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Heather Rolfe
Professor Katerina C. Salini
PSY 1100
12/8/2016
My Significant Learning Experience
I plan to host new parent support groups and teach parenting classes once I have gotten
my degree. Although I have enjoyed this entire course, I have been most fascinated by the
section on infancy and the socioemotional development that occurs during the first two years of a
persons life. I feel like the information that I learned during this section will help me not only
when I become a parent, but that it has also given me information and tools that I can use in my
career after college.
For my signature assignment I am going to share with you a few of the things from the
section on socioemotional development during infancy that I believe will help me in the future. I
found the first stage of Eric Eriksons Theory of Psychosocial Development especially
interesting. I was also intrigued by the idea of three main types of temperament. I was surprised
to learn the effect that goodness of fit can have on the outcome of a child. As I thought about it
more I was able to see how these three aspects of socioemotional development all kind of relate
and build off of each other.
According to Eric Eriksons Theory of Psychosocial Development, the first year of life
is characterized by the trust-versus-mistrust stage of development (118). In this stage an infant
will learn that the world is a workable place, or they will learn that they cannot rely on the world
to meet their basic needs. For example, a hungry infant will cry to alert their caregiver that they
are hungry. If there is a timely and healthy response to the infant crying and their needs are met,
then eventually as the infant gets older they will realize that they can trust and rely on the people

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around them. If no response is offered when a hungry infant cries, or if their needs are not met,
then the infant will learn that they cannot trust those around them to meet their needs, therefore
showing the infant that their world is not workable.
Our textbook defines temperament as individual differences in behavioral styles,
emotions, and characteristic ways if responding (114). According to Alexander Chess and Stella
Thomas there are three main types of child temperaments; easy child, difficult child, and slowto-warm-up child. An easy child can easily adopt a routine and can also adapt fairly well to a
change in routine. A difficult child will be harder on a parent because they tend to cry more, they
do not accept change easily, and they do not adapt to routines as well as an easy child would. A
slow-to-warm-up child will seem as if they are on the fence about everything, they tend to be
more still, and they have lower intensity emotions.
While everyone hopes to be blessed with an easy child, that is not always the case. This
does not mean that a parent who has a difficult child or a slow-to-warm- up child is cursed to
suffer their days dealing with intense mood swings or a child that seems not to care about
anything. Goodness of fit can be a better predictor of infant outcome than temperament.
Goodness of fit refers to the match between a childs temperament and the environmental
demands the child must cope with (117).
I think that Eriksons concept of trust-versus-mistrust really comes into play in the theory
of temperament and goodness of fit. This caused me to wonder if a difficult child who has
established trust with their caregiver may have a brighter outlook than an easy or slow-to-warmup child who has not been able to build trust with their caregiver or with the world around them.
My goal is to arm myself and other parents with the education, tools, and support so that every
parent can effectively help their child navigate the world around them no matter what
temperament their child has.

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Works Cited
Santrock, John W. Essentials of Life-Span Development. 4th ed., New York, NY, McGraw-Hill
Education, 2016.