Infant, control thyself: Infants’ integration of multiple social cues to regulate their imitative behavior

Abstract

This study investigated 15-month-old infants’ (N = 150) ability to self-regulate based on observing a social interaction between two adults. Infants were bystanders to a social exchange in which an Experimenter performed actions on objects and an Emoter expressed anger, as if they were forbidden acts. Next, the Emoter became neutral and her visual access to the infant was experimentally manipulated. The Emoter either: (a) left the room, (b) turned her back, (c) faced the infant but looked down at a magazine, or (d) faced and looked toward the infant. Infants were then presented with the test objects. When the previously angry Emoter was facing them, infants were hesitant to imitate the demonstrated acts in comparison to the other conditions. We hypothesize that infants integrated the emotional and visual-perceptual cues to determine whether the Emoter would get angry at them, and then regulated their behavior accordingly. Temperament was related to infants’ self-regulation –infants with higher impulsivity scores were more likely to perform the forbidden acts. Taken together, these findings provide insight into the roots of executive functions in late infancy.

Vocal tones influence young children’s responses to prohibitions

“…Campos, Thein, & Owen, 2003; Hornik & Gunnar, 1988; Miyake, Campos, Kagan, & Bradshaw, 1986; Moses, Baldwin, Rosicky, & Tidball, 2001). By the middle of the second year, infants can integrate information about others’ observed emotional reactions with cues about what the person is attending to: After merely observing an adult getting angry at another person, 15- and 18-month-olds were more likely to avoid the anger-provoking action when the angry adult was present than when the adult was absent or distracted (Repacholi & Meltzoff, 2007; Repacholi, Meltzoff, Rowe, & Toub, 2014). However, evidence for differential responses to different canonical negative expressions (e.g.…”

Transfer of Social Learning Across Contexts: Exploring Infants' Attribution of Trait‐Like Emotions to Adults

“…Instead, Repacholi et al. () hypothesized that infants were able to determine when they themselves might become the target of another person's anger and then regulated their behavior accordingly. We similarly suggest that infants in the current study acted so as to avoid eliciting further Emoter anger.…”

“…Importantly, the eavesdropping effect is thus not reducible to simple emotional contagion or the infant "catching" the Emoter's anger. The Emoter displays the same anger in these test conditions, yet infants expect the previously angry Emoter to become angry in some situations but not under other situational constraints (e.g., Repacholi et al, 2008Repacholi et al, , 2014Repacholi et al, , 2016. 1 There is evidence of generalization of emotional facial expressions in the infant face processing literature.…”

“…There are three interrelated phenomena reported in the literature. First, 15‐month‐old infants can learn the emotional consequences of performing an action simply by observing a social interaction between two other people—termed “emotional eavesdropping” (Repacholi & Meltzoff, ; Repacholi, Meltzoff, Rowe, & Toub, ; Repacholi, Meltzoff, Toub, & Ruba, ). Second, 12‐ to 14‐month‐old infants respond in socially anxious ways toward strangers after watching their mother's anxious emotional reaction (de Rosnay, Cooper, Tsigaras, & Murray, )—termed “indirect social referencing.” Finally, in language acquisition, 18‐month‐olds can acquire new words by overhearing others' conversations (Floor & Akhtar, ; Gampe, Liebal, & Tomasello, ).…”

Diversity in Unity: Perspectives from Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

“…Facial expression together with eye contact are the first strong cues that are perceived and understood by infants, and carried bold emotional and affection content (Leekam et al, 2010;Repacholi et al, 2014Repacholi et al, , 2016. Meanwhile, the Sundanese gaze rules consider it to be impolite to have eye contact while talking to someone older (Rosidi, 2011;Rusyana et al, 1988).…”