This post examines the influence of attachment styles on infants’ rational constructivist reasoning-based approach to new tasks. It provides the readers with some insight into abilities improved on the different developmental stages. However, the suggested research questions and some of the methods presented have certain theoretical or methodological limitations. Firstly, it is still unclear “how sophisticated infants’ probabilistic-inference abilities are”, as well as where the hypothesis tested by them originate (Xu & Kushnir, 2013, p. 31). While describing the experiment with toys and boxes, the post does not provide sufficient information on the patterns observed when the children chose certain objects. The “extent of children’s awareness of the subjectivity of preferences” is not well-defined as well (Xu & Kushnir, 2013, p. 28). In addition, the post mentions the importance of considering cultural influences on the selection of population for sampling (Kuther, 2020). However, this assumption is limited by the fact that there is no information about the connections between selecting the population for this research and cultural factors involved.
A large part of the research focuses primarily on the attachment studies; there is a lack of information on how attachment differs and integrates with other development features (Cassidy et al., 2013). It can be suggested that further research will benefit from focusing on other phases of development, as well as issues and factors associated with them. The main limitation of the study conducted by Denison and Xu (2010) is the fact that the influence of the parents’ presence was not fully examined. The results do not reflect how the behaviors would change if parents left the room for a few minutes. Finally, the ethical perspective on the research could also benefit from an in-depth analysis (British Psychological Society, 2021). While the post covers the issue of a written consent, there is limited information on when parents or guardians should be approached to provide it.
References
British Psychological Society. (2021). Code of Ethics and Conduct. Leicester: The British Psychological Society. Retrieved from The British Psychological Society.
Cassidy, J., Jones, J. D., & Shaver, P. R. (2013). Contributions of attachment theory and research: A framework for future research, translation, and policy. Development and Psychopathology, 25(4pt2), 1415-1434.
Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2010). Twelve- to 14-month-old infants can predict single-event probability with large set sizes. Developmental Science, 13(5), 798-803.
Kuther, T. L. (2020). Lifespan development in context. Routledge.
Xu, F., & Kushnir, T. (2013). Infants are rational constructivist learners. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(1), 28-32.