The appeal cycle was observed and delineated through research on mother-child interaction during the second year of life. As a repeated, circumscribed unit of developmental interaction, it is conceived to be an agent of developmental process and psychic structure formation. The appeal cycle has four phases: the adaptational phase, the distress phase, the appeal phase, and the interactional phase. The progression from the adaptational into the distress and appeal phases evidences the child's separation anxiety and failure of self-regulation in response to the experimentally induced attenuation of the mother-child relationship. A successful interactional phase reestablishes the relationship, regulates and restores the child's emotional equilibrium, and enables a return to self-regulation and adaptation. Because the interaction reinforces the functions and structures being developed through identification with the mother, the interactional phase is conceived to be an instrumental event in the mediation of psychic structure formation. The appeal cycle is discussed in comparison with similar phenomena in earlier phases of development and with other studies addressing development during the first two years of life. Directions for future research are noted.

The aim of this study was to further understanding of development during the crucial second year of life. The study employed a naturalistic, semistructured situation for the observation of mother-child behavior. The experimental stimulus was the progressive diversion of the mother's attention away from her child. This diversion evoked separation anxiety in the child and the individual and interactive regulatory behaviors of the mother-child pair. Concurrently, the child's behavior was observed in a play group situation. One set of rating scales was devised for assessment of the mother-child interaction, and another set for assessment of the child's functioning in the play group. The major hypothesis was that maternal and child behaviors that foster the child's successful handling of phase-specific stresses and developmental tasks will be positively correlated with the child's functioning in the play group. This hypothesis is supported by the findings of the study.