Development of self-recognition in the infant.

Abstract

A hypothesized five-stage developmental sequence of self-recognition behaviors was tested in 48 infants between 6 and 24 months of age, and the self-recognition sequence was compared to the development of object permanence. The predicted self-recognition sequence consisted of five tasks that the infants performed in front of the mirror, with later-developing tasks requiring the coordination of a larger number of behaviors relating to the infant's mirror image than earlier-developing tasks. The development of object permanence was assessed with the Uzgiris-Hunt scale, and the object-permanence items were assigned to stages that structurally paralleled the five stages of self-recognition. The self-recognition tasks formed an almost perfect Guttman scale, with 46 out of 48 infants fitting the predicted developmental sequence precisely. This finding thus resolves most of the disagreements in previous research on the development of self-recognition: Previous studies examined different behaviors, which develop at distinct stages in the sequence. Object permanence and self-recognition showed a strong correlation, but there was no consistent relationship between the two skills across age groups.One event of major significance in the development of the child is the emergence of a notion of self. Research on the emergence of the self has been sparse, however, probably because of the difficulty of specifying the behaviors that reflect the early development of the self. The few existing studies have usually focused on one particular situation: the reaction of an infant to his own image in a mirror. This situation appears to be ideal for assessing at least one aspect of the development of the notion of self, the development of self-recognition.Yet the study of self-recognition has This research was supported by a grant from the Grant Foundation and National institute of Mental Health Predoctoral Fellowship 1 F31 MHO5280-01 to the first author and a grant from the Spencer Foundation to the second author. Portions of this article were previously presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York City, April 1976.The authors wish to thank Scott Barron, Paul Corbitt, and Margot Gellman for their assistance in running infants and scoring data. Special thanks are extended to Joseph Campos for many helpful suggestions throughout the entire course of this study.Requests for reprints should be sent to Bennett Ber-.tenthal, Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado 80208.proven to be more complex than one might expect. The research literature is full of confusions and contradictions, mostly arising from differences in the behavioral definitions of self-recognition. Infants show many different behaviors in front of a mirror, and different investigators have chosen different behaviors as indicative of true selfrecognition (Amsterdam, 1972;Boulanger-Balleyguier, 1964; Darwin, 1877;Dixon, 1957;Gallup, 1970; Stutsman, 1931;Zazzo, 1975; Brooks-Gunn& Lewis, Note 1). Consequently, in...

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