Table Of ContentSocial Referencing and the
Social Construction of
Reality in Infancy
Social Referencing and the
Social Construction of
Reality in Infancy
Edited by
Saul Feinman
University oj Wyoming
Laramie. Wyoming
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Social referencing and the social construction of reality in infancy / edited by Saul
Feinman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4899-2464-3
1. Socialization. 2. Reference groups. 3. Infant psychology. I. Feinman, Saul.
[DNLM: 1. Cognition —in infancy and childhood. 2. Interpersonal Relations. 3. Social
Environment. 4. Socialization. WS 105.5.S6 S6784]
BF720.S63S67 1992
303.3/2-dc20
DNLM/DLC 92-11922
for Library of Congress CIP
ISBN 978-1-4899-2464-3 ISBN 978-1-4899-2462-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-2462-9
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1992
Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1992
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans
mitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, micro
filming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher
To the Faculty and Students, 1970-1973,
of the Department of Social Relations
at The Johns Hopkins University
for showing me the way
the pieces fit together
Contributors
MARY D. SALTER AINSWORTH, Department of Psychology, University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903.
ALBERT BANDURA, Department of Psychology, Stanford University,
Stanford, California 94305.
INGE BRETHERTON, Child Development and Family Studies, School of
Family Resources and Consumer Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Ma
dison, Wisconsin 53706.
NORMAN K. DENZIN, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801.
ROBERT N. EMDE, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado 80262.
SAUL FEINMAN, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco
nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071.
CANDICE FEIRING, Institute for the Study of Child Development, Robert
Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903.
MARTHA FOSCHI, Department of Anthropology and SOciology, Uni
versity of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 2B2, Can
ada.
JAMIE GERMOND, Department of Psychology, University of Maine at
Orono, Orono, Maine 04473.
v11
viii CONTRIBUTORS
JACOB L. GEWIRTZ, Department of Psychology, Florida International
University, University Park Campus, Miami, Florida 33199.
MEGAN R. GUNNAR, Institute of Child Development, University of Min
nesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455.
ROBIN HORNIK PARRITZ, Department of Psychology, Hamline Uni
versity, St. Paul, Minnesota 55104.
KUEI-FANG HSIEH, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home
Economics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071.
JAN C. KRUPER, Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester,
Massachusetts 01610.
MICHAEL LEWIS, Institute for the Study of Child Development, Robert
Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903.
SARAH MANGELSDORF, Department of Psychology, University of Illi
nois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois 61820.
JA YANTHI MISTRY, Department of Child Study, Tufts University, Med
ford, Massachusetts 02155.
MARTHA PELAEZ-NOGUERAS, Department of Psychology, Florida In
ternational University, University Park Campus, Miami, Florida 33199.
BARBARA RADZISZEWSKA, Institute for Prevention Research, Univer
sity of Southern California, Alhambra, California 91803.
DEBRA ROBERTS, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco
nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071.
BARBARA ROGOFF, Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt
Lake City, Utah 84112.
DARBY SAWYER, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco
nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071.
DEE SWANSON, Child and Family Studies, Department of Home Eco
nomics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071.
CONTRIBUTORS Ix
C.
INA UZGIRIS, Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester,
Massachusetts 01610.
MURRAY WEBSTER, JR., Department of Sociology, San Jose State Uni
versity, San Jose, California 95192.
Preface
Virtually every realm of human activity carries with it the vision of a lost
paradise, a time when life was simple and satisfying, a place in which
things made sense and fit together into a meaningful, integrated whole.
This tranquility often is destroyed by a single act, whether a bold stroke or
a sniveling swipe, an act which unintentionally brings down the old order.
In some mythologies, this deed is followed almost immediately by the fall
from grace and the emergence of a new reality, as in the biblical expulsion
from Eden and the subsequent emergence of self-consciousness (and the
self-conscious emotions). In others, the critical stroke sets into motion, as
the clockmaker winds the timepiece, a sequence of events which build
toward the inevitable cataclysm; in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelun
gen, Wotan sets in motion the forces that will lead to the eventual destruc
tion of the old order, the Twilight of the Gods (Gotterdammerung) foretold
in the Norse legend of Ragnarok., by the single act of breaking off a branch
of the world ash tree to make the spear on which to carve the covenants
that govern the world. Typically, in such transformations, there is gain as
well as loss, birth as well as death. With the loss of innocence comes the
emergence of consciousness. We are compensated for the loss of tranquil
ity by the gain of creativity. The fall of the old deities makes way for the
new.
In the world of scholarship (in its broadest sense), this lost paradise is
the time and place in which knowledge was whole, in which the various
strands and threads of philosophy (in its original and broadest sense) were
intertwined in one tapestry. Not really all that long ago, anyone scholar
might still focus on a wide range of phenomena, and there was a strong
sense of wholeness and unity. That intellectual utopia was lost once we
began to tease apart the threads of the cloth, and to specialize in the study
of these individual strands. As the holistic activities of philosophy were
xi
xii PREFACE
deconstructed into evermore minute, specialized bits and pieces, we came
to acquire increasingly detailed and technical information within each of
these precisely focused domains. This trend-despite its benefits-moved
forward at the expense of making it increasingly difficult to see how all
these pieces of particulate matter might fit back together into some sem
blance of unity. Indeed, sometimes it seems as though the fracturing of
knowledge over the last century is irreversible, much like Humpty
Dumpty after his fall.
Being somewhat more sanguine about the possibilities of academic
reunification, in spirit and thought (if not in bureaucratic structure), my
intention in editing this volume was to reduce the odds that the study
of social referencing in infancy would go the way of many other spe
cialized domains of research, becoming ever more arcane and insular, if
nonetheless technically proficient and correct. Referencing is a phenom
enon that stretches beyond infancy to meander on through the lifespan.
It lies at the razor's edge interface of the individual and society, as one
of the critical ways in which the individual's construction of reality is
socially influenced. It is of relevance to developmental and social psy
chology, and to sociology's and anthropology's basic interest in how in
dividuals become enculturated into their societies. As such, it is essential
that the study of social referencing in infancy be informed and guided
by what is known about related processes. In that spirit, the goal of this
edited collection is to evaluate what is known about the thread of social
referencing by examining it within the broad, integrated perspective of
the tapestry that is the social construction of reality in human social re
lations.
The scholars who participated in this effort, and wrote chapters for the
present volume, first came together at a study group funded by the Society
for Research on Child Development. We are most grateful in the society for
supporting our efforts to integrate social referencing within the broader
fabric of the study of human social relations. Joseph Campos was a mem
ber of this group but was unable to contribute a chapter to the volume.
Nonetheless, his views, as a member of the "Denver Collaborative Group,"
which contributed so much to the initial formulation and later explication
of the concept of social referencing in infancy, is reflected and represented
in this volume.
In this great age of specialization, there may be some intrinsic limit
upon how adeptly the pieces can be put back together again. It is probably
more difficult now, with our minds set for specialized knowledge, than it
was in earlier days, to reconstruct the parts into a unified whole. None
theless, I believe that we have had some success in our efforts, in this
