Chapter 7 "Comparing Fathers and Mothers"

One of the most important things I learned through this chapter is the difference between a mother and father and their infants social and emotional development. I always thought that the mother were the ones to compose the babies laughter and emotions because they already have that strong bond with their mother from birth. However , I learned that men with close relationships with their kids can teach appropriate expressions of emotion. This also helps when the child develops into a teenager, being able not to lash out on authority or friends. Also, when men keep a good stable relationship with their kid they can reduce the risk of depression. I actually looked into this because I was comparing people I know who have great relationships with their father, compared to me who hasn't had the greatest relationship and I can tell the difference. One of my closest friends and her father are very close and always have been since she was really little. She is one of the sweetest people I know and is sweet to everyone she knows. Her dad also is a very happy man and is always sweet to her and his family. I think that the reason my best friend is the way she is, is because her dad was always a great role model in her life. When I compare this to my life with a dad who wasn't that connected, I can see my dad more depressed and more alone feeling than those who have a good connection with their child. On that note, with me also, I feel that in certain situations I am not the nicest or most happy person to be around. The whole reading about how a dad affects a kid really made me realize and connect some things in my life. This actually made me realize why my dad acts the way he does and why my best friends dad is always happy. I learned that having a good relationship with your kids is one of the most important things in life, to give your kid emotional, stable, and a supportive life.

Chapter 7

I am sorry I haven't been on and posted anything recently I have been incredibly sick and so has my son. I have been keeping close eye on him due to the respiratory virus that is going around. I read chapter 7 while I was offline. I found the topic of Social Referencing very interesting especially the section about fathers. I find it very true that fathers spend less time with infants than the mothers do because the infant and the mother have a special bond since a woman carries the child for nine months and they are physically connected to each other. I also agree with the statement about low-income families in the US about a fathers involvement with his infant is the father's relationship with the mother. I see it in my own life. My son's dad and I don't have a good relationship and it definitely reflects through my son. The only reason he sees his dad is because we have a court order that states he has to see him. Also looking at attachment is really interesting too because I have noticed that my son is very attached to me right now and he doesn't want to spend time with his dad. I have definitely noticed when he comes home on the third day of not seeing me he clings and doesn't want me to go anywhere and by the time he has to go back he is very resistant on going to his dads. I thought it was just a phase but this has been going on for months. The only time he doesn't act that way is when he goes to school and that's because his friends are there plus he knows that I will be picking him up and dropping him off. Definitely this chapter really helped me take a look and learn some more information about my son that I didn't know. This class is really opening my eyes to what my son learns and does and I find it very intriguing.

Social Referencing

Another section in Chapter 7 was the section on social referencing. Fathers as Social Partners caught my eye while reading. In most cultures and ethnic group all around the world mothers seem to spend more time with infants than the father. In my eyes, this occurs because the mother spent 9 months with the infant in her stomach and actually gave birth to it, so I feel like the mother feels more attached than the father. It is said that out of most cultures, Latinos are known for being less involved in their child's life. In the US the more active fathers seem to be Mexican, Cuban, and Dominican. But worldwide, Brazilian seem to spend more time with their infant than any other culture. The best predictor of a fathers's involvement with his infant is his relationship with the mother.

Social media and Attachment styles

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-almost-effect/201407/who-connects-best-online-and-why

The link above is an interesting article I read in Psychology Today about the role of security in our early development and people's on line presence. The article stated that it had been found that people with secure attachment styles are more likely to use social media broadly to communicate. This makes sense as people with secure attachment styles would be more comfortable having a broader base of acquaintances/friends that they communicate with using social media. Overall the article reflected that basic transference of fear shyness ect. were echoed in social media. However, what it did not speak of is what I see as a common occurrence of people with high social anxiety, avoidance and insecurity over using social media as a form of affirmation or a seeking of attention. Which can really be a beneficial factor for people who struggle with real life relationships. Using social media can allow the overly shy or person who uses avoidance in real life to seek connection and positive reactions, though of course it may be annoying to the common observer. In this way social media and its psychological influences on us have yet to be fully understood and will be an interesting field of expansion for our generation to begin to understand.

Social Referencing (father and mother)

Social referencing seemed to be something interesting to me. That some child even at a young age is able to look to parents to see if they are doing the right thing or if something is okay to do you see it not only with humans but animals as well do the same thing. Referencing mothers do things such as suggest and make it almost rewarding for a child to do something, almost like conditioning however it is more passive to the sense of they do not directly say something to suggest it is what the mother wants from child/ infant. The United States of America very much so enforces the social referencing because they are looking for some dependence from child but looking for almost all the obedience as well.

Referencing fathers used to be thought of those who would spend relatively no time or be anything involved with the infants now really comes to how happy they are with the mother of the child. This being crucial because it is rare that you get time alone with an infant if the mother is remotely around.

Infants look to receive fun from the father time while the mother time is more cautious. The infants (from father time) show social intelligence because fathers play games and make them go through the motions of doing something that sooner or later they will be able to do such as walk. Book shows that fathers are more proximal parents however they are engaged with playing with infants entire body.

Chapter 7 Blog Post #1

Something that I found interesting in this chapter was the section on social learning and the bobo doll experiment. Behaviorists believe that infants learn by observing the behavior of others, in a process known as social learning. In this process, a person observes someone’s behavior as well as others’ reactions to that person’s behavior. They then take this behavior and either apply it to their lives or use caution against the behavior, based on whether the result was positive or negative. In the Bobo doll experiment, Albert Bandura placed children in a situation where they watched adults hitting a rubber Bobo clown. Afterwards, both boys and girls hit the Bobo doll just as they had observed the adults doing so. I think that social learning is something that applies not only to behaviors, but also to personality traits. The main influence for social learning is your family because you grow up around them and spend the most time with them. This is why it is especially essential for a child’s family to provide a good example for the child. As a child is growing into the adolescent years, I would say that the biggest influence in terms of social learning comes from their friends and their peers. In this stage of life, acceptance is everything. Teenagers will watch the behavior of their friends and copy behaviors that are accepted by their peers. This is extremely dangerous because teenagers can start to get involved in alcohol or even drugs because they see others exhibiting this behavior and they want to replicate the behavior. Social learning is something that affects a person from infancy to adulthood.

Infant attachment chapter 7

Influenced by the psychoanalytic theory and ethology, which I found to be cool was this concept that links, a lot of how we feel we become who we are. I think it is something so simple and yet it is so well explained knowing how certain experiences and things that happen to us early on can lead to say potential trust issues or maybe even mild depression. 

When it came down to the results that John Bowlby found he saw that it depended on things such as how parents and caregivers interact with the infant so they could see how they become in the future. Another factor was that the culture or area they are raised has an impact because the different cultures make for people to be a lot of the way they are especially like said that people in China for example like to raise people to become more self made by being independent and being able to detach from parents at a sooner age.

The caregiver in the sense is what allows the child to either be able to explore due to how they treat child and how they go about overseeing them. This is a secure type of attachment where the kid will try and look back for assurance that what they are doing is good. Insecure comes due to lack of confidence, fear, anger, or indifference. This leads to the child having the inability to say not care when the parent leaves all the way to freaking out and throwing temper tantrums.