Abstract

Toddlers' eagerness to collaborate with parents across both discipline and teaching contexts has important implications for socialization. However, little is known about what leads to individual differences in children's readiness to be socialized. One possibility lies in children's positive expectations of parent responsiveness. The current study attempted to measure these child expectations through observations of the quantity and quality of attention seeking during parent unavailability. Two-year-olds and their parents ( N = 102) participated in an imitation task and in two compliance tasks. Overall, results showed a consistent interaction between the quality and the quantity of attention seeking, with quality being particularly important at high levels of attention seeking. Although children's social expectations did not mediate the link between toddlers' eagerness to learn and committed compliance, there was a strong positive correlation between eagerness to learn and children's positive and confident attention seeking. Implications are discussed in terms of the role of the quality of attention seeking in toddler's readiness to be socialized.