Emotions and Socialization - Perceptual Recognition

The perceptual recognition would be to introduce a new stimulus to a child. When the infant is being introduced to something new, for example a new squeaky toy, or person, the child will appear unsure at first, until they begin to become interested in the stimuli. For this to happen it is important to repeatedly squeak the toy or shake the rattle to make a sound. By doing this the infant will become accustomed to the sound that it makes, and won’t appear to have so much fear. Once the infant is accustomed to the new sound, they would become gleeful and may start to smile. Some infants will smile at some things and some infants will show lack of interest once they have become habituated to the toy, or sound that it makes.
Fear is developed a little later in their development, usually after the first 6 months. For example, when being picked up by a stranger or being in an unfamiliar environment, usually an infant would then show fear of these things. Fear is also closely related to the mother-child attachment. Through experimental research, social learning theorists have demonstrated how infants learn to fear. They learn fear by classical conditioning. For example, the infant explores the environment, places his hand on a heater, and feels pain. Perhaps from that one lesson, or perhaps after the cycle has been repeated, the infant learns to associate the heater with pain, and learns to fear the heater. This would generally instil fear into the infants mind that the heater will hurt them. Fear can also be taught in an unlearned way. Eg. An infant, who is scared of dogs, or other animals, can get past this fear, by gradually being reintroduced to