ABSTRACT
Infants' perception of their own behavior will be co-determined by parental attributions. Through meaning attribution, a whole set of values, of reinforcements, of prohibitions, of emotional coloring contributes to shaping an experience, a behavior, or a trait in the infant's repertoire. Robert Hinde has suggested that mothers' overestimation of the element of intent in infant behavior is like a delusion. He implies that mothers do not react to the objective aspect of the infant's behavior, but rather to a meaning they inject into it. In the psychoanalytic literature, meaning attribution is referred to as projection or as projective identification. In clinical practice with babies, one can see both the adaptive and destructive aspects of projection. In pathological projections, parents endow a baby with characteristics that are totally at odds with the baby's nature: the baby is seen as having well-defined intentions or harboring adult characteristics, or even endowed with supernatural forces.
