The experiment I will be writing about is The Still Face Experiment by Dr. Edward Tronick. This experiment is about a baby and the emotions, re-activity and social interactions that babies get from the world around them.
The mother has a baby of a year of age. She sits down and plays around with the baby. As they play around, the mother greets the baby and the baby greets back; the baby starts pointing to things, laughing, and smiling.
A few minutes later, the mother puts on a "poker face" and doesn't respond to anything the baby does. The baby starts smiling, laughing, pointing at things, puts both of her hands in front of the mother's face, starts screaming, turns away, and even cries. As soon as the mother starts responding, the baby stops crying and starts playing back.
The Still Face Experiment was very useful in answering many questions on how one may predict later social-emotional variables. For example, internalizing depression and anxiety, and externalizing aggressive behaviors from 18 months to 3 years of age.
