Social Emotional Perspective Analysis

Introduction to Human Development: Social-Emotional Perspective - Part 1
Through this perspective we look at the how social influences and emotions shape our development, with a focus on the way we behave. From very soon after we’re born it becomes clear that we have an identifiable temperament. Most first-time parents probably think their constantly crying baby is going to grow up to be a disagreeable little… Well, thankfully they’re usually wrong.

Temperament has many definitions, though it can be summarised as stable, individual differences in the quality and intensity of emotional reactions. Your temperament forms the base of your personality and is one set of traits which is much more influenced by your genes than by the environment.
John Bowlby developed a theory of attachment based on observations of children’s reactions to separation from their primary carer (usually a parent, most often their mother). The theory was also inspired by studies of imprinting in baby geese. While not quite the same as imprinting, Bowlby did propose that both adults and babies have complimentary innate behaviours which keep them close to each other, and which help create a stronger, long-lasting attachment. Just like super-glue and fingers.

That attachment lets the child see the parent as a safe haven to return to when something in the world seems threatening. You see this fairly often when a child runs to cling to his mother’s legs. But the parent also acts as secure base, somewhere from which the child can safely explore the world, confident that, if necessary, they can return to their safe haven. So according to Bowlby’s theory, security and comfort are at the core of attachment. Not so much so for super-glue and
This challenge was dismissed by some experiments Harry Harlow performed with rhesus monkeys. He started by building a pair of surrogate mothers for the monkeys; one feeder which was just a wire frame with a milk bottle poking out of it, and one comforter which was a wire frame wrapped in terry cloth. The monkeys all showed a clear preference for the comforter, spending most of their time with it, and always returning to it whenever they felt threatened, or once they had finished exploring or playing.

Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues applied the study of attachment to humans by developing what is called The Strange Situation. It involves a series of observations of a child reactions to the absence or presence of their primary parent, or a stranger. By watching how different children reacted to the same series of situations (carer in the room, carer leaving, carer returning, stranger arriving, etc), Ainsworth came up with three ways of grouping behaviour which highlighted the different degrees of security a child feels, and how that affects their