Lifespan Development. Tara L. Kuther

infants become more mobile, emotional outbursts become more common. Parents report that advances in locomotion are accompanied by increased frustration as toddlers attempt to move in ways that often exceed their abilities or are not permitted by parents (Clearfield, 2011; Pemberton Roben et al., 2012). When mothers recognize the dangers posed to toddlers by objects such as houseplants, vases, and electrical appliances, they sharply increase their expressions of anger and fear, often leading to fear and frustration in their toddlers. At this stage, parents actively monitor toddlers’ whereabouts, protect them from dangerous situations, and expect them to comply—a dynamic that is often a struggle, amounting to a test of wills. At the same time, these struggles help the child to begin to develop a grasp of mental states in others that are different from his or her own.

      Changes in emotional expression and regulation are dynamic because the changing child influences the changing parent. In particular, mothers and infants systematically influence and regulate each other’s emotions and behaviors. Mothers regulate infant emotional states by interpreting their emotional signals, providing appropriate arousal, and reciprocating and reinforcing infant reactions. Infants regulate their mother’s emotions through their receptivity to her initiations and stimulation and by responding to her emotions (Bornstein, Hahn, Suwalsky, & Haynes, 2011; Bornstein, Suwalsky, & Breakstone, 2012). By experiencing a range of emotional interactions—times when their emotions mirror those of their caregivers and times when their emotions are different from those of their caregivers—infants learn how to transform negative emotions into neutral or positive emotions and regulate their own emotional states (Guo, Leu, Barnard, Thompson, & Spieker, 2015).

      Social Referencing

      Early in life, the ability emerges to discriminate facial expressions that indicate emotion. In one study, 2-day-old infants initially did not show a preference for a happy or disgust face, but after being habituated to either a happy or disgust face, they successfully discriminated between the two, suggesting an early sensitivity to dynamic-faced expressing emotions (Addabbo, Longhi, Marchis, Tagliabue, & Turati, 2018). Likewise, newborns are able to discriminate happy faces from fearful ones (Farroni, Menon, Rigato, & Johnson, 2007). It is thought that infants are innately prepared to attend to facial displays of emotion, because such displays are biologically significant and the ability to recognize them is important for human survival (Leppanen, 2011). Between 2 and 4 months of age, infants can distinguish emotional expressions, including happiness as opposed to anger, surprise, and sadness (Bornstein, Arterberry, & Lamb, 2013). Infants 6½ months old can identify and match happy, angry, and sad emotions portrayed on faces but also body movements indicating emotion (Hock et al., 2017).

      Beyond recognizing the emotional expressions of others, infants also respond to them. Between 6 and 10 months of age, infants begin to use social referencing, looking to caregivers’ or other adults’ emotional expressions to find clues for how to interpret ambiguous events, which influences their emotional responses and subsequent actions (Walle, Reschke, & Knothe, 2017). For example, when a toddler grabs the sofa to pull herself up, turns, and tumbles over as she takes a step, she will look to her caregiver to determine how to interpret her fall. If the caregiver has a fearful facial expression, the infant is likely to be fearful also, but if the caregiver smiles, the infant will probably remain calm and return to attempts at walking. The use of social referencing is one way that infants demonstrate their understanding that others experience their own emotions and thoughts.

      Older infants tend to show a negativity bias when it comes to social referencing. That is, they attend to and follow social referencing cues more closely when the cues indicate negative attitudes toward an object, compared with neutral or happy attitudes (Vaish, Grossmann, & Woodward, 2008). In addition, infants may be more influenced by the vocal information conveyed in emotional messages than the facial expressions themselves, especially within the context of fearful messages (Biro, Alink, van IJzendoorn, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2014).

      How infants employ social referencing changes with development. Ten-month-old infants show selective social referencing. They monitor the caregiver’s attention and do not engage in social referencing when the adult is not attending or engaged (Stenberg, 2017). At 12 months, infants use referential cues such as the caregiver’s body posture, gaze, and voice direction to determine to what objects caregivers’ emotional responses refer (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2008). Twelve-month-old infants are more likely to use a caregiver’s cues as guides in ambivalent situations when the caregiver responds promptly to the infants’ behavior (Stenberg, 2017). In sum, social referencing reflects infants’ growing understanding of the emotional states of others; it signifies that infants can observe, interpret, and use emotional information from others to form their own interpretation and response to events.

      Cultural Influences on Emotional Development

      As we’ve already seen, emotional development does not occur in a vacuum. Contextual factors, such as culture, influence how infants interpret and express emotions, as well as what emotions they feel. In this section, we explore the role of context in shaping children’s knowledge about the appropriate display of emotions, as well as the degree to which children experience a fear common in infancy: stranger wariness.

      Emotional Display Rules

      Every society has a set of emotional display rules that specify the circumstances under which various emotions should or should not be expressed (Safdar et al., 2009). We learn these rules very early in life through interactions with others. Every interaction between parent and infant is shaped by the culture in which they live, which influences their emotional expressions (Bornstein, Arterberry, & Lamb, 2013). When North American mothers play with their 7-month-old babies, for instance, they tend to model positive emotions, restricting their own emotional displays to show joy, interest, and surprise (Malatesta & Haviland, 1982). They also are more attentive to infants’ expression of positive emotions, such as interest or surprise, and respond less to negative emotions (Broesch, Rochat, Olah, Broesch, & Henrich, 2016). Thus, babies are socialized to respond and display their emotions in socially acceptable ways.

      In some cultures infants cry very little, perhaps because they are in constant contact with their mothers.

      Pavel Gospodinov/Design Pics/Corbis

      Which emotions are considered acceptable, as well as how they should be expressed, differ by culture and context. North American parents tickle and stimulate their babies, encouraging squeals of pleasure. The Gusii and Aka people of Central Africa prefer to keep babies calm and quiet; they engage in little face-to-face play (Hewlett, Lamb, Shannon, Leyendecker, & Scholmerich, 1998; LeVine et al., 1994). These differences communicate cultural expectations about emotions (Halberstadt & Lozada, 2011). North American infants learn to express positive emotions, and Central African babies learn to restrain strong emotions.

      Similarly, cultures often have particular beliefs about how much responsiveness is appropriate when babies cry and fuss, as well as expectations about infants’ abilities to regulate their own emotions (Halberstadt & Lozada, 2011). The !Kung hunter-gatherers of Botswana, Africa, respond to babies’ cries nearly immediately (within 10 seconds), whereas Western mothers tend to wait a considerably longer period of time before responding to infants’ cries (e.g., 10 minutes) (Barr, Konner, Bakeman, & Adamson, 1991). Fijian mothers tend to be more responsive than U.S. mothers to negative facial expressions in their infants (Broesch et al., 2016). Gusii mothers believe that constant holding, feeding, and physical care are essential for keeping an infant calm, which in turn protects the infant from harm and disease; therefore, like !Kung mothers, Gusii mothers respond immediately to their babies’ cries (LeVine et al., 1994). Non-Western infants are thought to cry very little because they are carried often (Bleah & Ellett, 2010). In one study, infants born to parents who were recent immigrants from Africa cried less than U.S. infants, illustrating the role of culture in influencing infant cries (Bleah