Articles

1 Oct, 2015

Stress causes infants to resort to habits

RUHR-UNIVERSITAT BOCHUM | No. 133 – Bochum, | 30 September 2015

Less cognitive flexibility due to permanent stress may inhibit knowledge acquisition
15-month-old infants present similar effects as adults

Under stress, people are inclined to resort to habits, rather than trying out new things. In the journal PNAS, psychologists from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Technische Universität Dortmund report that this is true not only for adults, but also for infants.

Unfamiliar situations akin to everyday life caused an increase in the stress hormone cortisol

Together with their colleagues, Dr Sabine Seehagen from Bochum and Prof Dr Norbert Zmyj from Dortmund studied 26 infants at the age of 15 months who underwent a learning task. Approx. half of the infants had previously been subjected to stressful situations such as they may occur in their everyday life: a stranger sat down next to them, a dancing robot played loud music and moved around, their parents left the room for a maximum of four minutes. These events caused an increase in the stress hormone cortisol. The infants in the control group spent the same period of time playing with their parents.

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