Week 7 · Chapter

Chapter 7 — Infancy and Toddlerhood: Social-Emotional Development

Child Development Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 5 (analyze social-emotional development in infancy and toddlerhood: early emotions, temperament and goodness of fit, attachment theory and research, and Erikson's first two stages) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, the quiz, and the workshop all build on it.

In plain language

This chapter is about the feelings and first relationships of babies and toddlers. In the first two years, babies start to smile at faces, grow wary of strangers, and cry when a familiar adult walks away. Children also differ from the start in temperament (a child's own steady style of activity, mood, and reaction). Most of all, babies form an attachment (a lasting bond with a particular caregiver) that they lean on for comfort and use as a home base for exploring. You will learn how researchers studied these bonds, why their categories describe patterns of behavior rather than children, and how a toddler begins to recognize their own face in a mirror.

Why you already care about this

Picture a grandparent's visit to a family's apartment. Six months ago, the baby beamed at every face that leaned over the crib. Now, at 10 months, the baby takes one look at the visiting grandparent, turns away, and cries until a parent takes them back. The grandparent laughs it off, but you can see the hurt. Is something wrong?

Nothing is wrong. Wariness of new faces commonly appears in the second half of the first year, and it tells you the baby now knows who the familiar people are. Researchers have studied moments like this for decades. Harry Harlow's 1958 paper "The Nature of Love" asked what builds a bond in the first place. Mary Ainsworth and three colleagues, in Patterns of Attachment (1978), described a laboratory procedure for watching how 1-year-olds separate from and reunite with a caregiver. This chapter gives you their findings and the words to read a young child's feelings fairly.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

describe social smiling, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, and social referencing in an observation record;
define temperament, name Thomas and Chess's three types, and explain goodness of fit;
explain what Harlow's cloth and wire "mothers" showed and what Bowlby meant by a secure base;
name the four attachment classifications from the Strange Situation and explain why none is a label for a child;
tell temperament apart from attachment in a record;
place a toddler's behavior beside Erikson's trust vs. mistrust and autonomy vs. shame and doubt; and
describe mirror self-recognition and when it typically appears.

Carry this line with you: temperament is how a child reacts; attachment is whom they reach for.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 gave you the three domains and nature and nurture as interaction. Week 2 gave you the theories, including Erikson's stages and the ethological view that led to Bowlby. Week 3 taught you to observe, to keep behavior apart from interpretation, and to tell naturalistic from structured observation. Week 4 followed development to birth, Week 5 followed the infant's body, and Week 6 followed the infant's thinking and first words.
This week: the social-emotional domain in the first two years — early emotions, temperament and goodness of fit, attachment theory and research, Erikson's first two stages, and the emerging self.
How they connect: record R3 already showed you the toddler walking alone at 14 months and saying first words; this week you read the same record for how the toddler separates from a parent and comes back.
Where we're going next: Week 8 closes the first half of the course with a cumulative review and the midterm, and it adds one light new topic, play.

Two earlier ideas carry this week. From Week 2, ethology asks what a behavior does for survival, and Bowlby built his attachment theory on that question. From Week 3, a structured observation sets up the same situation for every child, while a naturalistic observation watches a child in an everyday setting. The Strange Situation is a structured observation; record R3 is a naturalistic one. That difference will matter in Section 5.

1. Name the early emotions: smiles, wariness, and checking a face

Picture a baby of about 2 months lying on a changing mat. An adult leans in, smiles, and talks softly. The baby looks at the adult's face and smiles back. That smile is different from a newborn's sleepy grin, because it is aimed at a person.

Here are the course's terms, set off so you can find them:

Social smiling is a smile aimed at another person's face, in response to that person; it appears in the first months.
Stranger anxiety is an infant's wariness or distress at an unfamiliar person.
Separation anxiety is an infant's or toddler's distress when a familiar caregiver leaves.
Social referencing is checking a trusted adult's face or reaction to decide how to respond to something new or uncertain.

Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety commonly appear in the second half of the first year. Both depend on a baby who can tell familiar people from unfamiliar ones, so both are signs of growth.

Worked example — reading a park visit. Here is an illustrative record from a crowded city park.

An illustrative park observation, with behavior and interpretation in separate columns
What the toddler did (behavior only)	What it might show (interpretation)
A large dog trots past. The toddler stops and looks at the parent's face.	social referencing
The parent smiles and says, "That's a friendly dog." The toddler takes two steps toward the dog.	the toddler used the parent's reaction to decide how to act

Walk it in the course's order. What the toddler did: stopped, looked at the parent's face, then stepped closer after the parent smiled. What it shows: social referencing. In words: the toddler checked a trusted adult's face to decide whether the dog was safe to approach. If the parent had looked alarmed, the same toddler might well have held back.

Misconception check. Students often think a baby who cries when a parent leaves has a weak or unhealthy bond. It is tempting, because crying looks like trouble. The cure: separation distress shows that a bond exists. A baby has to know who the familiar caregiver is before missing that person makes sense.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a time you watched someone else's face to decide how to react, such as at a new job or in a new city. How is that like social referencing?
(b) The grandparent at the start of this chapter felt hurt by the baby's crying. What could you tell the grandparent about stranger anxiety, in two sentences a family could follow?

2. Describe temperament: a child's own style

Two toddlers arrive at the same toddler music class (an illustrative scene). One runs straight to the drum and starts banging. The other sits on a parent's lap, watches the first two songs, and joins the circle only near the end. Same room, same songs, two very different starts.

Temperament is the stable early differences among children in activity, mood, and reactivity. It shows up across many situations, and it is the child's own style rather than a relationship.

Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess followed children in the New York Longitudinal Study. In Temperament and Development, they described three temperament types:

An easy temperament describes children who are mostly cheerful, adapt readily to change, and settle into regular routines.
A difficult temperament describes children who react intensely, adapt slowly to change, and have irregular routines.
A slow-to-warm-up temperament describes children who meet new people and situations with mild wariness at first and then adapt over time.

Here is the honesty note that keeps the types useful: many children fit none of the three. The course pins no percentages for the types and keys none. The types are research categories for patterns, and you never use one as a label for a real child.

Thomas and Chess also gave the field a second idea, one that matters even more for caregivers.

Goodness of fit is the match between a child's temperament and the demands and expectations of the caregiving setting.

Worked example — finding the fit. Back at the music class, the second toddler's behavior is consistent with the slow-to-warm-up pattern. Suppose the class leader says, "Everyone in the circle, right now." The fit is poor: the setting demands fast joining from a child who warms up slowly. Now suppose the leader says, "Come in whenever you're ready." The fit is good: the setting gives the child time. In words: the toddler did not change between the two versions; the setting did, and goodness of fit lives in that match.

Misconception check — destiny. Students often think a temperament type is fixed for life, so a slow-to-warm-up toddler will be a shy adult. The cure: temperament is stable in the early years, but it is a starting style, not a destiny. Experience and the fit between child and setting shape how that style grows.

Misconception check — blame. Students also often think a "difficult" temperament means bad parenting. The cure: Thomas and Chess described temperament as differences children show early, not as a product of poor care. A difficult temperament describes a child's style; the useful question is how well the setting fits it.

3. Test the feeding idea: Harlow, Bowlby, and the secure base

Ask a group of friends why babies love their caregivers, and someone will say, "Because they feed them." It sounds sensible. A research laboratory tested it.

Harlow (1958), "The Nature of Love", reported a study of infant monkeys raised with two stand-in "mothers". One was made of wire and gave milk. The other was covered in soft cloth and gave no milk. The infant monkeys spent more time clinging to the soft cloth "mother" than to the wire one that gave milk. The finding pointed to comfort, not feeding alone, as what underlies attachment.

Attachment is the lasting emotional bond between a young child and a particular caregiver, shown in how the child seeks that person for comfort and uses them as a base for exploring.

John Bowlby built a theory of that bond. Recall Week 2's ethological view, which asks what a behavior does for survival.

Attachment theory is Bowlby's account, set out in Attachment, of attachment as an evolved bond that keeps infants close to caregivers and gives them a secure base for exploring.
A secure base is a trusted caregiver whom a young child uses as a safe home point, moving off to explore and checking back or returning for comfort.

In Bowlby's view, staying close to a caregiver helped infants survive, so the bond is built in. The secure base adds a second job: a toddler who knows comfort is nearby can afford to explore. One limitation is worth naming. Harlow's study used monkeys, so it shows what comfort meant to monkey infants; Bowlby and later researchers carried the idea to human infants with their own observations.

Misconception check. Students often think attachment is caused by feeding: the person who gives the bottle wins the bond. The cure: Harlow's infant monkeys clung to the cloth "mother" that gave no milk. Comfort, not feeding alone, underlies attachment, which is why a baby can form a strong bond with a caregiver who rarely feeds them.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a place or person that felt like a secure base when you were starting something new, such as a first day at a job. What let you move off and explore?
(b) A relative says, "The baby will love whoever feeds her most." Using Harlow's finding, write a kind, two-sentence reply.

4. Read the Strange Situation: four patterns, never labels

How do you study a bond you cannot see? Mary Ainsworth's answer was to watch what a toddler does when a caregiver leaves and comes back, in the same room, in the same order, for every child.

Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall (1978), Patterns of Attachment, described that procedure.

The Strange Situation is a structured laboratory procedure of brief separations from and reunions with a caregiver, used to sort patterns of attachment behavior.

Ainsworth and colleagues described three classifications. Later, Mary Main and Judith Solomon described a fourth, in work from 1986 and 1990.

The secure pattern is the classification for a child who uses the caregiver as a base for exploring, may be upset at separation, and seeks and is comforted by the caregiver at reunion.
The insecure-avoidant pattern is the classification for a child who shows little distress at separation and tends to ignore or turn away from the caregiver at reunion.
The insecure-resistant pattern, also called ambivalent, is the classification for a child who is very distressed at separation and at reunion both seeks contact and resists it, staying hard to comfort.
The disorganized pattern, described by Main and Solomon, is the classification for contradictory or confused behavior toward the caregiver, with no consistent way of seeking comfort.

Worked example — counting the classifications and the years. Two small sums keep the history straight.

Classifications in all: Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall described 3 (secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-resistant), and Main and Solomon added 1 (disorganized), so 3 + 1 = 4 classifications.
Years from Harlow's paper to Patterns of Attachment: 1978 − 1958 = 20 years.

In words: the field moved from Harlow's question about comfort to a procedure for watching human toddlers in 20 years, and the fourth pattern came later still.

Each classification is a research category for a pattern of behavior in one procedure. It is never a label for a real child. The course writes "behavior consistent with the secure pattern in the Strange Situation", never "a secure child". Attachment behavior also varies across cultures. What a protest at separation or a greeting at reunion looks like can differ with a family's and a community's caregiving practices, so the same behavior can carry different meanings in different places.

Misconception check — the label. Students often think an attachment classification is a label for a child, like a diagnosis. It is tempting, because the names sound like descriptions of people. The cure: a classification describes a pattern of behavior in one structured procedure. The course never labels a real child, family, or caregiver with one.

Misconception check — childcare. Students also often think childcare outside the home prevents a secure attachment. The cure: children form attachments with parents and with familiar caregivers, and attending childcare does not by itself prevent a secure attachment to a parent. The effects of many hours of childcare are debated among researchers; Week 15 sets out each side's strongest case, and this course takes no side.

5. Read the drop-off: temperament versus attachment in R3

Now bring the research back to an ordinary morning. The running case (Dataset A) is illustrative, constructed for this course, and describes no real child. Record R3 was written at a childcare center, at morning drop-off and again at pickup.

Worked example — reading record R3. The child is 14 months old. The observer writes Day 1, morning drop-off, and pickup later the same day.

Record R3 of the running case (illustrative): separation and reunion behavior, with behavior and interpretation in separate columns
What the toddler did (behavior only)	What it might show (interpretation)
(1) Cries when the parent leaves	separation distress, which commonly appears in the second half of the first year
(2) Accepts comfort from a caregiver	comfort found with a familiar caregiver
(3) Plays while glancing back toward the caregiver	the caregiver used as a secure base for exploring, with a glance back much like social referencing
(4) At pickup, reaches for the parent and calms within a minute	comfort sought from and found with the parent at reunion

The record holds four separation-and-reunion behaviors. Now ask the week's key question: which parts are temperament, and which are attachment?

How intensely and how long the toddler cries may reflect temperament, the child's own style across many situations.
Whom the toddler turns to for comfort, and how the toddler uses that person while playing, reflects attachment, a relationship with a particular person.
One record cannot separate the two. Observations across more settings and more days would be needed.

Then name what the record is not. R3 is one naturalistic observation of a morning at a childcare center. It is not the Strange Situation, a structured laboratory procedure, so the course assigns R3 no attachment classification. "Calms within a minute" describes behavior, not a type.

Misconception check. Students often think one drop-off reveals a toddler's attachment type: the toddler calmed fast, so the toddler is "securely attached". The cure: a classification comes from a structured procedure, read by trained researchers, and even then it names a pattern, not a child. One morning gives you behavior to describe, and that is all it gives you.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) The R3 toddler cries hard at drop-off. Write one sentence about what that might show about temperament and one sentence about what it might show about attachment.
(b) What would you want to see on a second and third morning before saying anything about R3's relationship with the caregiver? Name two observations.

6. Place the records on Erikson's first two stages

Erikson's stages, from Week 2, give you a second lens. Think of a baby who cries at night and is picked up, fed, and soothed, again and again. Over months, that baby learns something about the world: when I need help, help comes.

Erikson (1950), Childhood and Society, described the first two of his five childhood and adolescent stages (Dataset E) this way:

Trust vs. mistrust is the first crisis, in infancy at about birth to 1, in which care that is reliable and responsive helps an infant come to expect that the world and its people can be trusted.
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt is the second crisis, in toddlerhood at about 1 to 3, in which a toddler pushes to do things alone and either gains a sense of self-control or comes to doubt their own abilities.

The ages are approximate and never keyed. Erikson's stages are a model, not a timetable.

Worked example — placing R3 and R4. Two records, one stage model.

R3 at 14 months falls in toddlerhood (about 1 to 3), stage 2 of the 5 childhood and adolescent stages, autonomy vs. shame and doubt. That stage builds on stage 1, trust vs. mistrust. R3's acceptance of comfort from a caregiver and from the parent fits the trust built in the first year.
R4 is the running case at 2½ years, in a childcare center's block area. The child pushes away a caregiver's hand and says, "Me do it." That also falls in stage 2 and fits its autonomy side.

In words: R3 shows a toddler who still turns to trusted adults for comfort, and R4 shows the same child, more than a year later, pushing to do it alone, which is the autonomy side of Erikson's second stage.

Misconception check. Students often think Erikson's ages are a timetable, so a child who turns 1 must "finish" trust and start autonomy. The cure: the ages are approximate, the stages overlap, and trust keeps mattering long after infancy. Read a record beside a stage, never against a deadline.

7. Find the emerging self, and read the week together

Picture a toddler at a family's bathroom mirror after a snack of berries (an illustrative scene). A purple smudge sits on one cheek. The toddler looks in the mirror, stares, and then reaches up and rubs their own cheek, not the glass.

Mirror self-recognition is a toddler's recognition of their own image, shown when the toddler touches a mark on their own face after seeing it in a mirror. It typically appears in the second year.

A younger baby might pat the reflection or smile at it as if greeting another child. Reaching for one's own cheek shows that the toddler knows the face in the mirror is their own face. That is the emerging self, and it fits the push for autonomy you saw in R4: a child who knows there is a "me" can start to say "Me do it."

Misconception check. Students often think a toddler who does not yet touch the mark on a given day is behind. The cure: "typically in the second year" is a range, not a deadline, and one try at one mirror is one observation. A child outside a range is a reason for a family to talk with a health professional, never a conclusion this course draws.

Worked example — reading R3 through two theories. Put the week together and walk the course's order once more.

What the toddler did: at 14 months, cries when the parent leaves, accepts comfort from a caregiver, plays while glancing back toward the caregiver, and at pickup reaches for the parent and calms within a minute.
What it shows: separation behavior and the use of a secure base.
Which theory explains it: Bowlby's attachment theory. Attachment is an evolved bond that keeps the toddler close to caregivers and gives a secure base for exploring, which is what glancing back while playing and reaching for the parent at pickup show. Harlow's finding adds that the bond rests on comfort, and nobody is feeding the toddler at pickup.
What a second theory adds: Erikson's psychosocial theory. Comfort found reliably in the first year builds trust, which R3's acceptance of comfort fits, and R4's "Me do it" shows the autonomy side of the second stage's crisis.

The reading in plain words: R3's crying when the parent leaves, playing while glancing back toward a caregiver, and calming within a minute when the parent returns is separation behavior and the use of a secure base. Bowlby's attachment theory explains it as a bond that supports exploring; Erikson adds that comfort found reliably builds trust, and R4's "Me do it" shows the autonomy of his second stage.

That sentence is the habit this course grades: name the behavior, name the concept, and say the evidence, in words a family could follow.

Key terms

Social smiling — A smile aimed at another person's face, in response to that person, which appears in the first months of life. (first used: 1. Name the early emotions: smiles, wariness, and checking a face)
Stranger anxiety — An infant's wariness or distress at an unfamiliar person, which commonly appears in the second half of the first year. (first used: 1. Name the early emotions: smiles, wariness, and checking a face)
Separation anxiety — An infant's or toddler's distress when a familiar caregiver leaves, which commonly appears in the second half of the first year and shows that a bond with that caregiver exists. (first used: 1. Name the early emotions: smiles, wariness, and checking a face)
Social referencing — Checking a trusted adult's face or reaction to decide how to respond to something new or uncertain. (first used: 1. Name the early emotions: smiles, wariness, and checking a face)
Temperament — The stable early differences among children in activity, mood, and reactivity, which show up across many situations and are a child's own style rather than a relationship. (first used: 2. Describe temperament: a child's own style)
Slow-to-warm-up temperament — One of Thomas and Chess's three temperament types, describing children who react to new people and situations with mild wariness at first and then adapt over time. (first used: 2. Describe temperament: a child's own style)
Goodness of fit — The match between a child's temperament and the demands and expectations of the caregiving setting; Thomas and Chess emphasized that development goes best when the two fit. (first used: 2. Describe temperament: a child's own style)
Attachment — The lasting emotional bond between a young child and a particular caregiver, shown in how the child seeks that person for comfort and uses them as a base for exploring. (first used: 3. Test the feeding idea: Harlow, Bowlby, and the secure base)
Secure base — A trusted caregiver whom a young child uses as a safe home point, moving off to explore and checking back or returning for comfort. (first used: 3. Test the feeding idea: Harlow, Bowlby, and the secure base)
Strange Situation — A structured laboratory procedure of brief separations from and reunions with a caregiver, described by Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall (1978) in Patterns of Attachment, used to sort patterns of attachment behavior. (first used: 4. Read the Strange Situation: four patterns, never labels)
Disorganized pattern — The fourth attachment classification, described by Main and Solomon, for a pattern of contradictory or confused behavior toward the caregiver in the Strange Situation, with no consistent way of seeking comfort. (first used: 4. Read the Strange Situation: four patterns, never labels)
Trust vs. mistrust — The first of Erikson's psychosocial crises, in infancy at about birth to 1, in which care that is reliable and responsive helps an infant come to expect that the world and its people can be trusted. (first used: 6. Place the records on Erikson's first two stages)
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt — The second of Erikson's psychosocial crises, in toddlerhood at about 1 to 3, in which a toddler pushes to do things alone and either gains a sense of self-control or comes to doubt their own abilities. (first used: 6. Place the records on Erikson's first two stages)
Mirror self-recognition — A toddler's recognition of their own image, shown when the toddler touches a mark on their own face after seeing it in a mirror; it typically appears in the second year. (first used: 7. Find the emerging self, and read the week together)

Summary

Social smiling appears in the first months; stranger anxiety and separation anxiety commonly appear in the second half of the first year.
Social referencing is checking a trusted adult's face to decide how to react.
Temperament is a child's own style; Thomas and Chess named easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up, and many children fit none.
Goodness of fit is the match between a child's temperament and the setting.
Harlow (1958) showed that comfort, not feeding alone, underlies attachment; Bowlby described the secure base.
The Strange Situation sorts behavior into secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-resistant, and disorganized patterns, never labels for children.
Erikson's first two stages are trust vs. mistrust and autonomy vs. shame and doubt, with approximate ages.
Mirror self-recognition typically appears in the second year.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

At an illustrative library story time, a toddler hears a loud puppet squeak, freezes, and looks at a caregiver's face. The caregiver laughs, and the toddler laughs too. Name the behavior, and say what the toddler used to decide how to react.
An illustrative swim class has 12 toddlers. A teacher notes that 5 jump in at once, 4 watch from the edge first and then join, and the rest do something else. How many toddlers fit neither of those two notes, and why does the course still not call the 4 "slow-to-warm-up children"?
A classmate writes, "The baby loves the grandparent most, because the grandparent gives every bottle." Name the misconception and rewrite the sentence using Harlow's finding.
At an illustrative family dinner, a toddler of about 2 years tugs a spoon away from an adult and says, "Mine! I do!" Which of Erikson's crises does the behavior fit, and what is one thing the record cannot tell you?

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Looking at the caregiver's face after the squeak is social referencing. The toddler used the caregiver's reaction, the laugh, to decide that the squeak was funny rather than frightening. A different reaction from the caregiver might well have brought a different reaction from the toddler.
Add the two noted groups: 5 + 4 = 9 toddlers. Subtract from the class: 12 − 9 = 3 toddlers fit neither note. The course still writes "behavior consistent with the slow-to-warm-up pattern", because a temperament type is a research category for a pattern, not a label for a child, and one class is one observation.
The sentence treats attachment as caused by feeding. Harlow's infant monkeys clung to the soft cloth "mother" that gave no milk, which points to comfort, not feeding alone. A fixed sentence: "The baby may be closely attached to the grandparent, and comfort, not who gives the bottle, is what builds that bond."
Tugging the spoon away and saying "I do!" fits the autonomy side of autonomy vs. shame and doubt, Erikson's second crisis, in toddlerhood at about 1 to 3. The record cannot tell you how the adult usually responds, or how the toddler acts on other days; one dinner is one observation, and the age range is approximate.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, the quiz, and the discussion; next week, Parten's model of play categories joins the midterm review.

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