Individual consistency in infant‐stranger encounters

Abstract

The consistency of infant wariness to strangers was examined by arranging for each of eight infants to experience two encounters with each of eight strangers. The encounters were filmed and scored. The behaviour of the infants varied from predominantly positive to predominantly negative, but was significantly consistent across strangers, for individual infants. This consistency was present for measures of both positive and negative affect, and was taken as supportive of the ‘wariness of strangers’ construct. Male strangers produced significantly more negative affect in infants than female strangers.