One of the first things that an infant learns is how to trust. Weather it be trust or mistrust, the infant goes through a process of learning this feeling. In order to understand how the infant learns to trust we must first understand what is important about learning trust and what kind of trust is the infant learning. Learning to trust one's helplessness to a trustworthy caregiver is the primary learning task of infancy. The infant needs to learn to be aware that there is someone there to do things for them. This is the ultimate form of trust. Trust is part of an infants DLT or development learning task. Learning trust is important in order for the infant to move to the next stage of development.
Erikson says that there are two types of trust that the infant could learn, trust or mistrust. If we are not learning trust then we are learning mistrust.
Newborn child, seconds after birth. The umbilical ...
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An infantTrust is a form of one's abilities while mistrust is a form of one's anxiety. When the infant is learning trust, in the beginning he learns "basic" trust, which is a foundation of all future interpersonal learning. Trust is built on the base of basic trust. When this foundation has been laid, it acts as generalized attitude towards people. After this the infant goes to the next step which is realistic trust.
In order for the infant to learn trust, the infant needs four specific things from its caretaker. The first thing the infant needs is warmth. Warmth can mean one of two different things. The first being emotional warmth. The infant needs the caregiver to treat him nicely and be warm and kind. The second being body warmth. Since human beings are mammals, we naturally need to close to our caregivers and be...