Children exhibit neotenous, or physically immature, features, such as a large rounded head relative to body size, adult-sized eyes, round cheeks, a small chin, and a short narrow nose. Bowlby (1969) and others (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989; Hrdy, 2005) propose that, in species whose young depend on care from an adult, these features could enhance offspring survival. Lorenz (1943) argued that adult humans are particularly attracted to these features, and that these characteristics, which he termed Kindchenschema or “baby schema,” trigger a cognitive system that processes and reacts specifically to infantile features for the purpose of enhancing motivation to engage in caretaking behaviors. The goal of the studies proposed here is to examine the behavioral, attentional, and emotional effects of baby schema. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Jealousy is understood as a system of physiological, behavioral, and emotional responses, yet few studies have examined these aspects of jealousy simultaneously in infants. Further, jealousy paradigms have not been examined as a potential stressor in infancy and thus typical cortisol reactivity and regulation patterns in response to jealousy paradigms have not been observed. In addition, the contribution of attachment security to infant expressions of jealousy has been vastly understudied. The present study seeks to fill the current gaps in the infant jealousy literature by investigating quantitative and qualitative changes in infant jealousy across the first two years of life. Data was collected longitudinally and mother- infant dyads were asked to participate when infants were 12- months and 24-months of age. Associations between behavioral jealousy responses, baseline EEG activity, stress reactivity and attachment security were examined. Differences in approach behaviors and behavioral arousal were found across conditions and were consistent with previous studies (Hart & Carrington, 2002; Mize & Jones, 2012). Findings relating to EEG activity pointed to a relationship between left EEG asymmetry and global approach behaviors across time. Cortisol reactivity was found to be associated with attachment security but reactive cortisol concentrations compared to baseline cortisol concentrations do not indicate that the paradigm was an effective stressor. Attachment security was found to be associated with proximity behaviors in 12- month olds but not 24-month olds. Finally, a linear regression revealed that attachment security, EEG asymmetry, and cortisol reactivity at 12-months are significant predictors of behavioral jealousy responses at 24-months. Changes in behavioral and physiological measures across time indicate that jealousy continues to develop during the second year of life but may have different underlying processes than the processes that contribute to jealousy expression in 12-month-olds. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The present study provides information about the relationships between parental reactions to their children‘s expression of negative emotions at 8 months, parent-infant attachment at 12 and 15 months and parental reactions to children‘s negative emotional expressions at 24 months, and as well as the extent to which all of these variables predict children‘s emotional expressivity as toddlers at 24 months, after controlling for infant emotional reactivity. Analyses showed that parental responses to infant negative emotions, insecure attachment and parental responses to toddlers‘ negative emotions as well as infant emotional reactivity all made independent contributions to predicting toddler negative (vs. positive) affect. Only insecure infant-parent attachment, not parental socialization or infant emotional reactivity, predicted toddler flat (vs. expressive) affect. The inclusion of fathers in this study is important not only to clarify how mothers and fathers differ in socializing their children‘s negative emotions, but also to have a more complete study of how emotional expressivity develops. Analyses conducted separately by parent gender revealed differences in the relationship between parental socialization, attachment and emotional expressivity across mothers and fathers, indicating that researchers should continue to include fathers in studies of socialization of emotional expressivity. / text