Leda Erlandson

February 15, 2015

Infancy and Early Childhood (R.A. 1)
Infancy: Holding a baby was something of a new experience for me. Ive held babies
before, but holding a baby while thinking about these different psychological
development theories was a complete new experience. The thing I noticed first was the
interactions the baby was making with. Just by holding her, I was able to really observe
her different reactions and the curiosity she evidently showed. Just by an observational
standpoint, I could see different cognitive characteristics, her reactions, and understand
the parents response to myself holding her.
Right away the baby showed signs of some distress after being removed from her
mothers arms. She seemed a little distraught, but quickly began to adapt to the situation.
When it came to psychosocial characteristics, I felt as though I couldnt see many signs,
since the baby was merely 5 months old. The only sign I felt that I could see, was when I
tried playing pee-a-boo with her. Her mother playing this game with her too in a very
positive way, showing that shes smiling, and then tickling her. She would almost always
laugh, so when I did this, she responded with a giggle and was smiling. This could be a
psychosocial characteristic because this instance was the influences of social factors on
the babys mental health and behavior.
The baby also showed some biosocial and cognitive characteristics too. She
displayed the biosocial characteristic when I tried the Babinski affect on her foot. She
sprawled out her toes, and giggled. This would be biosocial because she biologically
responded by sprawling out her toes, which is an instinct, and also showed the social
aspect by giggling due to reinforcement.

When I was holding her, I tried to react as happy as possible to see her reaction. I
would smile at her, and she would either smile back, or just stare at me in a confused
manor. Watching her interact with me was interesting in multiple ways. I could tell that
she obviously hadnt gained object permanent due to her constant content with the game
of peek-a-boo. During this time the baby only cried once. She cried when she was first
taken away from her mother, and put into my arms. It seemed obvious that she might do
this due to attachment to her mother, but soothing her irritability was quite easy. Her
mother told me at just smiling at her would easy her frustration, which it did.
In conclusion, I thought that this was a great new experience for myself. It was
very interesting holding and interacting with a baby after learning all of these
psychological concepts. I think that there could have been other concepts that would have
been interesting to investigate further. For example, I think that doing the rooting affect
by rubbing her cheek would have been interesting to investigate. I would expect that she
would react to this like any other baby would by turning their head in an attempt to
suckle, but I wonder if she actually would, just because she knew that I wasnt her
mother. Would this make a difference even if it were obvious to the baby that I was not
her mother? I think this would have been interesting to test.

Toddler Interaction: For this interaction I participated with the same family I did with
the Infant. The little girl I observed for this interaction was at the age of 2, and seemed
very curious, yet shy. We were in their house both times sitting in their living room while
I did this interaction. This time, I was able to see many more biosocial, cognitive, and
psychosocial characteristics that I was able to identify. For example, when it came to

psychosocial characteristics, I was able to identify some, such as her reactions to me. She
was at first timid, but she was extremely curious, and would tell me Hi to be polite, like
how her parents taught her to be, which is a psychosocial reaction.
Another test I also tried, were some cognitive tests to just those characteristics.
For example, I tried doing the object permanent test by taking a remote control and
holding in front of me, and then putting it behind my back and asking her Where did it
go? where she would reply confidently that it was behind my back. I also tried the preoperational thinking conservation test her, which did not work at all. She just turned two
years old and was first interested in what I was trying to show her, but showed a lot of
that two-year-old impulsivity, and was not able to understand the law of conservation.
She was also able to do many physical task being able to walk (a little clumsy),
grasp, throw, and use some of her words correctly to get what she wanted. She knew how
to ask for juice when she wanted, but would show this by waving her juice bottle in the
air yelling joo until someone responded to her. When it comes to positive and negative
self-concept, I could definitely see a positive self-concept. She seemed confident, but at
the same time didnt seem to care. She showed signs of embracement when she would
drop her juice cup, but would pick it up and say sorry, and then run over to her mom.
In conclusion I felt as though I also learned a lot from observing their two year
old doing these different observations. Studying her different reactions, and testing her
object permanency was my favorite to test. She was the most excited and responsive
because she was confident about the answer. She would laugh with my reassurance when
I would pull the remote back from behind me and say Yeah! There it is!. Over all it was
a very fun and interesting experience, and I was quite happy about doing it.