Emotional Development in Infancy

Abstract

This chapter illustrates how the basic substantive and methodological principles of the living systems framework (LSF) can be combined to help researchers organize existing knowledge and create new knowledge about a particular domain of functioning and development. It provides new evidence regarding the nature and sequencing of emotional functioning and development during the first 3 years of life. The chapter shows how one should generally go about trying to understand and interpret evidence regarding patterns of behavioral organization and change in the domain of infant emotional functioning and development. It describes how certain methodological tools and principles derived from the LSF can be applied to a specific research problem. The study of infant emotional development during the first year of life is appropriate for several reasons. A large and growing literature documents the presence of increasingly complex and differentiated emotional response patterns during the first year of life.