Although there is substantial evidence that 30-month-old children can reason about other people's desires, little is known about the developmental antecedents of this ability. A food-request procedure was devised to explore this understanding in 14-and 18-month-olds. Children observed an experimenter expressing disgust as she tasted 1 type of food and happiness as she tasted another type of food. They were then required to predict which food the experimenter would subsequently desire. The 14-month-olds responded egocentrically, offering whichever food they themselves preferred. However, 18-month-olds correctly inferred that the experimenter wanted the food associated with her prior positive affect. They were able to make this inference even when the experimenter's desires differed from their own. These data constitute the first empirical evidence that 18-month-olds are able to engage in some form of desire reasoning. Children not only inferred that another person held a desire, but also recognized how desires are related to emotions and understood something about the subjectivity of these desires.
This study of 62 low-income families examined the relation between maternal and infant measures assessed at 18 months infant age and child behavior problems at age 5 as rated by preschool teachers. The infancy assessments included measures of mother-infant interaction, maternal psychosocial problems, infant cognitive development, and infant attachment security, including the disorganized/disoriented classification. The strongest single predictor of deviant levels of hostile behavior toward peers in the classroom was earlier disorganized/disoriented attachment status, with 71% of hostile preschoolers classified as disorganized in their attachment relationships in infancy. Maternal psychosocial problems independently predicted hostile aggression in preschool and combined additively with infant attachment security in prediction. Results are discussed in relation to the asymmetry of forward and backward prediction that characterized the findings and in relation to the potential significance of disorganized attachment behavior as a precursor to later maladaptation.
This study of 62 low-income families examined the relation between maternal and infant measures assessed at 18 months infant age and child behavior problems at age 5 as rated by preschool teachers. The infancy assessments included measures of mother-infant interaction, maternal psychosocial problems, infant cognitive development, and infant attachment security, including the disorganized/disoriented classification. The strongest single predictor of deviant levels of hostile behavior toward peers in the classroom was earlier disorganized/disoriented attachment status, with 71% of hostile preschoolers classified as disorganized in their attachment relationships in infancy. Maternal psychosocial problems independently predicted hostile aggression in preschool and combined additively with infant attachment security in prediction. Results are discussed in relation to the asymmetry of forward and backward prediction that characterized the findings and in relation to the potential significance of disorganized attachment behavior as a precursor to later maladaptation.
This study of 71 low-income mothers and infants examined whether the disorganized/disoriented (D) infant attachment classification is best viewed as a single category or whether at least two subgroups exist, corresponding to the forced-secure and forced-insecure alternate classifications. Correlates of the D classification as a whole, and of the two subtypes of disorganized behavior, were examined in five domains, including 6-month stability, maternal childhood history of loss, severity of maternal psychosocial risk, maternal behavior toward the infant at home, and infant mental development. Results indicated that the two subtypes of disorganized infant attachment behavior differed in age of emergence, maternal childhood history, severity of associated family risk factors, and the extent of the mother's lack of involvement with the infant at home. Across both D subtypes, disorganization of attachment strategies was associated with less optimal maternal behavior at home and with decreased mental development scores at 18 months. Results are discussed in relation to Main and Hesse's (1990) theory of the role of fear-inducing parental behavior in the genesis of disorganized infant attachment behavior and in relation to Aber, Allen, Carlson, and Cicchetti's (1989) concept of secure readiness to learn.
This study explored 14- and 18-month-old infants' ability to identify the target of an emotional display. In the visual task, infants were presented with 2 boxes. Each box contained an object that could be identified by opening the box lid and looking inside. In the tactile task, the objects had to be pulled out of the boxes before they could be seen. An experimenter expressed happiness as she looked or put her hand inside one box, and disgust as she repeated this action with the other box. Infants were then allowed to explore the boxes. Infants touched both boxes but preferred to search for the happy object. Thus, regardless of age or task, infants identified the target of each emotional display as something inside a box and not the box itself. Infants appeared to use the experimenter's attentional cues (gaze and action) to interpret her emotional signals and behaved as if they understood that she was communicating about the objects.
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