生命的超越——从“复归于婴儿”到“死而不亡”

生命因有限而具有悲剧色彩。突破生命的有限性,实现生命的超越,便是生命之"梦"。在老子看来,生命超越之路就是"复归于婴儿"。"婴儿"是生命的初始形态,也是生命永恒的象征。由于"复归于婴儿"的方法"常德不离"、"专气致柔"在经验世界和理论层面均面临无法克服的困难,老子只得从"复归于婴儿"转向"死而不亡者寿",由从"生"的角度追求生命的超越,转向从"死"的角度寻求生命的超越,从而使生命超越本身蕴涵悲剧色彩。     

Families by Adoption and Birth: II. Mother-Infant Cognitive Interactions

Adopted children are more likely to develop learning and school adjustment problems than are their nonadopted peers, despite that learning potential appears to be comparable in the two groups. In an effort to explain this phenomenon, the present study examined cognitive behavior repertoires in mothers and their healthy 5-month-old first infants during their normal daily routine in families by adoption and by birth. Two areas of functioning, vocal/verbal communication and exploration, were examined. Infants and mothers in both groups were similar in the frequency and ranking of a full array of age-appropriate cognitive behaviors. Both groups of babies experienced rich and comparable opportunities for the development of language competence. In the exploratory realm, group differences emerged for some infant measures; infants by birth were in an alert state and mouthed objects more than infants by adoption. Examination of the linkages among infant behaviors and between mothers and infants suggested that while mothers by birth and adoption provided comparable opportunities for exploration, infants by birth were engaging in exploratory behavior to a somewhat greater extent.     

Resident Fathers’ Pregnancy Intentions,Prenatal Behaviors,and Links to Involvement With Infants

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Birth Cohort, 9‐month resident father surveys (N= 6,816), this paper examines the association between male pregnancy intentions, prenatal behaviors, and postbirth father involvement. Findings indicate that prenatal behaviors are associated with five domains of father involvement. Men who did not want the pregnancy are less likely to exhibit paternal warmth following the birth, whereas men who wanted the pregnancy sooner than it occurred are more likely to exhibit nurturing behaviors. The influence of fathers’ pregnancy intentions and prenatal behaviors on postbirth involvement is for the most part not dependent on child gender. Findings suggest that prenatal programs that encourage fathers to actively participate in the pregnancy may be beneficial to later child well‐being.     

What drives the attentional bias for fearful faces? An eye‐tracking investigation of 7‐month‐old infants’ visual scanning patterns

Seven‐month‐old infants display a robust attentional bias for fearful faces; however, the mechanisms driving this bias remain unclear. The objective of the current study was to replicate the attentional bias for fearful faces and to investigate how infants’ online scanning patterns relate to this preference. Infants’ visual scanning patterns toward fearful and happy faces were captured using eye tracking in a paired‐preference task, specifically exploring if the fear preference is driven by increased attention to particular facial features. Infants allocated increased attention toward the fearful face compared to the happy face overall, thus successfully replicating the attentional bias, and greater attention toward the fearful eyes was associated with a greater magnitude of the fear preference. The current findings suggest that the fearful eyes are a salient facial feature in capturing infants’ attention toward the fearful face and that increased scanning of the fearful eyes may be one mechanism driving the overall fear preference. In addition, scanning patterns, and attention to critical features specifically, are highlighted as a strategy for examining the mechanisms underlying the development of emotion recognition abilities in infancy.     

Maternal neural reactivity during pregnancy predicts infant temperament

Maternal biological systems impact infant temperament as early as the prenatal period, though the mechanisms of this association are unknown. Using a prospective, longitudinal design, we found that maternal (N = 89) amplitudes of the late positive potential (LPP) in response to negative stimuli during the second, but not the third, trimester of pregnancy predicted observed and physiological indices of temperamental reactivity in infants at age 4 months. Maternal LPP was positively associated with observed infant fear and negatively associated with frontal EEG asymmetry and cortisol reactivity in infants at age 4 months. Results identify a putative mechanism, early in pregnancy, for the intergenerational transmission of emotional reactivity from mother to infant.     

Infants' discrimination of consonant contrasts in the presence and absence of talker variability

To learn speech-sound categories, infants must identify the acoustic dimensions that differentiate categories and selectively attend to them as opposed to irrelevant dimensions. Variability on irrelevant acoustic dimensions can aid formation of robust categories in infants through adults in tasks such as word learning (e.g., Rost and McMurray, 2009) or speech-sound learning (e.g., Lively et al., 1993). At the same time, variability sometimes overwhelms learners, interfering with learning and processing. Two prior studies (Kuhl & Miller, 1982; Jusczyk, Pisoni, & Mullennix, 1992) found that irrelevant variability sometimes impaired early sound discrimination. We asked whether variability would impair or facilitate discrimination for older infants, comparing 7.5-month-old infants' discrimination of an early acquired native contrast, /p/ vs. /b/ (in the word forms /pIm/ vs. /bIm/), in Experiment 1, with an acoustically subtle, non-native contrast, /n/ vs. /ŋ/ (in /nIm/ vs. /ŋIm/), in Experiment 2. Words were spoken by one or four talkers. Infants discriminated the native but not the non-native contrast, and there were no significant effects of talker condition. We discuss implications for theories of phonological learning and avenues for future research.     

A longitudinal study of the differential social-cognitive foundations of early prosocial behaviors

A growing body of work has documented the emergence of instrumental helping and sharing in the second year of life; however, less is known about mechanisms that underlie development and production of prosocial behavior. The current study took a longitudinal approach to explore whether the origins of prosocial behaviors can be traced back to foundational social-cognitive capacities emerging in infancy. In a sample of 90 children, longitudinal relations were examined between intention understanding and joint attention measured in infancy (8–12 months) and later instrumental helping and sharing behavior assessed in the toddler years (18–25 months). We expected social-cognitive capacities supporting infants’ understanding of others to be positively related to their prosocial behaviors as toddlers. Measured variable path analyses revealed two distinct developmental pathways from infant social cognition to later prosocial behavior: 1) Instrumental helping in the toddler years was positively predicted by intention understanding in infancy; 2) sharing in the toddler years was positively predicted by infants’ initiating joint attention. These results lend support to proposals on the multidimensional nature of early prosocial behavior and offer the first longitudinal evidence that the origins of toddlers' prosocial behavior can be traced to social-cognitive capacities emerging in infancy.     

Men Don't Put on Make-up: Toddlers' Knowledge of the Gender Stereotyping of Household Activities

Toddlers’ knowledge of the stereotyping of traditionally feminine and masculine household activities was examined in two experiments. The experiments used a generalized imitation paradigm which required toddlers (total N = 63) to select a male or female doll to imitate nine masculine, feminine and neutral activities (e.g., shaving, vacuuming, sleeping). In the first experiment, 24‐month‐old girls, but not boys, demonstrated knowledge of both feminine and masculine activities. Results from study 2 indicated that boys possess some knowledge of these stereotyped activities by the age of 31 months. The results of the two experiments suggested that knowledge about the gender stereotyping of familiar activities can be demonstrated in children as young as 24 months.     

Pregnancy Acceptance,Parenting Stress,and Toddler Attachment in Low‐Income Black Families

Questionnaire items tapping feelings about pregnancy were administered to 173 young, low‐income primiparous Black mothers who either were pregnant or had delivered within the past year. A factor analysis indicated that 11 items together measured mothers’ acceptance of the pregnancies that resulted in the births of their first children. Links to mothers’ later parenting stress, warmth, and their toddlers’ attachment security were explored. Pregnancy acceptance was a negative predictor of one aspect of maternal parenting stress (distress resulting from feelings that parenting is burdensome) and a positive predictor of toddler attachment security. It did not, however, predict another aspect of parenting stress (feelings that interactions with children are not enjoyable) or maternal warmth.     

Early Social Experience and Individual Differences in Infants' Joint Attention

Fifty‐nine healthy infants were filmed with their mothers and with a researcher at two, four, six and nine months in face‐to‐face play, and in toy‐play at six and nine months. During toy‐play at both ages, two indices of joint attention (JA)—infant bids for attention, and percent of time in shared attention—were assessed, along with other behavioural measures. Global ratings were made at all four ages of infants' and mothers' interactive style. The mothers varied in psychiatric history (e.g., half had experienced postpartum depression) and socioeconomic status, so their interactive styles were diverse. Variation in nine‐month infant JA—with mother and with researcher—was predicted by variation in maternal behaviour and global ratings at six months, but not at two or four months. Concurrent adult behaviour also influenced nine‐month JA, independent of infant ratings. Six‐month maternal behaviours that positively predicted later JA (some of which remained important at nine months) included teaching, conjoint action on a toy, and global sensitivity. Other behaviours (e.g., entertaining) negatively predicted later JA. Findings are discussed in terms of social‐learning and neurobiological accounts of JA emergence.