Infants may demonstrate stranger anxiety through various behaviors, such as crying, turning their body away from an unfamiliar person, clinging tightly to a caregiver, or attempting to reach for a familiar face like a parent.

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According to Piaget, stranger anxiety is a fear of unfamiliar people that typically emerges in infants around the same time they develop object permanence.

Stranger Anxiety

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Examples of Stranger Anxiety

An 8-month-old infant is contentedly playing with their mother. When a family friend they have never met before enters the room, the infant cries, hides their face, and clings to their mother. Which developmental phenomenon does this scenario best illustrate?

According to Piaget's theory, stranger anxiety is a fear response that results from a child's inability to assimilate an unfamiliar person into an existing schema. This failure to categorize the stranger makes their behavior unpredictable to the child.

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