Growth of social play with peers during the second year of life.

Abstract

To assess the social interactions between unfamiliar peers, 30 pairs of home-reared children-10 pairs in each of three age groups, 10-12, 16-18, and 22-24 months of age-were observed in an unfamiliar play setting with their mothers. The children contacted their mothers little and interacted more with toys and one another, exchanging smiles, vocalizations, and toys and imitating each other's actions. Contact of the same objects and involvement in the peer's activities with objects increased reliably with age. By 2 years of age, social play exceeded solitary play and the social partner was most often the peer. The results suggested that children generalize to peers behaviors developed through child-adult interaction, but that peers provide stimulation differing from that of familiar adults.Scant attention has been paid to the social interactions between children under two years of age, despite the importance attached to early peer interactions by students of nonhuman primates (e.g., Harlow, 1969;Hinde, 1971) and despite repeated observations of human infants exchanging glances, sounds, smiles, and even toys (e.g., Bridges, 1933; Biihler, 1930;Vincze, 1971). Our knowledge of early human sociability remains limited in large measure to child-mother interactions and to children's initial reactions to unfamiliar adults (e.g., Rheingold & Eckerman, 1973;Schaffer, 1971). Yet the interactions between infant peers may mirror the social development occurring through child-adult interaction; and even more important, interactions with peers may contribute in their own right to early social development.The most comprehensive prior study of interactions between children under 2 years of age is that of Maudry and Nekula (1939), conducted in a foundling home over 30 years This research was supported in part by a Duke University Research Council Grant. We thank Deborah Hotch for her services as an observer and Gregory E.

Imitation of Televised Models by Infants

“…The use of TV could potentially enhance experimental investigations of social learning between infants and their peers and siblings. Such experiments are complex (Bronson, 1981;Eckerman, Whatley, & Kutz, 1975), in part because the peers do not always adhere to the planned experimental manipulations, and computer-controlled TV peers may be useful in this regard. On the other hand, it is clear that the sounds and sights of TV are very much a part of the infant-toddler natural ecology in modern culture; Steiner (1963) found that about one-third of parents rated "baby sitting" as one of the main advantages of TV, a point also highlighted in the more recent home observations by Lemish and Rice (1986).…”

Gender differences in physical aggression: A prospective population-based survey of children before and after 2 years of age.

“…For instance, in one of the earliest account of infants' social interactions, Bridges (1933) documented the occurrence of "aggressive attacks" involving biting, hair-pulling and hitting at around 14-15 months of age (see also Brownlee & Bakeman, 1981;Bronson, 1981;Bühler, 1931Bühler, , 1935Dunn & Munn, 1985;Eckerman, Whatley & Kutz, 1975;Goodenough, 1931;Shirley, 1933). More recently, based on mothers' retrospective reports, Tremblay et al (1999) estimated the age of onset of some physically aggressive behaviors among children who manifested the behaviors in question at 17 months of age.…”

The gradual emergence of sex differences in aggression: alternative hypotheses

“…Hypothesis 1 : Girls are never very aggressive The strong claim that girls never develop the ability to be aggressive can be rejected in view of the fact that, when infants first begin to use force against their companions, girls and boys bite, hit and push their peers (Eckerman et al 1975 ;Bakeman & Brownlee, 1982 ;Hay & Ross, 1982 ;Caplan et al 1991;Hay et al 2000, unpublished observations ;Alink et al 2006). In observational studies of infants and toddlers, there are few striking differences in the use of force by girls and boys.…”