ABSTRACT
At birth and shortly after, the infant is a functioning biological organism. In this period, a great many reflex actions and movement sequences of a physiological sort have been studied and described. Very early in this period, too, specific behaviors begin to appear, i.e., the child begins to recognize and respond differently to persons and objects, to make approach actions toward certain things and withdrawal actions to others. Certain chance actions are repeated, with or without modifications. A great many of these differential ways of behaving are subtle and difficult to observe at this stage. Psychologists have been handicapped in the study of these early psychological activities because of the frequent practical difficulties in obtaining such young subjects for observation and study. Very frequently, it is difficult to observe the occurrence of these early behaviors outside of the intimacy of the home situation. However, an increasing number of studies of early basic patterns of behavior have been done. Following are some sample selections of studies of basic behavioral patterns in the early period of the psychological life history.
