During the first several years of life the infant's relationship to others centers mostly on relationships with the mother (or a mother substitute) and involves having physiological needs met-most especially the need for food. Feeding is necessary to survival; but feeding is also an occasion for intimate contact with other persons as a part of the infant's exploration of the environment. Objects are experienced by putting them in the mouth, by sucking, by touching, eating, and biting. This basically auto-erotic stage lasts for the first five or six months of life. (Hurlock, 1950, p. 485). Yet, from as early as two months of age onward and increasingly through the first year of life, infants are not so much passive and receptive as active in seeking interaction. The majority of infants provide evidence of the need for the proximity of others sometime during the first quarter of the first year. (Ainsworth, 1963).
Attachment is a two way process. Attachment behavior between mother
and infant is behavior through which a relationship is established that
initiates a chain of interaction which serves to consolidate the
affectional relationship. In studying interaction of twenty-eight
babies with their mothers Ainsworth (1964) catalogued thirteen patterns
of attachment besides those associated with feeding-the rooting
response, sucking, and search for the breast. From the infant's side,
the thirteen include differential crying, smiling and vocalizing,
visual-motor orientation, crying when the mother left, following,
scrambling, burying the face, exploring from a secure base, clinging,
lifting the arms and clapping the hands in greeting, and approach
through locomotion.
Preference for the mother is not present at birth; it must develop
out of the feeding and caring experience. The infant's earliest posture
is one of undiscriminating responsiveness. In the first few weeks of
life it can be assumed that the infant experiences the mother, and
particularly her breast, as part of himself. (Spitz, 1962). The first
few weeks of life can be characterized as an around the clock time of
sleep alternating with waking periods in which the infant's contact
with the mother is dictated by hunger rather than by any other drive or
appetite. But the mother and the infant are two independent
psychophysiological systems. They interact through specific mechanisms
of stimulation and pacification. (Segal, 1971, p. 203). And in the
process circular social interaction becomes more discriminating and the
relations between the two become numberless and infinitely varied.
(Spitz, 1962).
Most mothers in the nuclear family common to the United States do
not share the intimate care of their offspring with another adult
(although more and more fathers are becoming involved) and are in a
position to develop an unusually close relationship with their baby.
Caldwell and Hersher (1964) found that such mothers, in contrast to
mothers who shared care of the infant with others, were less
intellectualized in their relationships with the baby, were more
sensuous in their touching and handling, were more likely to vocalize,
were more active, and more playful with their babies of six months of
age. At one year of age they were rated as more dependent upon their
babies for the achievement of their own need gratifications.
In general, the data suggests a slightly comfortable and involved
relationship between infant and mother in the cases where the mother
had exclusive responsibility for the child care role.
Infants show differing personality traits, strengths in their aggressive
instincts for example. Some are placid. Some are quiet. Some
are noisy and active. These temperaments stay with them as they grow.
(Finch, 1969). There are also male-female behavioral differences
present at birth, though research findings are as yet few in number.
(Korner, 1973). The male infant has greater muscular strength at birth,
but the female is in no way less active or expressive. On the other
hand, the female infant from birth shows more oral sensitivity, engages
in more frequent mouth dominated approaches, and is a more frequent
and more persistent thumb sucker. Newborn females also exhibit
greater cutaneous sensitivity than do males.