- Month-Old Infants Reaction To Simulated Maternal Depression?

The personality is key to social interaction, along with being one of the man ways to label a person in a sense. One’s personality grows with age, an example of this would be the egocentrism of children that normally disappears with age and maturity. Personality effects a person in several ways, one way would be the mother’s personality- which can help to create a child’s temperament through reinforcement, another would be how similar a person’s temperament can be to a twins and finally how it matures to accept or deny social norms. Examples of each of these instances can be seen through Harry Harlow’s “The Nature of Love”, Jeffery Cohn and Edward Tronick’s “Three-Month-Old Infants' Reaction to Simulated Maternal Depression”, Bouchard et al.’s
This experiment examined twenty-four eight-month-old infants with their mothers for three minute intervals in which the mother would switch between a normal reaction and a depressed reaction (Cohn & Tronick, 1983). The mothers would play with the infants in a high chair for a few minutes before being directed to act depressed, this would occur once or twice during the three minute spans (Cohn & Tronick, 1983). This occurred several times, and during the depressed states, mothers were instructed to think about days when they were emotionally unable to keep up with their child, when these depressive moods occurred, the babies would become increasingly distressed (Cohn & Tronick, 1983). This shows that the infants were able to tell when their mothers were not attentive to them, and as a response threw a fit to try and regain their mother’s attention (Cohn & Tronick, 1983). The baby’s ability to try and adapt to their mother’s responses show how much a child’s brain grows in such a short amount of time. It also demonstrates the importance of having an attentive parent, as the stress gained from a lack of attention can lead to major psychological issues, such as anxiety and lesser things such as a lack of trust. This plays a role within personality as
Both Harlow and Cohn and Tronick’s experiments focused on a child’s need for nurture, and how potentially detrimental the lack of that care could be in terms of psychological development. Bouchard et al.’s experiment was a contrast to the argument of nurture as the twins were reared apart but still had similar IQs, bodies and temperaments. Finally, Bem’s experiment could be considered an overarching piece as it shows a person’s maturity in personality which is seen through accepting one’s self and denying conformed roles for the betterment of a person’s self. All of these experiments show a different side of the growth of