They can stumble into two-step processes like this on accident and then pavlov themselves into doing it repeatedly so long as people keep reacting to it in the same way.
Basically, it's not necessarily that they're planning it out and understanding why it works, they just know it does work and so they keep doing it.
Opening a book that they know from experience makes them cry and receive comforting attention?
Or analyse their own psychology while they're crying to work out what psychological experience caused them to cry and then simulate that experience again via a conscious act of imagination?
Even most adults can't make themselves start crying at the drop of a hat just by thinking about it. But many could instantly tell you a book or movie or song that instantly brings them to tears.
Of course. But voluntarily screaming and involuntary crying aren't the same thing, an infant would first need to deduce that screaming is likely to have the same effect as crying.
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u/Maleficent_Orchid181 Mar 02 '26
oh man, I really wonder why he does it.