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Does contingency in adults' responding influence 12-month-old infants' social referencing?

Gunilla Stenberg1

  • 1Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Sweden.

Infant Behavior & Development
|December 13, 2016
PubMed

Insights

Infant social referencing is influenced by whether adults respond predictably to their cues. Familiarity with the adult also plays a role in how infants interpret social information.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Infant Behavior
  • Social Cognition

Background:

  • Social referencing is a key developmental behavior where infants use adult cues to interpret ambiguous situations.
  • Contingent responding, where an adult's actions align with an infant's behavior, is crucial for early social learning.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how contingent versus non-contingent adult responding affects infant social referencing.
  • To examine the impact of adult familiarity on infant responses to contingency in social referencing.

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments involving 12-month-old infants and an ambiguous toy were conducted.
  • Experiment 1: Infants interacted with unfamiliar adults who either responded contingently or non-contingently.
  • Experiment 2: Infants interacted with familiar adults (parents) who either responded contingently or non-contingently.

Main Results:

  • In Experiment 1, infants showed more social referencing (looking and playing) with the contingent unfamiliar adult.
  • Experiment 2 found no significant differences in infant social referencing based on parental contingency.

Conclusions:

  • Contingency in adult responding significantly influences infant social referencing with unfamiliar adults.
  • Adult familiarity moderates the effect of contingent responding on infant social referencing behavior.

Keywords:
ContingencyFamiliarityInfantsSocial referencing

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