Infants’ social looking toward mothers and strangers

This study investigated infant social looking in a social referencing procedure with mothers and strangers. Sixty-one infants and their mothers participated when the infants were 18 and 24 months old. The frequency and latency of looking toward each adult when the baby encountered remotecontrolled ambiguous toys were measured. Mothers and strangers (female experimenters) expressed positive or negative emotional responses whenever children looked toward them. Results indicated that older infants looked more often and faster, especially toward strangers. Both age groups tended to look to the strangers more frequently than to mothers. The pattern of looking toward caregivers over time differed from looking toward strangers in both age groups. These results indicate that nonattachment figures may be preferred targets of referencing in certain situations. It is also implied that older infants’ looks to adults might differ from those of their younger counterparts in a number of ways.