Research Project 1 Attachment Behaviors

In this exercise you will examine attachment behavior using naturalistic observation. Go to a local shopping mall and observe a mother with an infant 12 to 18 months old. Observe for a period of 15 minutes. Describe the behaviors you see occurring using the following data sheet. Then answer the questions that follow.

Behaviors Child Age____ Sex____

Talking

Laughing

Tickling

Clinging

Crying

Escaping

Retrieving

Mutual gaze

Hitting

Smiling

Yelling

Generally positive

interaction .

Generally negative

interaction

Questions

1. What kinds of behaviors did your mother-infant engage in? Did the infant use the mother as the base for exploration? Was the infant allowed to explore?

2. According to the categories secure and insecure, how did this pair seem? Were interactions generally positive or generally negative? Did the relationship seem warm and affectionate or hostile?

3. What kind of parenting style seemed to characterize this pair: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive indulgent, or permissive indifferent? Do you think the style is partially determined by the age of the infant? How?

Research Project 2 Development of Self in Infants

This project examines the development of the self in infants. You will test an 8-month-old infant and an 18-month-old infant with a mirror recognition task. Two tasks will test for mirror recognition of the self and of an object near the infant. Then answer the questions about your observations. The task descriptions, worksheet, and questions follow.

Task 1: Have the mother stand behind the infant and hold an attractive toy above and slightly behind the infant's head, so that the infant can see the toy in the mirror but cannot see the toy itself. Record whether the infant reaches for the reflection of the toy in the mirror or turns around and reaches for the toy itself.

Task 2: For one minute, count the number of times the infant touches his or her nose while looking in the mirror. Then have the mother put a dab of rouge on the infant’s nose, and turn the infant back toward the mirror. For the next minute count the number of tines the infant touches its nose and the number of times it touches the reflection of its nose. Use the following worksheet for your data.

DATA SHEET

Child 1 Child 2

Sex __ Age__ Sex __ Age___

Task 1

Reaches to mirror

Reaches to toy

Task 2

Touches mirror

Touches nose

Questions

1. Does the 8-monffi-old infant reach for the object? Does the 18-month-old reach for the object? Does either infant reach for the reflection of the toy in the mirror? If so, which infant?

2. How does the'8-month-old infant react to his or her image in the mirror with the rouge en his or her nose? How does the l8~mdhth-old infant react to the image in the mirror with the rouge on the nose? Do the infants of different ages react differently? Explain this difference.

3. Is there a difference in the development of the ability to recognize the self and the ability tо recognize an object in a mirror? If so, why would this be?

Chapter 8