8.2 Social Development in Infancy: Attachment, Social Awareness and Anxiety

Explore social development from birth to age two, focusing on how infants build relationships with their caregivers. This lesson explains attachment formation and the importance of consistent, warm and responsive care. It distinguishes secure attachment, which supports comfort-seeking and confident exploration, from insecure attachment and the difficulties that may be associated with inconsistent or neglectful care. You will also learn about early social awareness, including social smiling and social referencing, when infants look to familiar adults for emotional cues in unfamiliar situations. The session then examines stranger anxiety and separation anxiety, explaining why these responses commonly emerge around eight to twelve months. Finally, it introduces object permanence: the understanding that caregivers continue to exist even when they are out of sight. The lesson uses practical examples to help early years practitioners recognise these behaviours and understand them as part of infant development, while treating developmental ages as approximate rather than fixed deadlines. Read the related CMS Vocational Training guide: https://cmsvoc.co.uk/blog/what-is-dev... Chapters 00:00 Introduction: Social Development from Birth to Age Two 00:37 Attachment Formation and Secure Attachment 03:18 Social Smiling and Social Referencing 04:20 Stranger Anxiety, Separation Anxiety and Object Permanence