RE: [xmca] Where does the smile come from?

[Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>]

Hi Mary,

I like the idea, still found in many cultures around the world, that babies have two births - the physical one and then, usually around 6-8 weeks later, what we might call a 'psychological' birth. The physical birth is 'premature' because of the irreconcilable difficulty of relative sizes of babies' heads and women's pelvises so, like kangaroos, the infant's development has to be completed outside the womb. Parents will recognise the significant social transformation which comes when the baby 'arrives' and this is often associated with intentional smiles (in Colwyn Trevarthen's terms this marks the beginning of primary intersubjectivity, though he now argues that this is present from birth). In other cultures this is seen as the moment when the baby's spirit finally settles in our world, having previously been still connected to the spirit world from whence it came. This 'arrival' is hard to pinpoint but very clear, particularly in the kind of eye-contact which marks a social connection.

Watson's work on infant responses to contingency suggests that babies smile in recognition of contingency between their actions and the information they get back from the physical world. Attentive parents (and especially mothers who have a head - or womb- start in developing familiarity with the baby) offer particularly attuned contingent responses so are more likely to elicit responsive smiles which, in turn, serve as very powerful affective rewards, enabling babies to condition their parents to enjoy engaging in attuned interactions.

The best way to 'bring out' that magical smile is probably to let yourself go and just engage with your baby. I have often worried (as someone who teaches on Early Childhood Studies programmes) whether too much conscious awareness of what a baby ought to be doing 'by now' might come to stand in the way of the relaxed, almost contemplative, 'full-on' interaction which babies seem to need in order to support their entry into sociocultural communication (which is not, of course, to say that they are not communicative before this, only perhaps more physiologically).

The work by Fonagy, Gergely and Target, which has been discussed on this forum in the past, presents a detailed summary of research into early communication, affect regulation and attachment (I have just been reading their book - 'Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the Self' - first published in 2002). They suggest, following Watson (not to be confused with the behaviorist!)  that babies begin life with a preference for perfect contingency (such as they find in the sensorimotor correspondences between motor acts and perceptual effects) but 'switch' at about 3 months to a preference for 'high but imperfect' contingency - such as they find in social interactions where familiar others respond sensitively and attunedly to their actions and affect-displays.

Benjamin Spock's advice to mothers to 'enjoy your baby' may be intensely irritating to some (easy for a man to say!) but I think it is still an important message - if your baby is not smiling yet that is because she/he is busy doing something which for her/him is probably more important just for now.

Apologies if this sounds preachy!

All the best,

Rod



-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Mary van der Riet
Sent: 27 February 2011 06:29
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: [xmca] Where does the smile come from?

Baby books lead me to expect my newborn to deliver a smile to me in about a week. As a significant form of social interaction, where does this smile 'magically' come from and why isn't it there earlier? What is going on in Thomas's 5 week old mind before this smile appears? What do I do to bring it out?

There must be an xmca response to this!

Mary





Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209

email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za
tel: 033 260 6163;  fax: 033 2605809

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