ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the thesis from the vantage-point of developmental psychology. It begins a handful of descriptions that illustrate how children under one year old behave when they are psychologically engaged with other people. The chapter supplements these accounts with a few additional reflections on infants’ capacities for social perception. It turns to consider some developments that take place during the second year of life, with special reference to children’s new-found capacities for self-reflective awareness. The chapter introduces theoretical perspectives when these help to unify the account, It intends to suspend a lengthier discussion of theory until later. Many of an infant’s capacities for social relatedness have some form of perceptual anchorage. It would be wrong to reduce the account to one in which perception as narrowly defined has a dominant role.
