Young infants can be perceived as shy, coy, bashful, embarrassed

Abstract

Previous research has found that 2-to 4-month-old infants display a behavioural pattern similar to adult expressions of shyness and related emotions (coyness, bashfulness, embarrassment). In the present study, 6 video-clips of this pattern and 10 of control patterns varying on a number of features and contexts were presented to 37 judges in a free-labelling task and in a rating task. Two examples of the target pattern were perceived as expressing primarily shyness and related emotions, three were perceived as expressing primarily happiness with varying degrees of these emotions, and one as expressing several other emotions as well as shyness and related ones. Yet, judges perceived shyness and related emotions almost exclusively in the target pattern, across different contexts and judgement tasks. The three clips perceived as most 'shy' were also used in a between-judges session to control for priming effects. Overall, results suggest that young infants can be perceived as shy, coy, bashful or embarrassed, in particular when their expressive behaviour resembles the relevant adult expressions. Implications for the early development of these emotions are considered.

What holds emotions together? Meaning and response coordination

“…This pattern of movement involved turning away the eyes or head while a smile developed. Uninformed observers of the videotape spontaneously labelled this reaction as coyness, bashfulness or embarrassment (Draghi-Lorenz, Reddy, & Morris, 2005), and indeed the observed dynamic pattern of facial expression corresponds closely to the specifications of an adult embarrassment display outlined by Keltner (1995).…”

Development and Psychophysiological Correlates of Positive Shyness from Infancy to Childhood

“…An alternative perspective has been proposed by Reddy and colleagues (Draghi-Lorenz, Reddy, & Costall, 2001;Draghi-Lorenz, Reddy, & Morris, 2005;Reddy, 2003). Infants are able, already in early infancy, to interact socially.…”

Affordances and the normativity of emotions

“…Dynamical accounts even tend to deny that the vehicle/content distinction is a useful distinction at all (e.g., Gallagher 2008;Chemero 2009;Hutto and Myin 2013;Colombetti 2014). Other accounts prefer to define representations in a more modest way by speaking of minimal 1 See e.g., Draghi-Lorenz et al (2005), Reddy (2008), Tracy and Robbins (2007), Clark (2010).…”