August 08, 2005

Early Baby Emotional Development

Newsweek published an article this week about baby brain development ("Reading Your Baby's Mind" via DaddyTypes). It might be easy to get all paranoid about your child's emotional development after reading the article, but you shouldn't. The main point is that babies develop more advanced brain abilities, especially distinguishing subtle emotional differences, faster than we'd thought. There may be some useful general clues to keep an eye on, to help catch developmental problems early on.

Obviously the article doesn't go into depth on research methodologies. But I'm wondering about this example:

Hart [the researcher] hands Cheryl Bateman a children's book, "Elmo Pops In," and instructs her to engross herself in its pages. "Just have a conversation with me about the book," Hart tells her. "The most important thing is, do not look at [6-month old Victoria.]" As the two women chat, Victoria looks around the room, impassive and a little bored.

After a few minutes, Hart leaves the room and returns cradling a lifelike baby doll. Dramatically, Hart places it in Cheryl Bateman's arms, and tells her to cuddle the doll while continuing to ignore Victoria. "That's OK, little baby," Bateman coos, hugging and rocking the doll. Victoria is not bored anymore. At first, she cracks her best smile, showcasing a lone stubby tooth. When that doesn't work, she begins kicking. But her mom pays her no mind. That's when Victoria loses it. Soon she's beet red and crying so hard it looks like she might spit up. Hart rushes in. "OK, we're done," she says, and takes back the doll. Cheryl Bateman goes to comfort her daughter. "I've never seen her react like that to anything," she says. Over the last 10 months, Hart has repeated the scenario hundreds of times. It's the same in nearly every case: tiny babies, overwhelmed with jealousy. Even Hart was stunned to find that infants could experience an emotion, which, until recently, was thought to be way beyond their grasp.

My question is whether the same thing would have happened if the research had not brought in the baby. In other words, was little Victoria getting upset due to jealousy at the other baby, or was she getting upset due to her mother's ignoring her (which was presumably not normal).

Posted by Tom Nugent at August 8, 2005 04:03 PM
Comments

The problem I have with this research is that it assumes an advanced emotional state where one may not exist. The researcher automtically assumes "jealousy", when in fact for a developing mind, it may be just insecurity. "Is this baby here to replace me?" "Am I to be abandnoned?" Jealousy implies a need or desire that does not directly reduce the standard of living, while insecurity would imply a situation that has a direct effect on the standard of living (at least in this case being described.

It may also be an inherent survival instinct, since the presence of a sibling may be interpreted as meaning resources must be shared, and therefore chances of survival are depleted (part of the reason why some baby sharks devour their siblings while still incubating in some viviparous species)....or why older siblings will try to box up their new born brotehr or sister and try to air mail them to remote parts of Asia.

I kind of have a problem when psychologists jump to these conclusions on limited data. I know that limited research with questionable (not necessarily wrong) conclusions have had drastic effecs on my profession..not always for the best.

The question you bring up is completely legit, but should be easily testable by using various wait times over a large cross section of the population (say a sample of 1000 babies). I'm not sure there is any way you can be sure that a baby is "jealous" versus just trying to survive.

You could make a similar case: two adults are on a desert island, and ignore each other. One pulls out a bag of potato chips, and the other starts carrying on. Jealousy? Survival?

Posted by: Tom at August 10, 2005 07:53 AM
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