Social referencing occurs when infants look at the facial expressions of others to help figure out how to proceed in a certain situation. For example, an
infant presented with a new toy car may look at
the facial expressions of his mother for guidance before determining whether to play with the car.
One of the best examples of social referencing is when
your child looks at something shiny on the ground and turns around for your reaction on whether it is okay for him to touch it or pick it up
. Your frown or smile can reinforce his reaction to the new object and proceed to touch or avoid it.
Which scenario is an example of social referencing? In the strange situation,
baby Olivia clings to her mother, plays little with the toys in the room, and is extremely distressed when her mother leaves the room
. When her mother returns to the room and picks her up, Olivia arches her back to get away from her mother.
Social referencing was defined broadly to include
children’s looks toward parents
, their instrumental toy behaviors, affective expressions, and other behaviors toward parents.
It’s kind of like a shortcut babies and toddlers
use to figure out how to respond to or behave around something
. They look to a trusted caregiver, observe whether they appear to approve or disapprove of something, and then log that reaction in their baby brain for next time.
Appreciating and utilizing others’ emotional communication is essential for adaptive social functioning. This ability, commonly referred to as social referencing in the developmental literature and social appraisal in adult research, allows the individual to
navigate
complex and often ambiguous situations.
Social referencing is when infants read facial expressions to help them make decisions. Social referencing starts
between eight and ten months of age
, while infants use visual information obtained from their parents’ or caregivers’ faces to help them understand different situations.
Social referencing is
when infants look to parents or other authority figures to see their reactions/figure out an appropriate way to respond to a situation
. Occurs around 9 months and involves affective (emotional) and instrumental (how to act) referencing.
Which behavior is an example of the use of display rule?
In most cultures it is appropriate to cry and show negative emotions at a funeral while at a wedding negative and sad emotions should be masked or suppressed. Display rules are often used as a way
to protect the feelings of oneself or other people
.
What is the most important determinant of infant attachment?
According to attachment theory, the most important factor in the development of attachment pattern is
an infant’s experience of caregiver response in times of distress
.
Social competence involves
the ability to evaluate social situations and determine what is expected or required
; to recognize the feelings and intentions of others; and to select social behaviors that are most appropriate for that given context.
The adaptive advantage of social referencing may be that it
enables an individual to learn about the environment independent of direct experience
: a hypothesis that awaits new significant observations from future field research.
What is emotional display rule?
Emotional display rules refer to
cognitive representations of what individuals believe they should do with their facial expressions when feeling specific emotions in particular social situations
(Matsumoto 1990, 1993).
Social referencing describes
the tendency to gather information from other individuals to regulate one’s own behavior in ambiguous situations
.
Social referencing occurs
when infants use adult emotional displays to regulate their behavior toward environmental objects, people, and situations
. Social referencing provides infants with opportunities’ to learn about their environments.
What is stranger wariness?
The phenomenon of stranger wariness has been described in the developmental literature as
the dysregulation that infants may experience, and express, when approached by an unfamiliar person
, particularly in novel situations.
