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There has been little or no research on the establishment of infant moods or the mechanisms underlying them. One reason may be our difficulty in entertaining the idea that there are affective processes in infants that have long-lasting organizing continuous effects. It is this possibility that is considered in this paper. I attempt to address the questions of how moods are created and what some of their functions are. My model of moods is that infants have long-lasting (e.g., hours, days, and even longer) mood states. Mood states are dynamically changing yet distinct assemblages of affective behaviors. Mood control processes are modified by affective input from others. Thus moods are cocreated by the interplay of active, self-organized, biorhythmic affective control processes in the infant and the effect of the emotions expressed by others on mood control processes. In recognition of the importance of Sander's thinking to this work, I have named one of these processes the Sanderian Affective Wave. Mood states organize behavior and experience over time. Critically, moods serve an anticipatory representational function by providing directionality to an infant's behavior as he “moves” into
Dr. Tronick is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Child Development Unit, Children's Hospital of Boston. He is also a member of the Boston Process of Change Group.
A version of this paper was presented to an invited symposium entitled Organizing Complexity within the Psychoanalytic Framework: Toward an Integration of Emerging Knowledge of Early Development, Biological Systems, and Therapeutic Processes. S. Seligman, Chair, 8th Annual Spring Meeting, Division of Psychoanalysis (39) American Psychological Association, Boston, 1996.
I would like to acknowledge the valuable discussions of this paper with George Downing, Marilyn Davillier, Anni Bergman, and Vivian Jung; with my colleagues in the Infant Study Group of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; and with my students at the New School University, spring 2000. Much of this material emerged from the work of the Change Process Study Group of Boston (Tronick et al., 1998).
the future. Thus they provide continuity to infants' experiential life. Furthermore, moods fulfill the Janus principle of bringing the past into the future for the infant, but as a noncognitive/symbolic/linguistic process—that is, as a purely affective—memorial process. Moreover, I believe that consideration of the development of moods opens the way for thinking about dynamic conflictual emotional processes in infants. Lastly, thinking about moods has important implications for understanding the development of pathology and for therapy.