The inherent stress of normal daily life and social interaction leads to the development of coping and resilience, and variation in resilience in infants and young children: comments on the papers of Suomi and Klebanov & Brooks-Gunn

Abstract

The hypothesis is advanced that behavioral and physiologic resilience develops in part from infants' and young children's experience coping with the inherent normal stress of daily life and social interaction. Data on the stress of normal social interactions and perturbated interactions from the Face-to-Face Still-Face Paradigm (FFSF) are presented for young infants. These findings, including behavioral, heart rate and vagal tone, and electrodermal reactivity demonstrate the stress inherent in normal interaction and how coping with normal stress develops infants' coping with more intense environmental and social stressors.