PSY 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Altricial, Attachment Theory, Parental Investment
Document Summary
Big head, small birth canal: solution: give birth to the fetus before it"s fully developed. Human infants are altricial: altricial: incapable of moving around or providing for itself, solves the problem of a small birth canal, but introduces a new problem! The newborn is helpless and needs massive parental investment: infants are dependent on caretakers and need to form relationships with them, rarely are infants/children alone, learning and development occur in a (very) social context. Child as a (lone) scientist is a bit misleading. Infants are born ready to form relationships: preferential looking at human face stimuli: experimenter takes the 9 minute old baby and shows them a paddle to see if they follow the paddle. Lack of social interaction is distressing to infant: still face experiment. What is its function: security: physical and social needs, supports exploration and (social) learning.
