TODDLER SMILING IN THE CONTEXT OF MOTHER-CHILD WATER PLAY

G. Christina Nelson-Goens and Karen DeBirk

Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0251

According to the continuous process model of communication (Fogel, 1993), participants continuously and mutually create each other’s behaviors and the interaction. Smiles are not discrete signals that solely reflect the internal feeling state of the individual, rather they are integral factor in the emotion communication system. The communication process is composed of both behavioral and interactional factors, such as internal feeling states, facial expressions, gaze behavior, posture, distance between partners, cognitive factors, and vocalizations. From this perspective, all of these aspects together create the continuous flow of social communication. Thus, it is through continued interactions that dyads create distinct patterns of emotion communication.

This study explores the developmental patterns of positive emotion communication by examining longitudinal data of toddlers’ smiles during mother-toddler water play. Research suggests that there are several distinct smile types and that these different types of smiles are context specific (Ekman, Davidson, & Friesen, 1990). For example, infant Duchenne smiles (lip comers and cheeks are raised) are more likely to occur during mother approach, whereas basic smiles (only lip comers are raised) are more likely to occur during stranger approach (Fox & Davidson, 1988).

For this poster, eight mother-toddler (4 male and 4 female) dyads will be presented to illuminate the individual differences in toddler smiling over time. These dyads were videotaped in a laboratory setting three times per week for twelve consecutive weeks. Dyads began the study when the children were between 16 l/2 and 17 months of age. Mothers and toddlers were videotaped as they played at a water table with water toys for fifteen minutes during each of their 36 visits. From the videotapes, toddler facial actions were microanalytically coded using Ekman and Friesen’s (1978) Facial Action Coding System (FACS). This coding identifies the following toddler facial movements: lip comer raises, cheek raises, and degree of mouth opening. These facial actions are the components of the Duchenne, play, duplay, and basic smiles of focus in this study. This study expands upon the extant literature by focusing on different types of smiles within individuals across time.

Due to the small sample size and short-term longitudinal data, this poster will present descriptive data on individual differences in the type of smiles displayed by the toddlers during water play with their mothers over the twelve weeks of this study, as well as the patterns of toddler behaviors that co-occur with each of the four different types of smiles displayed by the toddlers. Prelimii coding indicates variability across time in individual toddlers’ positive emotion communication. It is believed that many humans, including infants and young children, create idiosyncratic emotionally communicative gestures. Thus, highlighting that even within the same situational context (water play) types of smiles may vary over time and appear unique to the individual child.