Social Referencing and the Social Construction of Reality in Infancy Social Referencing and the Social Construction of Reality in Infancy Edited by Saul Feinman University oj Wyoming Laramie. Wyoming Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Social referencing and the social construction of reality in infancy / edited by Saul Feinman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4899-2464-3 1. Socialization. 2. Reference groups. 3. Infant psychology. I. Feinman, Saul. [DNLM: 1. Cognition —in infancy and childhood. 2. Interpersonal Relations. 3. Social Environment. 4. Socialization. WS 105.5.S6 S6784] BF720.S63S67 1992 303.3/2-dc20 DNLM/DLC 92-11922 for Library of Congress CIP ISBN 978-1-4899-2464-3 ISBN 978-1-4899-2462-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-2462-9 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 1992 Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1992 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1992 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans mitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, micro filming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher To the Faculty and Students, 1970-1973, of the Department of Social Relations at The Johns Hopkins University for showing me the way the pieces fit together Contributors MARY D. SALTER AINSWORTH, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903. ALBERT BANDURA, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. INGE BRETHERTON, Child Development and Family Studies, School of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Ma dison, Wisconsin 53706. NORMAN K. DENZIN, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801. ROBERT N. EMDE, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado 80262. SAUL FEINMAN, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071. CANDICE FEIRING, Institute for the Study of Child Development, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. MARTHA FOSCHI, Department of Anthropology and SOciology, Uni versity of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 2B2, Can ada. JAMIE GERMOND, Department of Psychology, University of Maine at Orono, Orono, Maine 04473. v11 viii CONTRIBUTORS JACOB L. GEWIRTZ, Department of Psychology, Florida International University, University Park Campus, Miami, Florida 33199. MEGAN R. GUNNAR, Institute of Child Development, University of Min nesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455. ROBIN HORNIK PARRITZ, Department of Psychology, Hamline Uni versity, St. Paul, Minnesota 55104. KUEI-FANG HSIEH, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Economics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071. JAN C. KRUPER, Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. MICHAEL LEWIS, Institute for the Study of Child Development, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. SARAH MANGELSDORF, Department of Psychology, University of Illi nois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois 61820. JA YANTHI MISTRY, Department of Child Study, Tufts University, Med ford, Massachusetts 02155. MARTHA PELAEZ-NOGUERAS, Department of Psychology, Florida In ternational University, University Park Campus, Miami, Florida 33199. BARBARA RADZISZEWSKA, Institute for Prevention Research, Univer sity of Southern California, Alhambra, California 91803. DEBRA ROBERTS, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071. BARBARA ROGOFF, Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112. DARBY SAWYER, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071. DEE SWANSON, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071. CONTRIBUTORS Ix C. INA UZGIRIS, Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. MURRAY WEBSTER, JR., Department of Sociology, San Jose State Uni versity, San Jose, California 95192. Preface Virtually every realm of human activity carries with it the vision of a lost paradise, a time when life was simple and satisfying, a place in which things made sense and fit together into a meaningful, integrated whole. This tranquility often is destroyed by a single act, whether a bold stroke or a sniveling swipe, an act which unintentionally brings down the old order. In some mythologies, this deed is followed almost immediately by the fall from grace and the emergence of a new reality, as in the biblical expulsion from Eden and the subsequent emergence of self-consciousness (and the self-conscious emotions). In others, the critical stroke sets into motion, as the clockmaker winds the timepiece, a sequence of events which build toward the inevitable cataclysm; in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelun gen, Wotan sets in motion the forces that will lead to the eventual destruc tion of the old order, the Twilight of the Gods (Gotterdammerung) foretold in the Norse legend of Ragnarok., by the single act of breaking off a branch of the world ash tree to make the spear on which to carve the covenants that govern the world. Typically, in such transformations, there is gain as well as loss, birth as well as death. With the loss of innocence comes the emergence of consciousness. We are compensated for the loss of tranquil ity by the gain of creativity. The fall of the old deities makes way for the new. In the world of scholarship (in its broadest sense), this lost paradise is the time and place in which knowledge was whole, in which the various strands and threads of philosophy (in its original and broadest sense) were intertwined in one tapestry. Not really all that long ago, anyone scholar might still focus on a wide range of phenomena, and there was a strong sense of wholeness and unity. That intellectual utopia was lost once we began to tease apart the threads of the cloth, and to specialize in the study of these individual strands. As the holistic activities of philosophy were xi xii PREFACE deconstructed into evermore minute, specialized bits and pieces, we came to acquire increasingly detailed and technical information within each of these precisely focused domains. This trend-despite its benefits-moved forward at the expense of making it increasingly difficult to see how all these pieces of particulate matter might fit back together into some sem blance of unity. Indeed, sometimes it seems as though the fracturing of knowledge over the last century is irreversible, much like Humpty Dumpty after his fall. Being somewhat more sanguine about the possibilities of academic reunification, in spirit and thought (if not in bureaucratic structure), my intention in editing this volume was to reduce the odds that the study of social referencing in infancy would go the way of many other spe cialized domains of research, becoming ever more arcane and insular, if nonetheless technically proficient and correct. Referencing is a phenom enon that stretches beyond infancy to meander on through the lifespan. It lies at the razor's edge interface of the individual and society, as one of the critical ways in which the individual's construction of reality is socially influenced. It is of relevance to developmental and social psy chology, and to sociology's and anthropology's basic interest in how in dividuals become enculturated into their societies. As such, it is essential that the study of social referencing in infancy be informed and guided by what is known about related processes. In that spirit, the goal of this edited collection is to evaluate what is known about the thread of social referencing by examining it within the broad, integrated perspective of the tapestry that is the social construction of reality in human social re lations. The scholars who participated in this effort, and wrote chapters for the present volume, first came together at a study group funded by the Society for Research on Child Development. We are most grateful in the society for supporting our efforts to integrate social referencing within the broader fabric of the study of human social relations. Joseph Campos was a mem ber of this group but was unable to contribute a chapter to the volume. Nonetheless, his views, as a member of the "Denver Collaborative Group," which contributed so much to the initial formulation and later explication of the concept of social referencing in infancy, is reflected and represented in this volume. In this great age of specialization, there may be some intrinsic limit upon how adeptly the pieces can be put back together again. It is probably more difficult now, with our minds set for specialized knowledge, than it was in earlier days, to reconstruct the parts into a unified whole. None theless, I believe that we have had some success in our efforts, in this