Self-Recognition in Toddlers

1906 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How does culture influence the development of identity

A variety of studies, such as the ones described below, have been conducted over the years in an attempt to explain and examine the emergence of self-recognition in infants. As a result the general consensus is that infants as young as 15 months old and most infants by 24-month are able to respond to their image in a mirror (Anderson, 2005). Research has also shown there are various self-conscious reactions and self-labeling that also indicate the toddler has self-recognition during the second year, though more research is needed to test their validity (Anderson, 2005).

Keller et al. (2005) conducted a study to look at the development of self-conceptions within a cultural context. The study looked at toddlers’ between the age of 18 to 20 months from two different backgrounds; German middle-class families and Cameroonian Nso farmers. The findings from the study concluded German toddlers were able to recognize themselves more often than the Nso toddlers. Keller et al. (2005) believed this was caused by behavioral rates, parenting strategies, and toddler developmental achievements. Researchers named the level of contingent responsiveness as the mechanism responsible for mirror self-recognition (Keller et al., 2005). Another finding from the study showed that Nso toddlers generally showed less behavior than German toddlers while they were in front of the mirror (Keller et al., 2005). 60% of the Nso toddlers would just sit in front of the mirror, while the German toddlers tried the engage the mirror reflection in play (Keller et al., 2005).

Bertenthal and Fischer (1978) conducted a study with the intention of looking at the five-staged developmental sequences of self-recognition behaviors in infants between the ages of 6 and 24 mont...

... middle of paper ...

...04. doi:10.1080/01650250500147485

Mans, L., Cicchetti, D., & Sroufe, L. (1978). Mirror reactions of Down's syndrome infants and toddlers: Cognitive underpinnings of self-recognition. Child Development, 49(4), 1247-1250. doi:10.2307/1128771

Mitchell, R. W. (1992). Developing concepts in infancy: Animals, self-perception, and two theories of mirror self-recognition. Psychological Inquiry, 3(2), 127-130. doi:10.1207/s15327965pli0302_9

Nielsen, M., & Dissanayake, C. (2004). Pretend play, mirror self-recognition and imitation: A longitudinal investigation through the second year. Infant Behavior & Development, 27(3), 342-365. doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2003.12.006

Vyt, A. (2001). Processes of visual self-recognition in infants: Experimental induction of 'mirror' experiences via video self-image presentation. Infant And Child Development, 10(4), 173-187. doi:10.1002/icd.277

Show More
Related

  • Relating Autism and Mirror Neurons

    1529 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...m. This many have implications for the development of early behavioral interventions aimed at triaging basic mechanisms supported by the mirror-neuron system, rather than correcting more complex behaviors.

    Read More

  • Separation Anxiety and Attachment in Infants and Toddlers

    2903 Words  | 6 Pages

    Slater, A., and Muir, D., (1998). The Blackwell Reader in Developmental Psychology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd.

    Read More

  • Poverty in Gwinnett County, Georgia

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K. (2014). Infancy. In Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence (p. 158). Australia: Wadsworth.

    Read More

  • Option A: Object Permanence And Self-Recognition

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    My participants name is Alisha, she is a female, and she is one year and eight months old. I completed the observation on March 1st, 2015. Due to Alisha’s age, I chose Option A: Object Permanence and Self-recognition.

    Read More

  • Facial Recognition In Infants Essay

    832 Words  | 2 Pages

    This study was conducted by showing the infants videos that depicted discriminable individuals doing repetitive tasks, such as brushing their teeth (Bahrick & Newell, 2008). The faces of the individuals doing these tasks were oriented in three different ways: left, right, and center. The infants were exposed to the same video action to help them get familiar with the action. Once familiarization was complete, the infants were exposed to the familiar stimulus and a novel stimulus of the same action (Bahrick & Newell, 2008). The results for this experiment showed that the infants who had a longer period of time being familiarized with a video were able to discriminate between faces when shown with an action than those with a shorter familiarization time period (Bahrick & Newell, 2008). These findings can help conclude that infants have poor facial recognition when only presented with faces, but the recognition can be improved when the faces are associated with a certain, familiar action (Bahrick & Newell, 2008). Lastly, further research has been conducted that relates to the specificity of species with facial recognition in

    Read More

  • The Development of Object Permanence

    3475 Words  | 7 Pages

    Baillargeon, R. (1994). How do infants learn about the physical world? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 133-140.

    Read More

  • Why Do Children Talk To Themselves?

    1735 Words  | 4 Pages

    Whether you are a parent, teacher, child care giver, or a child observer you may have noticed that many children talk to themselves. Laura Berk reports that, “private speech can account for 20-60 percent of the remarks a child younger than 10 years makes” (78). Why do children do this? Does it benefit the child as Vygotsky would say, or is it just that the child is making egocentric remarks that play no positive role in normal cognitive development as Piaget would claim? I am going to be looking at the differences between Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s points of view. Then, I will look at Laura Berk’s findings in her article, “Why Children Talk to Themselves.” I will also talk about other findings concerning this topic.

    Read More

  • Erikson's Psychoanalytic Theory of Development: Jo March of Little Women

    1136 Words  | 3 Pages

    Maianu, C. (2011, Spring semester). Child Development, Psychology 212, [Lecture notes]. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Area Community College.

    Read More

  • Observational Learning Essay

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    Children start out in life observing everything that everyone and everything around them are doing. They learn to walk, talk, and feed themselves from observing what their parents, siblings, and other people around them do. They learn these things from observing and then imitating them. “It has been found that infants as early 6 weeks old imitate facial expressions and infants 6 and 9 months of age have shown to exhibit deferred imitation of actions demonstrated with objects” (Jones, Hebert. 197). “Recently researchers at the University of Washington and Temple University have found the first evidence revealing a key aspect of the brain processing that occurs in babies to allow this learning by observation” (“Baby Brains Learn Through Imitation”). In their study they found that when a baby observed an adult touch a toy with their hand the same part of the brain that controls the same hand on the child would light up. The same was true if they observed an adult touch the toy with their foot, the foot part of the child’s brain would light up. These results showed that when babies observed someone els...

    Read More

  • The Influence of Piaget's Four Stage Theory

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    Preoperational thought is the second stage in Piaget’s theory. In this stage a child ranging from 2 to 6 years of age learns how to talk and walk to understand their bodies. I grew up as an only child. I did not have an older sibling to take care of me so I was always at daycare. I had tons of friends in daycare. I made friends left a...

    Read More

  • The Importance of Imitation in Early Child Development?

    1883 Words  | 4 Pages

    The amount of study this developmental feature has attracted is indicative of its importance in respect of cognitive development. As a precursor to planning, reasoning and decision-making, imitation is a vital first step on the path to internal symbolization and abstract representation. Additionally, imitation between mother and infant allows the infant to learn through repetition of event that it is effective as a means of communication and is the beginning of representation of the mother offering an expected response. It is arguable that this is a foundation in social relatedness and actual cognitive thought in infants.

    Read More

  • Masochism In Women's Films Essay

    1525 Words  | 4 Pages

    This stage occurs during a child’s first 6-18 months of age in the Oedipal trajectory (Mulvey 718). During the mirror phase, the child constructs an egotistic self that learns its position in society. The child recognizes itself in the mirror and feels exhilarated because it visualizes itself as whole (718). At this time, the child learns the “first articulation of the ‘I’, of subjectivity” and what it means to look (718). Although the child’s physical recognition of the self is accurate, the child misrecognizes its authority and assumes self-importance.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Empathy In Children

    1946 Words  | 4 Pages

    Empathy is a really important aspect in a child’s life, as it helps them understand their emotions, increases prosocial behavior, as well as helps preschoolers understand others emotions while interacting with their peers. Facial expressions are another part of child’s understanding of what’s going on with another person’s emotions. An encouragement for the child during preschool years is crucial in order for the child to learn and regulate certain behaviors. However, during the preschool years children are able to communicate a limited amount of emotions they are feeling through the help of the teachers, and by interacting with their peers (Prosocial Behavior, 2002) As the child is growing they will interact more with peers, which will lead them to understand their interests and abilities. They are able to communicate their likes and dislikes during the preschool stage. During the early years many theorists had suggested that young children are too egocentric, and cannot understand or perform empathy (Bierhoff, 2002). However, recent studies have clearly stated that young children are capable of displaying many different types of behaviors, which show empathy towards others, and motivates them to have a prosocial behavior. However, it is a challenge for preschoolers to communicate while showing empathy, as they have limited amount of language they can use. A very common way of knowing whether a preschooler is showing empathy is by observing their reaction to another child’s stress (Prosocial Behavior, 2002).

    Read More

  • Early Childhood Reflection Paper

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    Before learning about early childhood in this class I never realized all the way children at such a young age are developing. From the second part of this course I learned how much children are developing at the early childhood stage. I never realized children learn how about their emotions, having empathy, and self-concept at such a young age. I thought children had it easy. They play with friends, start school, and just be kids. One important thing that stood out to me in this chapter is that children’s self-esteem starts at this stage. According to Berk (2012), “self-esteem is the judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments (p. 366)”. Self-esteem is very important for a child to have and it can

    Read More

  • Self-Perception Theory

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    In everyday life, each ( infant, toddler, adult) observe others person’s actions and behavior and make inferences about other’s attitude based on what they see and find. Psychologist Daryl Ben (1967) who developed SPT (Self-Perception Theory) state that, people develop their attitudes by observing their behavior. Parents and primary caregivers play a significant role in child’s developing self-concept and self-esteem.

    Read More

More about Self-Recognition in Toddlers

Open Document