| approach/avoidance behavior | A pattern of interaction in which the infant or child shows an inconsistent pattern of approaching and retreating from a person or an object.
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| attachment | A strong emotional bond that forms between infant and caregiver in the second half of the child's first year.
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| Attachment Q Sort (AQS) | An assessment method in which a caregiver or observer judges the quality of a child's attachment based on the child's behavior in naturalistic situations, often including brief separations from parents.
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| center care | A child-care context in which children are cared for in a "school-like" environment by professional caregivers.
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| cognitive developmental view of attachment | The view that to form attachments infants must differentiate between mother and stranger and understand that people exist independent of the infant's interaction with them.
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| emotional display rules | Rules that dictate which emotions one may appropriately display in particular situations.
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| emotional script | A complex scheme that enables a child to identify the emotional reaction likely to accompany a particular sort of event.
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| emotions | Subjective reactions to the environment that are usually experienced cognitively as either pleasant or unpleasant, generally accompanied by physiological arousal, and often expressed in some visible form of behavior.
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| ethological theory of attachment | Bowlby's theory that attachment derives from the biological preparation of both infant and parents to respond to each other's behaviors in such a way that parents provide the infant with care and protection.
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| family child care | A child-care arrangement in which an individual cares for three or four children in her home.
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| imprinting | The process by which birds and other infrahuman animals develop a preference for the person or object to which they are first exposed during a brief, critical period after birth.
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| insecure-avoidant attachment | A type of attachment shown by babies who seem not to be bothered by their mothers' brief absences but specifically avoid them on their return, sometimes becoming visibly upset.
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| insecure-disorganized attachment | A type of attachment shown by babies who seem disorganized and disoriented when reunited with their mothers after a brief separation.
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| insecure-resistant attachment | A kind of attachment shown by babies who tend to become very upset at the departure of their mothers and who exhibit inconsistent behavior on their return, sometimes seeking contact, sometimes pushing their mothers away.
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| internal working model | According to Bowlby, a person's mental representation of himself as a child, his parents, and the nature of his interaction with his parents, as he reconstructs and interprets that interaction; also referred to as an attachment representation.
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| learning theory of attachment | The theory that infants become attached to their mothers because a mother provides food, or primary reinforcement, and thus becomes a secondary reinforcer.
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| psychoanalytic theory of attachment | Freud's theory that babies become attached first to the mother's breast and then to the mother herself as a source of oral gratification.
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| reflex smile | A smile seen in the newborn that is usually spontaneous and appears to depend on some internal stimulus rather than on something external such as another person's behavior.
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| secondary reinforcer | A person or other stimulus that acquires reinforcing properties by virtue of repeated association with a primary reinforcer.
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| secure attachment | A kind of attachment displayed by babies who are secure enough to explore novel environments, who are minimally disturbed by brief separations from their mothers, and who are quickly comforted by their mothers when they return.
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| secure base | According to Ainsworth, a caregiver to whom an infant has formed an attachment and whom the child uses as a base from which to explore and as a safe haven in times of stress.
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| sensitive care | Consistent and responsive caregiving that begins by allowing an infant to play a role in determining when feeding will begin and end and at what pace it will proceed.
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| separation protest | An infant's distress reaction to being separated from his or her mother, which typically peaks at about 15 months of age.
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| social referencing | The process of "reading" emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in an uncertain situation.
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| Strange Situation | A testing scenario in which mother and child are separated and reunited several times; enables investigators to assess the nature and quality of a mother-infant attachment relationship.
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| stranger distress | A fear of strangers that typically emerges in infants around the age of 9 months.
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