The Early Ontogeny of Self-Conscious Emotions During Infancy

Self-conscious emotions are a group of emotions related to the social self and navigating the social world. These emotions are theorized to originate from the interplay between early parent-infant interactions and personal temperamental predisposition. However, little is known about their early ontogeny. In this preregistered longitudinal study, we examined the developmental and socialization factors contributing to the emergence of self-conscious emotions: focusing on infants’ reactions to social exposure, a known elicitor of these emotions. Infants participated in a social exposure task, in which they were lavishly complimented in four situations at six-months (N=103) and 15-months (N=77). At the six-month measurement, mother–infant dyads also engaged in two interaction tasks coded for mind-mindedness and positive affective synchrony, and mothers reported on infant temperament. Self-conscious emotional reactions were indexed through coy smiling – a smile accompanied by head and/or gaze aversion. Results showed strong evidence for an effect of time, with six-month-olds displaying more coy smiles than 15-month-olds. Higher negative temperament predicted fewer coy smiles across both measurements. No effects of mind-mindedness or positive affective synchrony were found. These findings suggest that the first self-conscious emotions emerge early in infancy and may be initially shaped primarily by temperamental predispositions, rather than socialization.