THE EARLIEST
INTERACTIONS
From
the earliest days of life, infants seem predisposed to look at human faces, and
even newborns just a few minutes old look longer at schematic faces than at a
scrambled face (Figure 14.17; Fantz, 1963; Goren, Sarty, & Wu, 1975; M. H.
Johnson, 1993; but also see Turati, 2004). Infants also tend to imitate faces.
In one study, investigators sat face to face with infants less than 21 days old
and made faces at them. The investigators stuck out their tongues at the
infants or opened their mouths as wide as possible. Careful scrutiny of the
infants’ faces showed that when the investigators stuck out their tongues, the
infants did too. When the investigators’ mouths gaped wide open, so did the
babies’ (Meltzoff, 2002; Figure 14.18).
As
infants attend to—and respond to—the faces they see, they are gaining an
under-standing of their
social partners. For
example, between 3 and 4 months
of age, infants begin
to appreciate some
rudimentary facts about emotional
expression and so respond more
positively when their mother’s
facial expression (happy or sad) matches the emotional tone of the mother’s
voice (Kahana-Kalman & Walker-Andrews, 2001; Montague & Walker-Andrews,
2002). Infants also learn early on that their caretakers are a source of relief
in times of distress. By 6 months or so, they start to calm down, apparently
anticipating an adult’s aid, as soon as they hear the sound of the adult’s
approaching footsteps. If the adult approaches and then does not pick up the
distressed child, the infant is likely to protest loudly (Gekoski,
Rovee-Collier, & Carulli-Blank Rabinowitz,
1983; Lamb & Malkin, 1986).
In
these ways, even the very young child begins learning about social
interactions—and, in particular, starts to develop expectations for others’
behavior. The opportunity for social learning broadens considerably when
infants begin to crawl. This is because they soon end up in inappropriate or
even dangerous situations: The infant wants to crawl toward the steep
staircase, or the mud puddle, or the broken glass, and the caretaker needs to
thwart these desires. Conflict is inevitable in these situations so it’s no
wonder that parental pro-hibitions, including use of the word no, become much more common when the
child begins to move about (Zumbahlen & Crawley, 1997).
Locomotion
also allows the infant to wander into strange or ambiguous situations, and this
is why infants at this age begin to rely on social partners for guidance about
how they should respond to unfamiliar events (Campos et al., 2000).
Specifically, infants engage in social
referencing—relying on the facial expression of their caregiver or some
other adultas a source of information (Carver & Vaccaro, 2007). Is the cat
dangerous? If Mom is look-ing at the cat and seems happy and unconcerned, then
the infant relaxes. If Mom is look-ing at the cat and seems anxious, then the
infant grows wary (Figure 14.19; Rosen, Adamson, & Bakeman, 1992; Striano
& Rochat, 2000).
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