ger. From 4 months on, babies express anger to being restrained, and after 8
months, when baby moves around more easily, mothers appear more willing
to convey negative emotions.
[L]ocomotion changes mothers’ attributions, resulting in sharp increase in their
targeting of both anger and fear expressions towards their children as they rec-
ognize the dangers to them inherent in some objects, such as house plants, vases
and electrical appliances... For the child such heightened signals can lead to
apprehension and frustration (Campos et al., 1992). (Saarni et al., 1998, pp.
245–246)From a dialectical constructivist perspective, because thegood motherat-
tachment scheme is contradictory with punishments and negative feelings
that mother brings to the infant under these circumstances, and because
schemes must be internally consistent, a separate but complementary scheme
of mother gets formed. This is thebad motherattachment scheme, which em-
bodies these negative expectations of a punishing mother. Because thebad
motheris a scheme that has split away from the usually dominantgood
motherscheme, its onset will never be expected, and should evoke in the baby
unpleasant surprise, frustration, and confusion. Consequently, when strang-
ers appear in the baby’s proximity and he or she can discriminate them from
the familiar persons, becausefamiliar personschemes attempt to assimilate
the appearance of strangers (and anomalies, mismatches confusing essential
discrepancies, ensue), the resulting state of confusion and uncertainty should
cue and elicit activation of thebad motherscheme.
Thus when the baby’s mental attentional capacity (M-operator) is capable
of focusing and coordinating (this is scheme #1) simultaneously on the fea-
tures of the familiar person (scheme #2), and also the unfamiliar discrepant
features of the stranger (scheme #3; i.e., when the baby can coordinate simul-
taneously 2 or 3 schemes), the fear of strangers should and does appear as ex-
pression of thebad motherscheme. As Table 8.1 shows thisM-capacity is cer-
tainly available at about 8 months (sensorimotor stage #4). Separation
anxiety appears in the same manner when the child can simultaneously coor-
dinate (scheme #1) three or four schemes: the mother’s presence (scheme #2),
the actions of the mother that indicate her imminent departure (scheme #3),
the meaning of #2 plus #3 as signifying thatgood motherwill no longer be on
call as a protector–companion andbad mother(confusion, anxiety) might ap-
pear instead (scheme #4). When the baby can coordinate these 4 schemes, at
about 12 months (see Table 8.1) if not earlier, separation anxiety appears.
It is known that fear of strangers and separation anxiety vary consider-
ably both with biogenetic characteristics of the child (innate emotionality)
and with a variety of parenting and interpersonal variables. It is also known
that when these forms of anxiety (i.e., strangers and separation) are strong,
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