The capacities to find and make meaning develop, just as do the human fetus, the brain, and everything else in nature. Because a core principle of development is that it is “cumulative,” building upon itself, there is a special place for the very earliest phases of life. Experiences in the early months and years of life are the cradle of meaning. To understand how the capacity to make meaning unfolds and how we each come to have the organizations of meaning we have, it is helpful to understand more about the nature of development itself.
René Spitz had a clear grasp of the nature of development, including the development of meaning. Spitz is best known for calling attention to the devastating effects of institutional rearing; in particular the lack of specific, consistently available, caregiving figures. This was in 1950, decades before the critical importance of specific attachment figures was rediscovered in the Romanian orphan studies at the turn of the century. Neither Spitz’s concern about institutionalized infants nor his insights concerning development were widely accepted in his day, but they are now, although rarely with an acknowledgment of his role.
The research of Spitz and his colleagues was focused on early development, most heavily on the first 3 months of life. It is in this period, he argued, that the first capacities for meaning making emerged, and they emerged from a period in which there was no true meaning. Before there was meaning, however, there were developmental precursors or “prototypes” which were the foundation for meaning making. A major premise of development is that you can’t get something from nothing. Positing that the capacity to find meaning is “simply there” at the beginning is no solution at all. Spitz’s idea of developmental prototypes is one path forward.
The development of the meaning-based smile in the early months provides an excellent example of how this works. Newborn infants smile. However, this is not a social behavior and it is not based on meaning. It is a reflex built into the physiology of the newborn. It happens only when they are asleep or drowsy. It is based on a fluctuation of arousal around some low set point. As the infant drifts off to sleep or moves from sleep toward wakefulness, the arousal level crosses a threshold and the smile reflex occurs. You can create these smiles by gently shaking a sleeping baby or by shaking a rattle while the baby sleeps. This brings them toward wakefulness and as they drift back down several of these smiles may occur. These smiles occur even in utero, because they are of brain stem origin. Premature infants exhibit more of these smiles than full-term infants, so it cannot mean the same thing as later smiles. It cannot be that premature babies find more meaning than full-term babies. As the cortex matures, these reflexive smiles steadily decline in all infants over the first 3 months, as do many other newborn reflexes. Because of all of this, it is clear that newborn smiles cannot be based on meaning. It is also worth noting that these smiles do not have all the features of later social smiles. They involve only the twisting up of the lips, not the mouth opening and crinkling of the eyes of full smiles.
What are called “social smiles” or “exogenous smiles” (that is, in response to the outside world) emerge in a fleeting way at 3 or 4 weeks of age and become increasingly prominent in the first 3 months. This increase is an exact mirror image of the decline in reflexive smiles, denoting a brain maturation process. These emerging smiles also then take the form of mature smiles involving mouth and eyes. Meaning is involved in these smiles. Recall the example of the infant smiling at the toy clown following several presentations that we discussed in Chapter 2. That was a smile based on meaning because if we switch objects there is no smile. The babies smile because, as they engage and study the clown repeatedly, it is their own efforts that lead to recognition and the smile. Eight to 10 weeks is the same age that infants rather universally smile at human faces. They do this because with some effort they can recognize the face as something familiar. It is indeed meaningful. For this reason it is called a “social smile,” although it is shown in many nonsocial situations.
The question now before us is where did this smile based on meaning come from? How did the infant get there? One might suggest that smiles were present all along – that the slight smiles of the newborn simply got “bigger” over time. But this cannot be true. By 10 weeks, infants no longer smile when they are asleep. The newborn smile disappears. Much research shows that newborn sleep smiles originate in the brain stem, whereas social smiles require involvement of the cortex. (Even the rare infants born without a cortex exhibit the newborn smile, but never the later social smile.) The social smile is not simply a big newborn smile; yet Spitz argued that it does derive from the newborn smile. The newborn smile is the developmental prototype – the precursor – for the social smile. It sets a basic physiological pattern from which, however qualitatively different, the social smile emerges. There is the same arousal fluctuation, though in the social smile it is created by the infant’s cognitive engagement and processing of an external event. It is a psycho-physiological response, not merely a physiological one. There is meaning and emotion as we define it; yet the basic earlier patterning is maintained.
There are many examples of such developmental prototypes in early development. As just one more, when young infants get excited, they do a kind of rhythmic frog kicking with their legs. Every parent has seen this. This is long before infants can walk, and it is another behavior that drops out over time. But careful study by Esther Thelen (Reference Thelen, Gunnar and Thelen1989) showed that such movements are actually preparation for later crawling and walking, because the exercising and coordination of muscles involved is the pattern that will be drawn upon later, even though such mobility is qualitatively different from early infant kicking.
Progressive movement toward more complex organization and deeper meaning always characterizes development. There is a particular way that development unfolds, centered on qualitative change and reorganization. We are interested in the developmental prototype concept because we believe it applies equally to all social and emotional aspects of the developing person – to how each of us acquired the networks and organization of meaning we have. The nature of the meanings acquired in our earliest relationships provide the pattern for our organization of meaning in childhood, and all of this together shapes our world views in adulthood.
How Meaning Is Created
Meaning is an active process – a creation. The ability to make meaning is itself the outcome of development. Infants are not born making meaning; rather the capacity emerges in the early months of life, largely promoted by social relationships.
There are several reasons for saying that personal meaning does not exist in the newborn period. It is a few months before the frontal cortex and deeper emotional centers in the brain are interconnected (see Chapter 13). Such connections are central for experiences we would define in terms of meaning. Moreover, newborn capacities for memory are quite limited. A certain kind of memory, called procedural memory, develops quickly (that is, recognition and internalization of practiced routines) but memory for events begins to emerge in the second half year and is not well developed until much later.
In contrast to young infants, caregivers have an extensive network of established meanings, based on an entire history of experiences from their own earliest years up to the present. They bring this network of meanings to their interactions with infants, often without even being aware that they are doing so. At times this can lead to failures to understand the importance of the infant’s behavior or distortions in what a particular behavior means. Of course, it is also history that prepares many caregivers to respond effectively to infant signals. This “asymmetry” in meaning systems, with the infant network of meanings unformed, is why developmental psychologists see parenting and early experience as so important. It is the meaning system of the parents that structures the first meanings of infants and toddlers through their interactions. The baby learns that the world is predictable, or not.
The Early Origins of Meaning
The subjective core of meaning helps us define its early origins. Even newborns listen to sounds and focus their eyes on a target. They cry and, as we have discussed, even smile; yet it is really not accurate to say that there is meaning in the first days of life. For example, while faces and voices attract attention from the alert newborn, so will three dots in a triangle, an array of blinking lights, or virtually any gentle sound. These newborn reactions are not subjective and they do not involve the quality of engagement that happens later. Infants are drawn reflexively to such stimulation. Their reactions do not involve a connection between the individual and a particular event. It takes a few weeks for this kind of connection to occur.
The newborn does have a set of inborn and rapidly developing capacities that can contribute to the soon-to-emerge relationship with caregivers. The newborn actively seeks certain sensory experiences. They are attracted to features of the human face. They follow movements with their eyes. They hear well in the higher ranges of human speech (which is why adult “baby talk” is so effective). From this activity, and with further maturation, first meanings emerge. Perhaps most important of all, the young infant is extraordinarily able to detect contingencies; that is, things that follow from their actions. Caregivers are a major source of contingencies. When caregivers respond to infant behaviors time after time, the infant detects a “contingent relationship” between an action and an event, and such events are highly meaningful for the infant.
From the start, caregivers imbue infant behavior with meaning. For example, consider the situation in which the newborn has been fed and, drifting off to sleep, a little reflexive smile appears on the lips. As caregivers, we see the infant as content, even happy. This reflexive behavior is a beautiful thing nature has given us. The meaning we find and attribute to this reflexive smile and other newborn behaviors is the beginning of the process of eventual meaning making by the child. We are responding to what it will mean. This is what is meant by the idea that original meanings are co-constructed.
In the following weeks caregivers initiate the infant into the practice of a turn-taking dialog, in a further step of constructing meaning. As described by Berry Brazelton and colleagues (Reference Brazelton, Kowslowski, Main, Lewis and Rosenblum1974), the parent
holds the infant with her hands, with her eyes, with her voice and smile, and with changes from one modality to another as he habituates to one or another. All of these holding experiences are opportunities for the infant to learn how to contain himself … They amount to a kind of learning about the organization of behavior in order to attend.
Research shows that such early interactions are not truly reciprocal; rather caregivers provide scaffolding for the dialog. In our late friend Daniel Stern’s (Reference Stern, Glick and Bone1990) words, “The exchange occurs in overlapping waves, where the mother’s smile elicits the infant’s, reanimating her next smile at an even higher level” (p. 14). The infant exhibits a behavior and the caregiver responds in such a way as to prompt a further infant response, so that they can go back and forth. When the infant does not follow suit, the caregiver adjusts to respond to the new behavior. For example, a caregiver talking in an animated fashion to a 4-month-old elicits a smile. The caregiver smiles in return with more animation, and the baby vocalizes. The caregiver vocalizes in return. The baby vocalizes again. Back and forth they go until the baby stops and yawns. The caregiver does an exaggerated open mouth in return; then the two look at each other face to face. The infant furls its brow and the caregiver mimics. The infant vocalizes again. The caregiver responds in kind and off they go again. In his insightful book on “The Interpersonal World of the Infant” and other writings, Stern (Reference Stern1985) wrote beautifully about how fitting the infant into a predictable world of action and reaction is critical in the very early stages of self-development. Through such a process the infant develops a primitive and deep sense of being seen, of place, of belonging. This is critically important. Without such experiences the basic sense of reality is compromised.
From the outside, this back and forth truly looks like a reciprocal dance, even though it is managed by the caregiver. Moreover, it is the critical foundation – the “prototype” – for the more genuine reciprocity that emerges in the second half year. By age 10 months, for example, infants will attempt to put the cloth back over a parent’s face during a game of peek-a-boo. They even at times initiate games without prompting. They have come to know their role in the dialog. This is the basic nature of the early acquisition of meaning. In the beginning caregivers attribute meaning to infant behaviors or make them meaningful by creating a structure around them. In time the infant plays an increasingly active role, both extracting meaning and creating meaning through its social behaviors.
The very first acquired meanings of the infant are not deliberately sought out by the infant, but simply occur as the result of the lived experience of the infant. Gerald Stechler and Genevieve Carpenter (Reference Stechler, Carpenter and Hellmuth1967) and Louis Sander (Reference Sander and Anthony1975) referred to them as sensory-affective, emphasizing the feelings of the infant and the lack of intentionality. We might describe them also in terms of familiarity or repeatability. Regularity and stability in the surround leads to this kind of knowing, and it shows up in physical state regulation. Just like the smile example, when the environment is dependable, organized, and stable, the infant recognizes this patterning as familiar. This is well before the infant has any intentions. This first sense of dependability – the prototype for what can be known – is recorded in procedural memory. This critical “procedural” learning is internalized and carried forward, though it can never be consciously remembered.
Such dependability and stability are out of the infant’s hands. Caregivers determine how knowable these early patterns are. The recently born infant brings certain things to the table: An orientation to the surround, the ability to detect changes in the surround, and a remarkable ability to note events that are responsive to their actions. Attuned caregivers respond to infant behaviors from the beginning, long before the infant has any intentional awareness of its actions. Thus, in the early weeks, while infants do not do things on purpose – with the intent of making something happen – they can have the experience of things happening in ways that are coordinated with their states and behaviors. The more stable and dependable the caregiving environment is, the smoother is this recognition process.
Even in the second 3 months of life the infant is not yet capable of intentional behavior. By this time, however, infants are alert and awake much of the time, are able to better direct their behavior, and the behavioral repertoire has greatly expanded. Caregivers and infants have learned much about fitting together. Something very critical can now happen. Infant needs and behaviors become easier to read. The attentive and attuned caregiver can know what an infant behavior means, even though the infant really does not. For example, parent and infant are engaged in face-to-face play. Over time the excitement builds up. If the arousal level becomes too high, the infant has a built-in tendency it can now exercise. It turns away. The attuned caregiver can read this as a signal, creating a moment of meaning between them. The caregiver backs off, waiting for the infant to re-engage. In a few moments the infant re-engages and the play continues. A simple thing; yet, when a cumulative experience, the meaning is profound. These are the very roots of the sense of being known and of having agency – the ability to act on the world.
By treating the infant’s behavior as a signal, the caregiver is creating the signal–response pattern that becomes a key organizing meaning in development. I have a need. I act on the environment. It responds to my need. Long before the child can know this in an intellectual way, it is an understanding deep in the psyche. Sensitive care is a visceral training program in the capacity to organize and contain behavior.
The Emergence of the Intentional Infant
In the second half-year of life, infants play a dramatically larger role in the creation of meaning. They move toward being co-creators with their caregivers. They not only react to the lead of the caregiver but at times initiate play and other forms of interaction.
In contrast to the first half-year of life, infants in the second-half year clearly have intentions. Distress in the first months of life may build to the point that we describe it as an angry cry, whereas a 9-month-old pursuing an object that has rolled under a sofa may quickly become clearly angry. The baby wants that ball. More certain evidence is that infants at this age will change their behavior if a goal is not achieved. If for instance, they want contact, they may vocalize to the caregiver. If there is no response they may call again, cry out, lift up their arms as a signal to be picked up, or, ultimately, crawl over and cling on. Having such intentions means that they can now experience in a more direct way if their signals are effective or not; whether they themselves effective or not.
The infant in the second half-year is qualitatively more advanced than the younger infant. Their profound improvements in memory enable them not only to respond to events in terms of past experiences but also to anticipate the future. The infant that laughs uproariously when attempting to stuff a cloth back into his mother’s mouth does so because he remembers the incongruity and anticipates that he can create the incongruity again. Likewise, the infant that cries immediately the second time a stranger enters the lab remembers what happened before and knows the stranger is going to try to pick him up again (and he does not like it). Past meanings can now influence current meanings, as can expectations about the immediate future. This is a huge developmental leap forward.
Engagement or investment is the core of meaning at any age. What changes with development is what will pull for engagement and the nature of the connection. Compare the difference between a 5-month-old and a 10-month-old in the following example. When parents put a cloth in their mouths in front of a 5-month-old, it will certainly get the infant’s attention. The infants will look steadily, then likely grasp the cloth and put it in their own mouth to chew (as they do with most things at this age). The 10-month-old shows a strikingly different reaction. The child likely will look and smile, then grab the cloth from the parent’s mouth. Then laughing uproariously, they will try to stuff it back into the parent’s mouth. They are not only more strongly engaged, they are making connections far beyond the 5-month-old, and thus the emotion. They grasp the incongruity of the parent doing this unusual behavior and are amused by it, adding to the well of shared positive feelings.
Alternations in the parent’s face have great significance to the infant at this age. As noted by scholars as diverse as Freud and Jerome Bruner (Reference Bruner2002), infants in the second-half year are universally intrigued and amused by the game of peek-a-boo. As Freud pointed out in describing the “wo” (where) “da” (there) game of his grandchild, the disappearance and reappearance of his mother was of great significance, because of the way the threat of separation is so quickly dissolved. Or, consider another example – why is an infant of this age so delighted by a parent pretending to suck on their baby bottle? What sophisticated thinking! They know that it is their bottle and that this is not something usual for the parent to do. The situation is saturated with meaning for the infant. Moreover, all of these types of events have more meaning when the acter is an attachment figure. The hysterical laughter of infants to the peek-a-boo game, to the mother sucking on their baby bottle, or to the parent walking like a penguin is a reflection of the degree of meaningfulness.
These increased capacities are closely tied to the emotional life of the infant. It is in the second half-year that infants become capable of genuine surprise, fear, anger, and attachment. True surprise can appear only when there are clearly developed expectations. An infant in the first 6 months may look at an incongruous event longer, as researchers have shown. It is a kind of “something is up here” response. But the sudden, eyes-wide-open, “whoa, this can’t happen response” is only seen by about 10 months of age. When we made a toy disappear through a small trap door on a high-chair tray, one infant even pounded on the tray and leaned to look on the floor. This is a leap in understanding and meaning.
This is also one reason that things like mother pretending to suck on the baby’s bottle or walking like a penguin are so funny to 10-month-olds. They violate expectations and the baby gets the incongruity. Likewise, fear, in contrast to wariness or distress, requires the evaluation of threat or dislike by the infant. It is not just that I don’t get this. I get it and I don’t like it. It scares me. Finally, as we will discuss in Chapter 4, attachment is the outcome of a lengthy developmental process, terminating in discriminating particular people, becoming aware of their permanence in one’s world, and recognizing their special place in responding to one’s intentions. Forming specific attachments really is not possible in the very first months of life.
Prototypes for Meaning
Attentive caregivers respond to the reflexes and other automatic behaviors of infants in the first weeks, treating them as “signals” of needs and desires long before the infant has intentional thought. Across the early weeks, these responses are honed and improved, as caregivers learn to “read” their particular infants. Thereby, they help the infants establish basic patterns of state and arousal regulation. These patterns are early prototypes for meaning making.
The prototypes for meaning making are greatly elaborated in the second half year. While orchestration is still in the hands of caregivers, they now can respond to the more deliberate signals of the infant; that is, to their intentional behavior. The sense that one’s purposeful intentions will be responded to positively is a core foundation for basic meanings regarding the emergent self. Across development what will pull for engagement and the nature of the connections that can be made by the child will change dramatically. Meaning making capacities and the network of meanings will greatly expand. But basic prototypes for meaning are often conserved and carried forward from infancy. They provide a core around which the subsequent networks of meaning may be constructed.
Development is very rapid in infancy and throughout the early years of life. And, in the early years especially, this development is scaffolded by the child’s primary social relationships. The child’s behavior, feelings, and perceptions are centered around these relationships. In addition to physiological maturation of the child, it is these relationships that prompt the rapid growth.
Experiences during this period don’t merely set the stage for later meaning making; very new kinds of experiences are now possible and are internalized in a new way. By the end of the first year, the child can recognize the parent as a haven of safety when they are frightened, and thereby acquire the meaning that they are safe, that social relationships are supportive, and that they are effective in coping with fear. Whether angry, afraid, or just generally distressed, they can begin to learn that re-establishing equilibrium is possible. Other infants, of course, can routinely have very different experiences that lead to different foundational beliefs, depending on the quality of the attachment relationship that is being formed. It is to these vital attachment relationships that we turn next.
