- Email: [email protected]
Social interchange in infancy: Affect, cognition and communication
New~dmsPsychol. Printed in Great
Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 287-293, Britain
1985
0732-I
18X/85 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press Lrd
BOOK REVIEW Social Interchange in Infancy: Affect, Cognition by E. Tronick, Baltimore: University Park Press Sod
Interchungr
mother-child
in Znfbzcy
interaction,
is a volume in
particular
and Communication
of contributions the
edited
(1982)
process
having
of joint
to do with
regulation
in
mother-infant dyads, during the first years of life. The affective system is held responsible for the accomplishment of joint regulation where the behavior of each partner is directed, focused, shared and mutually regulated. It is claimed that the cumulative effect of such exchanges serves to structure the child. Along with the joint regulation itself, there is a consideration of the role of intention in the interactional process and of the relation of affective development to two other developmental domains: cognition and language. The contributions are theoretical and/or methodological in focus. Interaction is examined mainly for normal mother-child pairs, but is extended also to biologically impaired infants and to emotionally disturbed children and mothers. The first and most basic of the three themes represented the focus on the mother-infant dyad as the unit of analysis,
in this collection is rather than on the
baby alone. Dyadic interaction is seen as organized in terms of temporal parameters of rhythm, initiation and termination. This idea is not new in psychological research, having been formulated initially in the 1960s (Sander, 1962) and elaborated in the 1970s (e.g. Sander, 1977; Stern, 1974, 1977; Trevarthen, 1977). However, there are two ideas in this volume that are new for dyadic interaction research. One is the concept of joint regulation, giving the infant greater credit than ever before as a contributing member to the dyadic unit from birth. The other new idea is encompassed in the generation of methodologies, both experimental and observational, to begin to capture and operationalize what does happen in the earliest of dyadic interactions. Thus, the major contribution this volume makes to psychological research is in its extension of the mother-child interaction ideas of the 1970s to methodological developments for the 1980s for systematically analyzing interaction from birth and its change over time. The second theme presented is the role of intention in mother-infant interaction, with a focus on when it emerges, an issue which continues to be difficult to define (e.g. Sroufe, 1979). However, the book makes contributions to the controversy which help clarify what intention might be and what levels of intention, if any, are required for effective mother-infant regulation. Although, intention is not required for the concept of joint according to Tronick, regulation, it is so for certain later interactive behaviors (e.g. according to Kaye, entry into a social system). What is missing from this volume is a theoretical model and/or empirical analysis of the transition from non-intentional to intentional behaviors. 287
288
Book
Review
The third theme presented is the relation of early mother-infant interaction to concurrent and later developments in cognition and language. This idea receives less attention than the others but is of major importance in an evaluation of what the ultimate significance early interaction is for development. It is around this idea that the volume is least focused and where only a few of the papers are relevant. Dunn concludes the volume with a summary chapter that integrates themes two and With respect to the first formulations of the 1970s
three. theme of joint rqulution, (e.g. Trevarthen, 1977;
many of the interaction Newson, 1977) did not
consider the infant as a full interactant from birth, but as a passive participant in the exchanges; the children’s behaviors were endowed with meeting by the mothers. For two of the contributors to the present volume (Bruner and Kaye), this notion still holds and is confounded with the notion of intention. That is, the mothers are seen as providing their children with intentions by interpreting their behaviors as intentional until the children develop intentions of their own. Kaye has described this period from “organism” to “social being” as a period of “apprenticeship”. For the remainder
of the contributors,
however,
the infant
is considered
as
capable of regulation in a dyadic context from birth or shortly thereafter and as an active participant in the exchanges. For example, Brazelton provides a model ofjoint regulation where the neonate’s behavior, or even fetal behavior, is highly predictable so that mutual feedback systems between mother and child can be evoked. According to ‘rronick, the ability to regulate behaviors in dyadic exchanges resides in the affective system and underlies all later development; for Massie, it underlies psychic structure. According to Brazelton and Als, progress in development occurs with continuous adaptation to and feedback from the environment as the child’s repertoire of interactive behaviors becomes increasingly differentiated. For Demos, the infant’s repertoire of expressive, affective behaviors is assumed to be dispositional in nature and to constitute the primary medium of communication and meaning before the onset of language and other symbolic forms. For Als, the drive fueling progress in organization comes from within the human being, suggesting an innate component to interactive capacities. Before discussing the studies in rnore detail, it is noteworthy that, according to Schieffelin & Ochs (1982), dyadic interaction in infancy is not a universal phenomenon but a product of our culture. They observed certain non-western cultures in which infants are not treated as “communicative partners” and are not engaged in face to face communication, yet learn to communicate. Thus, the notion of interactive capacities as innate and their necessity for later development becomes a relative issue. The evidence brought to bear regarding the infant as an active participant in dyadic exchanges from birth and throughout the first few months of life is provided by several of the contributors to this volume. Their reports are focused on detailed observations of interactions in both naturalistic and laboratory settings and on inf-ants’ reactions to manipulated interactions. Many have employed sequential analyses for evaluating interactive exchanges.
Book
Review
289
Demos provides the only observational study of interaction in naturalistic settings and it is apparently the first of its kind. Detailed observational studies have indeed been significant in other fields of inquiry (cf. Bloom (1970) and Brown (1973), whose observational studies of child language revolutionized the field of language development). Although Dunn adds a cautionary note about the representativeness of minutely detailed analyses of small segments of behaviors from small groups of children, the benefits of detailed observations for an emerging field clearly far outweigh the disadvantages. Demos describes three types of-interaction patterns: (1) those occurring for all pairs; (2) those reflecting developmental change; and (3) those that seem to be determined by variation in transactional styles. It is in regard to this third point, individual differences, that she makes a unique contribution in her conceptualization of transactions as specific to the individual pairs, and in her description of two different but apparently normal interactive styles. The issue of individual differences has been of critical importance in cognition and language. Demos’ study appears to be the first to address individual differences in normal affective development. In a study of face-to-face interactions in a laboratory setting, Als takes a different approach from Demos. Instead of focusing on individual differences, Als concentrated on the commonalities across three mother-infant dyads despite a range of infant handicaps influencing “interactive equipment”: one child was normal, one child was blind and one child was multiply handicapped. Her goal was to identify how mutual regulation is negotiated and what the tolerable limits of normal interaction are. For each infant, an expansion of interactive states, ranging from high anger to high euphoria, was observed over time although much more slowly for the handicapped infant. The experiments involving manipulated interactions provide strong evidence for infants’ behaviors as organized and directed from birth and/or during the first few months of life. Cohn and Tronick simulated depression in mothers while Fogel et uf. had the mothers switch to a still face posture in face-to-face interaction as the infants were “beginning” an interactional sequence. In these conditions, the babies exhibited distress indicating a violation of expectancies established through previous encounters. Massie’s report is based on an examination of interactions observed in early home movies of children who were diagnosed later as psychotic. Sequences of spontaneously thwarted interactions, for infants as young as four months, were identified and were described as resulting in withdrawal behaviors of the infants. It is claimed that such sequences contributed to the development of the psychoses. Massie’s study is unique and appears to contribute to the understanding of emotional disturbances as a function of interaction, and of the parameters of the ’ normal interactive process itself. However, one problem is the representativeness of the sample and knowing how salient such behavioral sequences were in the early lives of such disturbed children, and, indeed, in the lives of normal children. Surely some of the disturbed children’s interactions must have been of a normal nature for there to be violations of rules as claimed. More importantly,
Book
290
Review
although Massie’s report does not preclude the infant as a contributor to disrupted interaction patterns, he does implicitly emphasize the mother as the causal agent in the etiology of the emotional disorders. In this regard, Cohn and Tronick have proposed that either partner may initiate a violation of expectancies but the consequences of such violations are not equal since the participants are of different developmental levels. h’evertheless, such work points again to the importance of understanding the nature and range of individual differences in “normal” interaction patterns before certain other interaction patterns can be characterized as “abnormal”. Thus, the methodological contributions of the present volume are substantial and diverse. Quality of interaction key developmental variables rather
and extent of engagement have emerged as than the amount of time, for example, spent
in mutual play as suggested in previous research. However, what interaction means for the child and for affective development remain open questions. The second theme is focused on intention. Its emergence and role in mother-infant
interaction
also remain
open
questions.
Dunn,
in her summary
chapter, distinguishes between the effects of the infant’s behaviors and the intended effects of the infant’s behaviors. This distinction is relevant, especially f-or the description and accurate characterization of the behaviors observed in these studies. Obviously, to say that the infant’s behaviors are organized from the start as has been demonstrated in the empirical studies in this volume, does not presume to say the behaviors established certain expectancies
are intentional. about their
The babies apparently have mother’s behaviors, based on but that does not mean to say
previous encounters and/or genetic endowment, they intend certain behaviors. Cohn and ‘I‘ronick distinguish between functions convey
content
and those
that do not. They
of
infant
state that the former
displays
that
are probably
non-existent at birth, but that the regulatory function of infant displays is at least partially differentiated in the newborn. According to Fogel, working with Diamond, Langhorst and Demos, it is not clear that the communication of affect needs any kind of intentional behavior to make it function. Thus, ~I‘ronick appears to be correct in stating that joint regulation avoids any notion of intention. 80th Bruner
and
Kaye
deal
explicitly
with
the
distinction
between
non-
intentional and intentional behaviors. ‘I‘hey describe intentional behaviors as emerging some time during the second half of the child’s first year and as necessary for the child’s entry into a social system. According to Bruner, behaviors are organized under the control of intentions; but the data Pruner presents are for children at least eight months of age. Kaye distinguishes between participation in social interactions and in social systems; it is not until intentions can be shared that the child becomes a social being. For both authors, the sharing of intentions requires anticipation and shared goals. However relevant the distinction between intention and non-intentional behavior is, none of the volume’s contributors have addressed the transition from non-intentional to intentional behaviors in a direct way nor have they provided any evidence for this transition. Perhaps Kaye and Bruner are right in
Book
Review
291
that the mother organizes the child and the child’s environment to endow the child’s behaviors with intention to eventually bring the child to sharing of intentions with the mother. But this is not the whole story. Surely the child brings something to the interaction from birth, and what the child is capable of changes with development, as has been clearly demonstrated in this volume. What remains to be done is to establish the emergence of intentional behaviors on the part of the child as the child interacts with the mother and other persons and
objects
in the
environment.
It would appear that the development of intentions is, at least in part, cognitively based. If the regulative function of affective displays is at least partially differentiated in the newborn, but that the content conveying function of infant displays is probably Tronick, affect would appear
non-existent at birth, as suggested by Cohn and to lead cognition in development which brings us
to the final theme in this review: affective development. Perhaps it is the examination of affective development in relation to cognition that would shed light on the transition from non-intentional to intentional behaviors. Unfortunately, this theme is not given as much attention as the other two themes, nor is much attention given to its relationship to other developmental domains. a critical issue for infancy research In the past, the research traditions of Piagetian cognitive psychology and/or behaviorism have hindered the study of affective or emotional development. More recently, affective development has been considered subordinate to and regulated by cognitive development, and emotional behaviors have been studied as a window on cognitive development (e.g. Charlesworth, 1969; Haviland, 1976). However, the research of the past decade has increasingly emphasized the study of affective development in its own right and as a domain integrally related to cognitive development (e.g. Cicchetti & Pogge-Hesse, 198 1; Mandler, 1975; Sroufe, 1979). Moreover, other recent research has focused between affect and language (e.g. Bruner, 1977).
on the relationship
Among the contributors to the present volume, there are differences as to what the relation is between affective development and other developmental domains and how such relationships evolve. For example, according to I‘ronick, affective regulation is responsible for all development and as such is a precursor to other developments. For Fogel rt al. in contrast, affect and cognition are “indissociably linked”. Demos, however, claims that not enough is known about affective development itself, so that it is premature to talk about its relation to other developmental domains. With respect to the relationship between affect and cognition that call be demonstrated in early interaction, Fogel rt (11.make a substantial contribution. According to this group, the indissociable linkage between affect and cognition underlies the organization in mother-child interaction. They borrow Sroufe’s model of tension in emotional development (Sroufe, 1979; Sroufe 8c Waters, 1976) and extend it to face-to-face interactions of infants and mothers. They report that the infants exhibited distress when an organized response sequence, that is the expectation of their mothers’ interaction, was disrupted. Fogel pt (11. claim that the affective component of the child’s behavior is the direction of
Book Review
292 change in tension that is generated; data
are
and that the cognitive component is the fluctuation in tension hence the indissociable linkage of cognition and affect. Their
convincing.
Only Bruner’s paper comes closest to a description of the relationship between dyadic interaction and language development. In his studies of eight month to Bruner describes certain functions of language (i.e. two year old children, labeling, mastering request forms) as emerging from prelinguistic communicative (i.e. dyadic) frameworks. Progress in learning language comes from the mother “raising the ante” of the child to encourage and pull the child to learn and use the appropriate forms. What is neglected here is the contribution the child him- or herself makes to the task of learning the language which would be Although it is likely that certain more in the spirit of the present volume. language functions may indeed emerge frameworks, how other aspects of language
from specific acquisition may
communicative or may not be
related to the affective system are not explained by such frameworks (e.g. Bloom, 1983; Shatz, 1982). In conclusion, it may be premature to talk about relationships between affective development, as examined in mother-infant interactions, and other developmental domains. The volume does, however, make substantial methodological contributions interactive patterns.
to the identification of the parameters and range of I expect such work will lead to a better understanding of Perhaps it is in such work that the transition from affective development. non-intentional to intentional behaviors will become clearer.
Columbia
University,
Karin Lifter New York
Note. I am grateful to Lois Bloom, Joanne Bitetti Capatides, Jeremie Lorraine Rocissano and Hollis Scarborough for reading and commenting early
draft.
Hafitz, on an
Book
Review
293
REFERENCES Bloom L. ( 1970) Language development: Form andfunction in emerginggrammars. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press Bloom L. (1983) Tensions in psycholinguistics, Review of Wanner E. & Gleitman L. (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art. Science 220, 843-845. Brown R. (1973) A first language, the early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner J. (1977) Early social interaction and language acquisition. In H. R. Schaffer (Ed.), Studies in mother-infant interaction. London: Academic Press. Charlesworth W. (1969) The role of surprise in cognitive development. In D. Elkind &J. Flavell (Eds.), Studies in cognitive development. London: Oxford University Press. Cicchetti D. & Pogge-Hesse P. (1981) The relation between emotion and cognition in infant development. In M. Lamb & L. Sherrod (Eds.), Znfant social cognition: Empirical and theoretical considerations. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Haviland J. (1976) Looking smart: The relationship between affect and intelligence in infancy. In M. Lewis (Ed.), Origins of infant intelligence. New York: Plenum. Mandler G. (1975) Mind and emotion. New York: Wiley. Newson J. (1977) An intersubjective approach to the systematic description of mother-infant interaction. In H. R. Schaffer (Ed.), Studies in mother-infant interaction. London: Academic Press. Sander L. (1962) Issues in early mother-child interaction. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 1, 141-166. Sander L. (1977) The regulation of exchange in the infant-caregiver systems and some aspects of the context-content relationship. In M. Lewis & L. Rosenblum (Eds.), Interaction, conversation and the development of language. New York: Wiley. Schieffelin B. & Ochs E. (1983) A cultural perspective on the transition from prelinguistic to linguistic communication. In R. Golinkoff (Ed.), The transition from prelinpistic to linguistic communication in infancy. Hillsdale, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates. Shatz M. (1982) On mechanisms of language acquisition: Can features of the communicative environment account for development? In E. Wanner & L. Gleitman (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sroufe L. A. (1979) The ontogenesis of emotion in infancy. In J. Osofsky (Ed.), Handbook of infant development. New York: Wiley. Sroufe L. A. & Waters E. (1976) The ontogensis of smiling and laughter. Psychological Review 83, 173-189. Stern D. (1974) Mother and infant at play: The dyadic interaction involving facial, vocal and gaze behaviors. In M. Lewis & L. Rosenblum (Eds.), The effect of the infant on its caregiver. New York: Wiley. Stern D. (1977) The first relationship: Infant and mother. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Trevarthen C. (1977) Descriptive analysis of infant communicative behavior. In H. R. Schaffer (Ed.), Studies in mother-infant interaction. London: Academic Press.
Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 287-293, Britain
1985
0732-I
18X/85 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press Lrd
BOOK REVIEW Social Interchange in Infancy: Affect, Cognition by E. Tronick, Baltimore: University Park Press Sod
Interchungr
mother-child
in Znfbzcy
interaction,
is a volume in
particular
and Communication
of contributions the
edited
(1982)
process
having
of joint
to do with
regulation
in
mother-infant dyads, during the first years of life. The affective system is held responsible for the accomplishment of joint regulation where the behavior of each partner is directed, focused, shared and mutually regulated. It is claimed that the cumulative effect of such exchanges serves to structure the child. Along with the joint regulation itself, there is a consideration of the role of intention in the interactional process and of the relation of affective development to two other developmental domains: cognition and language. The contributions are theoretical and/or methodological in focus. Interaction is examined mainly for normal mother-child pairs, but is extended also to biologically impaired infants and to emotionally disturbed children and mothers. The first and most basic of the three themes represented the focus on the mother-infant dyad as the unit of analysis,
in this collection is rather than on the
baby alone. Dyadic interaction is seen as organized in terms of temporal parameters of rhythm, initiation and termination. This idea is not new in psychological research, having been formulated initially in the 1960s (Sander, 1962) and elaborated in the 1970s (e.g. Sander, 1977; Stern, 1974, 1977; Trevarthen, 1977). However, there are two ideas in this volume that are new for dyadic interaction research. One is the concept of joint regulation, giving the infant greater credit than ever before as a contributing member to the dyadic unit from birth. The other new idea is encompassed in the generation of methodologies, both experimental and observational, to begin to capture and operationalize what does happen in the earliest of dyadic interactions. Thus, the major contribution this volume makes to psychological research is in its extension of the mother-child interaction ideas of the 1970s to methodological developments for the 1980s for systematically analyzing interaction from birth and its change over time. The second theme presented is the role of intention in mother-infant interaction, with a focus on when it emerges, an issue which continues to be difficult to define (e.g. Sroufe, 1979). However, the book makes contributions to the controversy which help clarify what intention might be and what levels of intention, if any, are required for effective mother-infant regulation. Although, intention is not required for the concept of joint according to Tronick, regulation, it is so for certain later interactive behaviors (e.g. according to Kaye, entry into a social system). What is missing from this volume is a theoretical model and/or empirical analysis of the transition from non-intentional to intentional behaviors. 287
288
Book
Review
The third theme presented is the relation of early mother-infant interaction to concurrent and later developments in cognition and language. This idea receives less attention than the others but is of major importance in an evaluation of what the ultimate significance early interaction is for development. It is around this idea that the volume is least focused and where only a few of the papers are relevant. Dunn concludes the volume with a summary chapter that integrates themes two and With respect to the first formulations of the 1970s
three. theme of joint rqulution, (e.g. Trevarthen, 1977;
many of the interaction Newson, 1977) did not
consider the infant as a full interactant from birth, but as a passive participant in the exchanges; the children’s behaviors were endowed with meeting by the mothers. For two of the contributors to the present volume (Bruner and Kaye), this notion still holds and is confounded with the notion of intention. That is, the mothers are seen as providing their children with intentions by interpreting their behaviors as intentional until the children develop intentions of their own. Kaye has described this period from “organism” to “social being” as a period of “apprenticeship”. For the remainder
of the contributors,
however,
the infant
is considered
as
capable of regulation in a dyadic context from birth or shortly thereafter and as an active participant in the exchanges. For example, Brazelton provides a model ofjoint regulation where the neonate’s behavior, or even fetal behavior, is highly predictable so that mutual feedback systems between mother and child can be evoked. According to ‘rronick, the ability to regulate behaviors in dyadic exchanges resides in the affective system and underlies all later development; for Massie, it underlies psychic structure. According to Brazelton and Als, progress in development occurs with continuous adaptation to and feedback from the environment as the child’s repertoire of interactive behaviors becomes increasingly differentiated. For Demos, the infant’s repertoire of expressive, affective behaviors is assumed to be dispositional in nature and to constitute the primary medium of communication and meaning before the onset of language and other symbolic forms. For Als, the drive fueling progress in organization comes from within the human being, suggesting an innate component to interactive capacities. Before discussing the studies in rnore detail, it is noteworthy that, according to Schieffelin & Ochs (1982), dyadic interaction in infancy is not a universal phenomenon but a product of our culture. They observed certain non-western cultures in which infants are not treated as “communicative partners” and are not engaged in face to face communication, yet learn to communicate. Thus, the notion of interactive capacities as innate and their necessity for later development becomes a relative issue. The evidence brought to bear regarding the infant as an active participant in dyadic exchanges from birth and throughout the first few months of life is provided by several of the contributors to this volume. Their reports are focused on detailed observations of interactions in both naturalistic and laboratory settings and on inf-ants’ reactions to manipulated interactions. Many have employed sequential analyses for evaluating interactive exchanges.
Book
Review
289
Demos provides the only observational study of interaction in naturalistic settings and it is apparently the first of its kind. Detailed observational studies have indeed been significant in other fields of inquiry (cf. Bloom (1970) and Brown (1973), whose observational studies of child language revolutionized the field of language development). Although Dunn adds a cautionary note about the representativeness of minutely detailed analyses of small segments of behaviors from small groups of children, the benefits of detailed observations for an emerging field clearly far outweigh the disadvantages. Demos describes three types of-interaction patterns: (1) those occurring for all pairs; (2) those reflecting developmental change; and (3) those that seem to be determined by variation in transactional styles. It is in regard to this third point, individual differences, that she makes a unique contribution in her conceptualization of transactions as specific to the individual pairs, and in her description of two different but apparently normal interactive styles. The issue of individual differences has been of critical importance in cognition and language. Demos’ study appears to be the first to address individual differences in normal affective development. In a study of face-to-face interactions in a laboratory setting, Als takes a different approach from Demos. Instead of focusing on individual differences, Als concentrated on the commonalities across three mother-infant dyads despite a range of infant handicaps influencing “interactive equipment”: one child was normal, one child was blind and one child was multiply handicapped. Her goal was to identify how mutual regulation is negotiated and what the tolerable limits of normal interaction are. For each infant, an expansion of interactive states, ranging from high anger to high euphoria, was observed over time although much more slowly for the handicapped infant. The experiments involving manipulated interactions provide strong evidence for infants’ behaviors as organized and directed from birth and/or during the first few months of life. Cohn and Tronick simulated depression in mothers while Fogel et uf. had the mothers switch to a still face posture in face-to-face interaction as the infants were “beginning” an interactional sequence. In these conditions, the babies exhibited distress indicating a violation of expectancies established through previous encounters. Massie’s report is based on an examination of interactions observed in early home movies of children who were diagnosed later as psychotic. Sequences of spontaneously thwarted interactions, for infants as young as four months, were identified and were described as resulting in withdrawal behaviors of the infants. It is claimed that such sequences contributed to the development of the psychoses. Massie’s study is unique and appears to contribute to the understanding of emotional disturbances as a function of interaction, and of the parameters of the ’ normal interactive process itself. However, one problem is the representativeness of the sample and knowing how salient such behavioral sequences were in the early lives of such disturbed children, and, indeed, in the lives of normal children. Surely some of the disturbed children’s interactions must have been of a normal nature for there to be violations of rules as claimed. More importantly,
Book
290
Review
although Massie’s report does not preclude the infant as a contributor to disrupted interaction patterns, he does implicitly emphasize the mother as the causal agent in the etiology of the emotional disorders. In this regard, Cohn and Tronick have proposed that either partner may initiate a violation of expectancies but the consequences of such violations are not equal since the participants are of different developmental levels. h’evertheless, such work points again to the importance of understanding the nature and range of individual differences in “normal” interaction patterns before certain other interaction patterns can be characterized as “abnormal”. Thus, the methodological contributions of the present volume are substantial and diverse. Quality of interaction key developmental variables rather
and extent of engagement have emerged as than the amount of time, for example, spent
in mutual play as suggested in previous research. However, what interaction means for the child and for affective development remain open questions. The second theme is focused on intention. Its emergence and role in mother-infant
interaction
also remain
open
questions.
Dunn,
in her summary
chapter, distinguishes between the effects of the infant’s behaviors and the intended effects of the infant’s behaviors. This distinction is relevant, especially f-or the description and accurate characterization of the behaviors observed in these studies. Obviously, to say that the infant’s behaviors are organized from the start as has been demonstrated in the empirical studies in this volume, does not presume to say the behaviors established certain expectancies
are intentional. about their
The babies apparently have mother’s behaviors, based on but that does not mean to say
previous encounters and/or genetic endowment, they intend certain behaviors. Cohn and ‘I‘ronick distinguish between functions convey
content
and those
that do not. They
of
infant
state that the former
displays
that
are probably
non-existent at birth, but that the regulatory function of infant displays is at least partially differentiated in the newborn. According to Fogel, working with Diamond, Langhorst and Demos, it is not clear that the communication of affect needs any kind of intentional behavior to make it function. Thus, ~I‘ronick appears to be correct in stating that joint regulation avoids any notion of intention. 80th Bruner
and
Kaye
deal
explicitly
with
the
distinction
between
non-
intentional and intentional behaviors. ‘I‘hey describe intentional behaviors as emerging some time during the second half of the child’s first year and as necessary for the child’s entry into a social system. According to Bruner, behaviors are organized under the control of intentions; but the data Pruner presents are for children at least eight months of age. Kaye distinguishes between participation in social interactions and in social systems; it is not until intentions can be shared that the child becomes a social being. For both authors, the sharing of intentions requires anticipation and shared goals. However relevant the distinction between intention and non-intentional behavior is, none of the volume’s contributors have addressed the transition from non-intentional to intentional behaviors in a direct way nor have they provided any evidence for this transition. Perhaps Kaye and Bruner are right in
Book
Review
291
that the mother organizes the child and the child’s environment to endow the child’s behaviors with intention to eventually bring the child to sharing of intentions with the mother. But this is not the whole story. Surely the child brings something to the interaction from birth, and what the child is capable of changes with development, as has been clearly demonstrated in this volume. What remains to be done is to establish the emergence of intentional behaviors on the part of the child as the child interacts with the mother and other persons and
objects
in the
environment.
It would appear that the development of intentions is, at least in part, cognitively based. If the regulative function of affective displays is at least partially differentiated in the newborn, but that the content conveying function of infant displays is probably Tronick, affect would appear
non-existent at birth, as suggested by Cohn and to lead cognition in development which brings us
to the final theme in this review: affective development. Perhaps it is the examination of affective development in relation to cognition that would shed light on the transition from non-intentional to intentional behaviors. Unfortunately, this theme is not given as much attention as the other two themes, nor is much attention given to its relationship to other developmental domains. a critical issue for infancy research In the past, the research traditions of Piagetian cognitive psychology and/or behaviorism have hindered the study of affective or emotional development. More recently, affective development has been considered subordinate to and regulated by cognitive development, and emotional behaviors have been studied as a window on cognitive development (e.g. Charlesworth, 1969; Haviland, 1976). However, the research of the past decade has increasingly emphasized the study of affective development in its own right and as a domain integrally related to cognitive development (e.g. Cicchetti & Pogge-Hesse, 198 1; Mandler, 1975; Sroufe, 1979). Moreover, other recent research has focused between affect and language (e.g. Bruner, 1977).
on the relationship
Among the contributors to the present volume, there are differences as to what the relation is between affective development and other developmental domains and how such relationships evolve. For example, according to I‘ronick, affective regulation is responsible for all development and as such is a precursor to other developments. For Fogel rt al. in contrast, affect and cognition are “indissociably linked”. Demos, however, claims that not enough is known about affective development itself, so that it is premature to talk about its relation to other developmental domains. With respect to the relationship between affect and cognition that call be demonstrated in early interaction, Fogel rt (11.make a substantial contribution. According to this group, the indissociable linkage between affect and cognition underlies the organization in mother-child interaction. They borrow Sroufe’s model of tension in emotional development (Sroufe, 1979; Sroufe 8c Waters, 1976) and extend it to face-to-face interactions of infants and mothers. They report that the infants exhibited distress when an organized response sequence, that is the expectation of their mothers’ interaction, was disrupted. Fogel pt (11. claim that the affective component of the child’s behavior is the direction of
Book Review
292 change in tension that is generated; data
are
and that the cognitive component is the fluctuation in tension hence the indissociable linkage of cognition and affect. Their
convincing.
Only Bruner’s paper comes closest to a description of the relationship between dyadic interaction and language development. In his studies of eight month to Bruner describes certain functions of language (i.e. two year old children, labeling, mastering request forms) as emerging from prelinguistic communicative (i.e. dyadic) frameworks. Progress in learning language comes from the mother “raising the ante” of the child to encourage and pull the child to learn and use the appropriate forms. What is neglected here is the contribution the child him- or herself makes to the task of learning the language which would be Although it is likely that certain more in the spirit of the present volume. language functions may indeed emerge frameworks, how other aspects of language
from specific acquisition may
communicative or may not be
related to the affective system are not explained by such frameworks (e.g. Bloom, 1983; Shatz, 1982). In conclusion, it may be premature to talk about relationships between affective development, as examined in mother-infant interactions, and other developmental domains. The volume does, however, make substantial methodological contributions interactive patterns.
to the identification of the parameters and range of I expect such work will lead to a better understanding of Perhaps it is in such work that the transition from affective development. non-intentional to intentional behaviors will become clearer.
Columbia
University,
Karin Lifter New York
Note. I am grateful to Lois Bloom, Joanne Bitetti Capatides, Jeremie Lorraine Rocissano and Hollis Scarborough for reading and commenting early
draft.
Hafitz, on an
Book
Review
293
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