No child is born social or antisocial He is not even gregarious at first, though the drive to be with people develops early in the first year of life. What the child's attitudes to immediate unhappiness, but also in subsequent difficulties in interpersonal relationships".
It has been found that children brought up in institutions where there are restrictions on social participation are less mature socially than those who are given normal opportunities for participation. This immaturity is shown in fewer contacts with others, even when there are other people available; less interest in social life; and less desire to participate in social activities. Children deprived of opportunities for social participation be cause of prejudice against them not only do not learn to be as social as their agemates but often develop antisocial attitudes which affect the quality of their social behavior. Being cut off from social contacts forces them to engage in play activities with little socializing value, such as watching tele vision, going to the movies, listening to the radio, or reading the comics.
While social participation is essential to social development, too much participation may prove to be as harmful as too little. The child who is dissatisfied if he is not with others fails to develop resources within him self to be happy when circumstances force him to be alone. Indiscriminate sociability, or being with others just for the sake of companionship without taking into consid eration congeniality of interests or other factors, does little to develop healthy social attitudes. Even worse, the child who craves companionship of any kind becomes unstable in his interests and values, changing them according to the type of child or adult he is with in the hope of winning acceptance. The child thus tends to be highly suggestible and easily influenced by anyone with whom he happens to come in contact.
The second essential to becoming a social person is motivation. Whether the child will have the necessary motivation to learn to be social will depend, to a large extent, upon how much satisfaction he derives from social contacts. The kind of social contacts the child has is more important than the number. If he enjoys his contacts with people, he will want to repeat them. If he does not, he will tend to shun people. He is thus likely to exaggerate unsatisfactory past experiences and to convince himself that he prefers to be alone. While the drive for social contacts appears, in the human infant, to be "species-specific and biologically inherent,” whether it will lead to social behavior will depend upon the satisfaction the child derives from being with others.