PHILIPPE ROCHAT
Department of Psychology, Emory University of Atlanta, Atlanta, USA

Me and Mine in early development

By the time children are reportedly recognizing themselves in mirrors (18-24 months), they begin to show signs of self-conscious emotions and concerns for others. They become explicit in their claim of possession and entitlement by using possessives such as 'Mine!' (meaning 'not yours!'). I will present research and theoretical ideas on the origins and the developmental emergence of such coalesced pattern of behaviors. First, I review a few among many studies demonstrating that early on infants discriminate what is caused by their own actions, and what is not. This represents a first implicit (perception-action) level of ownership that is constitutive of a pre-conceptual 'ecological' sense of self. Potential mechanisms underlying this primary sense of ownership (e.g., mirror system and multi-modal treatment capacity that are prescribed from birth) are necessary, but not sufficient for the development of the conceptual sense of self that emerges by the end of the second year. This development is rooted in triadic social exchanges involving self and others in relation to physical objects. By 9 months, parallel to explicit joint engagement and re-engagement of others in triadic exchanges, infants begin to manifest an explicit sense of possession via claim of exclusivity, the weariness of stranger and sometime acute affective investments into 'transitional' objects for comfort and selfregulation in the face of separation. From then on, children become explicit about what they own as well as their sense of entitlements in relation to others. They start to identify themselves in objects they own, objectifying the self in the process as well as discovering the social power of explicit ownership for the control of social affiliation, reputation, and the gain of recognition from others. I discuss this process that finds its roots in infancy and would deserve much more empirical scrutiny.

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