Infant Observation

The subject of research is to consider the relative contribution of both environmental and genetic factors that influence individual differences in social behavior concerning infants. Moreover, how infants respond to familiar and unfamiliar persons is predicated on the infants relationship with the primary caregiver. If an infant’s attachment to the primary giver is determined by the kind of care he or she receives then children in the same family should be more similar to one another than they are to members of other families. Hence, environmental differentiation should be do to between family variance (making family members similar to one another and different from other families), as opposed to within family variance (making members of a …show more content…
Moreover, seven time sampled specific observations were used to complete the assessment. These observations included: a five minute warm up period, being approached by a stranger, playing with a stranger, playing with the mother, cuddling with the mother, cuddling with the stranger, and separation from the mother. The participants consisted entailed Ninety-two middle-class children (members of 21 identical twin pairs and 25 same-sex fraternal twin pairs, with an average age of 22.2 months), the stranger, the twin’s mother, and two undergraduate students that rated each of the twins during the observations. Each infant was assessed at home.

In all but one of the seven situations, only situation 1 (warm up) suggested heritability. This is due to the chronological order of the situations. The unexpected presence of the stranger, then the interactions ( the warm up period) proceeding his immediate arrival to the home most likely enhanced the differential responding of the infant towards both the mother and the stranger. Hence, attachment may be influenced by genetic components during initial interactions with strangers but soon thereafter, the infant will engage the stranger as he would his