression that may persist into adulthood as part of
an individual’s character.
Temperamental Differences
There are strong suggestions of inborn differences and wide
variability in autonomic reactivity and temperament among
individual infants. Chess and Thomas identified nine behavioral
dimensions, in which reliable differences among infants can be
observed (Table 31.1-6).
Most temperamental dimensions of individual children
showed considerable stability over a 25-year follow-up period,
but some temperamental traits did not persist. This finding was
attributed to genetic and environmental effects on personality.
A complex interplay exists among the initial characteristics of
infants, the mode of parental interactions, and children’s subse-
quent behavior. Observations of the stability and plasticity of
certain temperamental traits support the importance of interac-
tions between genetic endowment (nature) and environmental
experience (nurture) in behavior.
Attachment
Bonding is the term used to describe the intense emotional
and psychological relationship a mother develops for her baby.
Attachment is the relationship the baby develops with its care-
givers. Infants in the first months after birth become attuned
to social and interpersonal interaction. They show a rapidly
increasing responsivity to the external environment and an
ability to form a special relationship with significant primary
caregivers—that is, to form an attachment. Table 31.1-7 lists the
commonly observed attachment styles.
Harry Harlow.
Harry Harlow studied social learning and
the effects of social isolation in monkeys. Harlow placed new-
born rhesus monkeys with two types of surrogate mothers—
one a wire-mesh surrogate with a feeding bottle and the other
a wire-mesh surrogate covered with terry cloth. The monkeys
preferred the terry-cloth surrogates, which provided contact
and comfort, to the feeding surrogate. (When hungry, the infant
monkeys would go to the feeding bottle but then would quickly
return to the terry-cloth surrogate.) When frightened, monkeys
