The Importance of Still Faces in Infants

We tend to take these claims for granted: “Human beings are essentially relational.” “No man is an island.” “We’re created for connection.” “We’re made for relationships.” And testing the limits of this can be pretty much diabolical. Evan Rosa traces two stories of parental deprivation: Harry Harlow's "Monkey Love Experiments" and the horror of 1990's discovery of Romanian asylums for orphans, documented in the 1990 report "The Shame of a Nation,” on 20/20.

Then psychologist Mari Clements (Glenville State College, formerly Fuller School of Psychology) discusses the importance of healthy marriage dynamics for young children’s development and how it provides a secure emotional base; the relational imago Dei; the close emotional bonds that must take place early in life in order to provide the relational stability relational creatures need; we talk about important phases of human development, into adulthood; and the theological backdrop to these questions of the human drive and need for emotional connection.

This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of Blueprint 1543. For more information, visit Blueprint1543.org.

About Mari Clements

Mari Clements is Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Psychology at Glenville State College. Prior to this, she taught at Fuller School of Psychology and Penn State University.

Show Notes

• We tend to take these claims for granted: “Human beings are essentially relational.” “No man is an island.” “We’re created for connection.” “We’re made for relationships.” And testing the limits of this can be pretty much diabolical.
• Harry Harlow’s Monkey Love Experiments—Rhesus Monkeys (Video)
• “The Shame of a Nation,” 20/20 (1990) (Video)
• How family dynamics and marital conflict impacts children
• “If you stay in your marriage for the sake of the children, then you deserve, and your child deserves, for you to work on your marriage for the sake of the children. Just being together is actually not better for kids. The kids who look really bad are the kids whose parents are engaged in repetitive and nasty and awful conflict. And they're not getting good models for how to solve problems in their own relationships. They're not getting good models for what to expect from marriage. They're not getting good models for what that marriage relationship is supposed to be.”
• Even four-year-olds notice when parents are in conflict.
• Marriage as a secure emotional base for children.
• Parenting together as stewardship and sacred responsibility
• “In your relationship, you should glorify God better together than you would separately.”
• “There's a very important connection between how it is that children see their parents and how it is they typically see God.”
• Conditional love can produce an earning mindset in a child, not just with respect to the parent, but to God.
• Don’t be a Karen-parent who thinks their child can do no wrong.
• “That's the interesting thing about people, even when they're doing terrible things, they often are doing them for good reasons, right? In therapy you can hear couples say incredibly hurtful and awful things to each other.”
• The relational image of God
• Study of Infants in Orphanages during World War I and World War II: Infants with physical needs taken care of still wasted away and even died without human contact.
• God as Trinity, Jesus as Incarnational
• Relating rightly to our neighbors
• Impact of spousal treatment on how children treat parents and others.
• Wire Monkey vs Soft and Cuddly Monkey
• A close emotional bond must take place early in life in order to provide the relational stability relational creatures need.
• Definition of adulthood
• Babies can do amazing things.
• Still Face Experiment
• Intellectual vs Relational definitions of the Imago Dei
• Intellectual disability
• Bringing psychology into the service of theology

Production Notes

• This podcast featured Mari Clements
• Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
• Hosted by Evan Rosa
• Production Assistance by Macie Bridge and Kaylen Yun
• A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
• Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give
• This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of Blueprint 1543. For more information, visit Blueprint1543.org.