APPROACHING AND CONTACTING THE OBJECT ANOTHER MANIPULATES - SOCIAL SKILL OF THE 1-YEAR-OLD

Assigned 48 11-23 mo old infants at random to 1 of 4 groups distinguished by how an unfamiliar female adult acted on toys. The infant, in a room containing his or her mother and several toys, observed an adult who did nothing with the toys, periodically approached and sat down beside a predesignated toy either in a repetitive way for 1 group or in a varied manner for another. Contrasting which toys the infants of the different groups contacted indicated that the infants systematically went to and contacted the toy that the adult manipulated. Smiling, vocalizing, and gesturing to the adult, being near her, and contacting her were all reliably linked in time to the infants' contacting her toy. Further, the infants duplicated the adult's actions on the toy reliably more often than expected by a chance matching of activity. The findings suggest that approaching and contacting the object another manipulates is a basic social skill of the 1-yr-old; such behavior functions to facilitate the generation of social interaction. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1979 American Psychological Association.