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The Importance Of Socioemotional Development

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In addition to all of the physical and cognitive development that occurs during the first two years of life, socioemotional development plays a crucial role and the development of infants. Because infants are emotional beings, it's important to understand the importance of socioemotional interactions. These interactions dictate communication styles with others, and it is the basis for how infants learn to interact with their own emotions. Socioemotional development of infants is influenced by various factors such as emotions, temperament, personality, and attachment.
Infants utilize emotion to communicate with others and to establish behavioral organization. When examining infant's emotions, there are two classifications of emotions to consider: primary emotions and self-conscious emotions. Primary emotions refer to basic, instinctual emotions such as surprise, joy, sadness, and anger. Meanwhile, self-conscious emotions refer to emotions that develop once an infant has a sense of self; emotions such as jealousy, guilt, and pride are all considered self-conscious emotions (Santrock, 2017, pg. 173). Each emotion can be used to communicate a need or feeling with others. For instance, babies use a variety of different types of cries to communicate their needs: there is the basic cry, anger cry, and pain cry. Each sound slightly different to communicate a different meaning (Santrock, 2017, pg. 174).
Through the expression of emotion, one's temperament can be determined;

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