Social Referencing: The Effectiveness of the Message
...nd consisted of an opaque surface directly under the tabletop and the deep end was an opaque surface at a distance of 30cm underneath the tabletop with a toy placed on top of it. This created a visual cliff that an infant would not fall off if he or she felt so inclined to continue across the middle. Three of the four studies manipulated the signal from the mother to the infant and the forth study eliminated the uncertainty of the situation. In the first study Sorce et al., (1985) had mothers previously trained to either give an expression of joy or fear as their infant looked at them when they approached the edge of the cliff and then observed whether the infant continued on or moved away from the edge depending on the type of signal he or she received from his or her mother. Their results found that 74% of the infants would cross the middle if he or she received a signal of joy and that none of the infants crossed the middle when he or she received the feared expression. Sorce et al (1985) observed that the fear expression served as a warning to the infants. This demonstrated that the infants where in fact using the expression of their mothers as a way to figure out the uncertain situation. Sorce et al., (1985) also observed that in the feared expression situation 11 of the 17 infants made a move away from the edge of the cliff, showing avoidance to the cliff. In the second study, using new mothers and infants, the mothers were instructed to give an expression of interest or anger, thus manipulating the emotions and observing the effects on the infants. Although the results were not as strong as the first study, Sorce et al., (1985) found that when infants received an interested expression 73% crossed the middle where as only 11% crossed when they received the angered expression. They observed that the expression of anger signaled a limitation to the infant. They also observed that the fear and anger expressions caused distress in some infants, which would be a possible explanation for the regression away from the edge of the cliff. However could it be that the infants did not cross over to the deep end because they had become upset from their mother’s expressions, instead of interpreting it as a signal of danger? The third study was set up to test just that, new mothers were instructed to give an expression of sadness. Sadness could cause the infant to become distressed without signaling to the infant he or she should not proceed. Therefore if the child became upset but continued to cross the middle then avoidance could be attributed to the mother’s expressions of fear and anger and not the distress the emotions provoked in some of the infants. Sorce et al., (1985) found just that, the percentage of infants that crossed over the other half of the table increased but the mean level of distress was the same as in the anger expression trial. In the forth study the context of the cliff was changed so that there was no cliff in order to observe if the infant stopped to look at the mother before either continuing on to the other half of the table where the toy was or not. Instead a distinct line was drawn separating the two halves of the table and the opaque surface was raised so that it resembled the other half. What Sorce et al observed was that few of the infants even stopped to reference with his or her mother before proceeding on to the toy. This shows that generally an uncertain situation must be present in order to elicit social referencing. In the forth study 23 infants were tested, 17 crossed over without looking at their mothers and four stopped to look at there mother’s who in turn gave feared expression and they still continued on to the toy. Stenberg and Hagekull (1997) were able to take the effectiveness of the message sent to the infant via social reference one step further. They hypothesized that information passed from infant to mother in the form of an expression would have more of an effect on the infant if it was accompanied by a vocal cue. They called this a specific message and that an expression signal alone was a general message. They also hypothesized that it was not the direct passing of information from mother to infant but that the mother ...