still face experiment edward tronick

The Research: The Still Face Experiment

• Est. reading time: 3 min.

In 1975, Edward Tronick and colleagues first presented the “Still Face Experiment” to colleagues at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. He described a phenomenon in which an infant, after three minutes of “interaction” with a non-responsive expressionless mother, “rapidly sobers and grows wary. He makes repeated attempts to get the interaction into its usual reciprocal pattern. When these attempts fail, the infant withdraws [and] orients his face and body away from his mother with a withdrawn, hopeless facial expression.” It remains one of the most replicated findings in developmental psychology.

Once the phenomenon had been thoroughly tested and replicated, it became a standard method for testing hypotheses about person perception, communication differences as a result of gender or cultural differences, individual differences in attachment style, and the effects of maternal depression on infants. The still-face experiment has also been used to investigate cross-cultural differences, deaf infants, infants with Down syndrome, cocaine-exposed infants, autistic children, and children of parents with various psychopathologies, especially depression.

• Be aware of your child’s emotion
• Recognize your child’s expression of emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
• Listen with empathy and validate your child’s feelings
• Help your child learn to label their emotions with words
• Set limits when you are helping your child to solve problems or deal with upsetting situations appropriately

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• Publish Date: March 25, 2013
• Last Updated: June 25, 2024

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Why the "Still-Face" Experiment Was a Game-Changer

What it taught us about maternal attunement and being in sync..

Updated July 10, 2023 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

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• It was thought that infants didn't interact with their mothers in meaningful ways and that moms "projected."
• The withdrawal of maternal attention and responsiveness can cause acute stress in infants and toddlers.
• Maternal attunement, or the lack thereof, shapes the development of adult attachment styles.

I have been writing about parents, with a focus on mothers and daughters, for over 20 years and if I had to choose one specific finding that was all-important to understanding infant- child development , I’d choose what is called the "Still-Face Experiment" or "Still-Face Paradigm," hands down. At the time this experiment was published in 1978, it was still assumed that infants didn’t really interact with their mothers or caregivers, nor was it thought that interaction with an infant was actually vital to her or his development and thriving. Edward Z. Tronick and his colleagues changed all of that.

The Still-Face Paradigm

The setup, conducted in a laboratory and videotaped—which was a novelty at the time—was relatively straightforward: The baby is in a seat facing her mother and the mother is talking, smiling, and making eye contact and the infant responds by vocalizing, smiling back, and pointing at things in the room. At one point, the mother turns away and when she faces the baby, what the infant sees is a still, unsmiling face. The baby goes into overdrive to reengage her or his mother—doing all the things that previously have garnered attention —but no go; the mother’s face remains still. What you see on the video is heartbreaking: When the infant realizes that while Mommy is there, she is also somehow gone, the baby begins to melt down. She looks away, she waves her arms in protest, slumps in the seat, and then begins to wail. It’s at that point that the mother relaxes her face and starts interacting with the infant again, re-establishing and repairing the connection. It’s worth noting that the baby is relatively wary and that it takes a bit of time for her to recover.

Of course, in the lab setting, how the mother interacts is scripted and the length of time she’s disengaged is relatively short. But what happens to a baby when a mother routinely shows a lack of attunement and responsiveness to her child and ignores those protest signals or gets angry? Alternatively, what happens to the infant when the mother switches between hot and cold, being responsive at times and ignoring the child at others? It will not surprise you that these maternal behaviors affect not just how the baby develops in terms of emotional regulation but the mental models he or she forms of how relationships work. (Yes, we are talking about attachment styles.)

Mind you, we are not talking about sporadic minutes of a still face—such as taking a phone call or being distracted or ignoring the baby because you must do something urgently—but persistent patterns of maternal behavior.

Attunement and interaction are essential to the infant’s thriving and development during the first three years of life and have effects that reach way beyond those years and into adulthood.

What the Still-Face Experiment and Follow-Ups Revealed

The original experiments involved infants two to 12 months old and so, even with the publication of the results, the question was: Were the researchers reading in? After all, an infant can’t tell you what he or she is feeling and perhaps the researchers were seeing dyadic interaction because they were looking for it. Well, experiments with toddlers—light-years ahead in terms of development and already talking—quelled any doubts. The toddlers acted precisely the way the infants had but with more intensity; they worked hard at trying to reengage their mothers by using speech. They raised their voices in response to the still face, waved objects in front of her, and tugged at her to try to get her to respond. The toddlers exhibited the same behaviors as the infant cohort: a pattern of protest, followed by a flood of emotion , and then turning away so as not to experience more emotional pain. Once again, repairing the connection took time.

Realizing that dyadic interaction was important and that infants and babies experienced stress was a game-changer. It also put a psychological focus on the meaningful differences in how women mothered and how the development of their children was affected for both good and ill. When maternal attunement is absent on a regular basis or inconsistent, the child’s mental models of how relationships work and whether people can be trusted to be there for you shift toward the negative. These mental models become what are called adult attachment styles (secure, and the three styles of insecure attachment: anxious -avoidant, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant). The insecure styles of attachment emerge when maternal attunement is sporadic or non-existent. (Click here for more on attachment styles.)

3 Takeaways From the Still-Face Experiment

If you are an adult struggling to make sense of the effect your childhood experiences had on you, there are lessons to be drawn from the Still-Face Paradigm. If your mother still ignores you or doesn’t hear you in meaningful ways, the chances are good this began a long time ago. The best way of dealing with negative childhood experiences is to work with a gifted therapist.

If you are a parent raising an infant or small child, here are some key points.

• Pay attention to your own level of engagement and attunement. Mothering in our species is learned, not instinctual, and if you are having trouble engaging with your child consistently, seek support; despite the mythology that the culture imposes on motherhood, many women have trouble staying present for lots of different reasons. They could feel overwhelmed by the demands of mothering, especially if they have more than one child; they could be unsure about whether they’re “doing it right;” or just not feeling comfortable with the high demands of early mothering, especially if it’s not shared with a partner to any degree. There’s zero shame in this admission; it has nothing to do with loving your child and, no, it’s not abnormal.
• If you are hiring a caretaker , pay attention to how she interacts with your baby. Many women will find themselves having to go back to work full-time, so hiring child care isn’t a choice but a necessity. Yes, references are important but so is the quality of the interactions the nanny will have with your child, especially if you work a normal workweek. For children under three, you want someone who won’t be on her phone most of the time. Take the time to observe how the caretaker responds to your child and interacts.
• Rethink “timeouts” if you use them. If you are giving your child a timeout to permit him or her to self-regulate emotions and calm down, that’s one thing and there’s no reason to ignore him or her if that is the goal. But if you are using the timeout as punishment or giving the child “the silent treatment,” you have mistaken verbal abuse for discipline; that becomes clear when you think about the Still-Face Paradigm. Using the timeout in this way pushes the child into self-defensive territory and forces the child to shut down his or her emotions to cope. Not good.

This post was adapted from text and research for my books, Daughter Detox: Recovering from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life and Verbal Abuse: Recognizing, Dealing, Reacting, and Recovering.

Copyright © 2023 by Peg Streep.

Tronick, Edward, Heidelise Als, Lauren Adamson, Susan Wise and T. Berry Brazelton. "The Infant's Response to Entrapment between Contradictory Messages in Face-to-face Interaction." Pediatrics , September 1978, vol. 17(1), pp. 1-13.

Peg Streep was a contributor at Psychology Today until her death in 2024. She was the author or coauthor of 15 books, including Daughter Detox: Recovering from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life.

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Still Face Experiment

The Still Face Experiment and its Impact on Infant Development

When young infants gaze at the face of an emotionally unresponsive mother, they typically react by sobbing and turning away. The lack of attunement alarms their system, disrupting security, and leads to a behavioral reaction. A child suffers mental anguish when bids for attention are ignored or misinterpreted. A series of studies known as the still face experiment explores a child’s reaction in detail.

During the 1975 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, developmental psychologist Edward Tronick along with his colleagues T. Berry Brazelton MD, and Lauren Adamson presented a paper titled Infant Emotions in Normal and Perturbed Interactions  ( Tronick, Adamson, & Brazelton, 1975 ).

Key Definition:

The Still Face Experiment is a controlled laboratory procedure used to observe the effects of maternal unresponsiveness on infant behavior. It was developed by developmental psychologist Edward Tronick in 1975. The experiment involves instructing a mother to maintain a neutral facial expression and unresponsive demeanor while interacting with her infant, simulating a “still face” devoid of emotional expression. The infant’s reactions to the mother’s sudden emotional unavailability are then observed and analyzed. The study has been influential in demonstrating the significance of responsive and contingent maternal behavior in infant development.

The highlight of this presentation was the illustration of the still face effect on infants. Tronick described the still face phenomenon as the reaction of an infant after three minutes of interaction with a non-responsive expressionless mother. He explains that the child “rapidly sobers and grows wary. He makes repeated attempts to get the interaction into its usual reciprocal pattern. When these attempts fail, the infant withdraws [and] orients his face and body away from his mother with a withdrawn, hopeless facial expression” ( Adamson & Frick, 2003 ).

Tronick later published their findings in a peer reviewed journal in 1978 . Since this publishing, the still face experiment has been replicated numerous times, supporting the earlier hypothesis and empirical results.

​Mother Infant Interaction

​Tronick’s findings suggested more than the simple negative response of an infant to a mother’s still face. Tronick was exploring the early social cognitions of an infant. Within the dawning moments of life, an infant begins social interaction. Tronick captured the emotional attunement , and dyadic regulation of a mother and child on video tape (new technology at the time).

Tronick’s recordings captured the intimate cyclic ebb and flow of an infant and mother’s face to face interaction. 

In a 2010 article, Jason Goldman explains the deeper implications of the “still-face” studies. He wrote, “the still face experiment demonstrated that very young infants already have several basic building blocks of social cognition in place.” He continues by listing other contributing implications of Tronick’s study:

• the study suggested that infants “have some sense of the relationship between facial expression and emotion, that they have some primitive social understanding, and that they are able to regulate their own affect and attention to some extent.”
• “The infants’ attempts to re-engage with their caregivers also suggest that they are able to plan and execute simple goal-directed behaviors.”
• “The still face experiment has also proved useful in determining the extent of an infant’s social world.”
• “The still-face experiment has likewise been useful in answering questions about how the still face effect may be related to earlier experiences and how it may predict later social-emotional variables” ( Goldman, 2010 ).

Precursors to Tronick’s Still Face Experiment

​Prior to Tronick’s published findings other research findings were zeroing in on the depth of the infants social cognitions and abilities. A notable contributor to the field was Dr. Gerry Stechler (1928-2013). Stechler and his colleagues began observation of infants during the 1960’s, publishing several peer reviewed findings.

Stechler and his colleague Genevieve Carpenter conducted a study observing infant interactions with a mannequin as a stimulus. They concluded that the infant reactions were deliberate. They wrote, “the infant is trying to alter the behavior of the stimulus. It is as if the infant has expectations of the target which are not being met and it appears that the baby is attempting to change its discrepant environment” ( Carpenter et al., 1970. p. 105 ).

​The Significance of the Still Face Experiment

Research is only of value if it has real life significance. The still face research offers a peek into real life interactions that impact early child development. Vast majority of parents and caregivers don’t purposely put on an expressionless face in response to child bids for attention. Yet, we unintentionally do just that.

A young mother pushing her child for a morning walk, puts ear buds in and listens to music, grandpa repeatedly checks his phone, and dad is drawn into the NFC championship game. Not to mention parental depression, anxiety, and other emotional disturbances that create disconnection from the gentle (or not so gentle) calls for attention.

The child reaches out and the adults in its life coldly miss the cues. The child, instead of receiving a warm recognition, is met with a still unresponsive face. These missed connection, when routinely repeated without repair, rupture the child’s security, damaging a child’s future ability for secure attachments .

The Value of Emotional Attunement

One of the earliest articles published by Flourishing Life Society was Emotional Attunement. In that article, T. Franklin Murphy explains:

The young brain develops, creating the connections and networks that follow the child throughout life. The child’s brain isn’t frozen with fixed traits, experience continues to mold and adapt but the massive mapping of infancy quickly closes doors and forms the quality of life. One of the greatest gifts a parent can offer to the developing child is emotional attunement ( Murphy, 2012) .

During these dawning moments of life, the child begins to form the rudimentary forms of communication. The sense of self in relation to others. The child caregiver interaction is more than listening. A healthy interaction is an attunement and appropriate response to inner states of feeling.

​Tronick’s still face experiment captured the series of reaction when misattunement occurred. Tronick’s research clearly identified that adult and infant are “participants in an affective communication system” ( 1989. p. 112 ). When the child displays an emotion and the caregiver fails to respond there is a rupture in the connection. The child draws information regarding its self and the environment  from this perturbation in communication, contributing to the forming of the child’s mental map of the world.

The Child Receives Messages From Interactions

Tronick explains that the child learns three things from these interactions:

• the meaning of their own experience;
• the characteristics of people that are important to them; and
• cognitive and affective information that allows for them to fit into their culture, to identify with their caregivers, and to identify themselves ( 1978, p. 1 ).

Through his experiments, Tronick demonstrated that “feeling understood has its roots in early experiences of moment-to-moment mutual emotional attunement of caregiver and child.” This creates a felt sense of being understood, attained through “the act of matching, each person’s psychophysiology changes” ( Fosha, 2000. Kindle location: 764 ).

Aimee Yazbek and Barbara D’Entremont explain that “during reciprocal interactions, such as when the adult tickles the infant and the infant coos in response, the infant learns that although she is ‘like’ others, she is also separate and distinct from others and others are ‘not like me’ ( 2006, p. 590 ).

Emotional Attunement and Child Development

Emotional attunement contributes to the normal development of social capabilities. Attunement is a process of affective and intentional involvement in each others emotional worlds. When in tune with each other Tronick refers to this as ‘affective involvement synchrony’ ( 1977, p. 77 ).

Misattunement may occur through a variety of reactions to a child’s communication, not just a missed response or an overlooked bidding for attention but ‘mismatched’ communication. Attuning and responding in context validates emotional expressions. In psychology, this is known as emotional validation. “Validating emotion is communicating to another person that their emotions are heard, understood, and appropriate” ( Murphy, 2021 ).

​Colwyn Trevarthen wrote, “this ‘blank face’ or ‘still face’ procedure provoked an immediate response from the baby. First, the baby became attentive and sometimes made attempts by smiles, vocalizations, or gestures to appeal to or stimulate a response from the mother; then the baby became withdrawn, avoiding the mother’s gaze, with signs of distress and confusion. The baby looked depressed” ( Trevarthen, 2009. Kindle location: 1,809 ).

Infant Reaction to Misattuned or Ignored Messages

Daniel Siegel explains that when a parent fails to attune to the child’s communication, the child’s emotional equilibrium is thrown out of balance. He wrote, “with the parent’s face being still, the baby no longer has the attuned responses that she needs to keep herself in equilibrium.”  Siegel explains that “a young infant’s own equilibrium depends on the attuned, contingent communication with a caregiver who is attending to signals that communicate his or her internal, subjective state” ( Siegel, 2012. Kindle location: 2,754 ).

Infants quickly learn to communicate needs. When lines of communication are broken the child reacts. Lawrence Heller explains, “infants express their need for touch, nourishment, love, and connection at first by fussing and crying, which is simply an expression of healthy aggression. Attuned mothers recognize their child’s need and respond appropriately.”

However, “if the infant’s need is not appropriately responded to, the infant escalates the demand, ramping up the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, protesting the lack of response, and finally erupting into anger” ( Siegel, 2012, p. 279 ).

In neglectful environments, the still face becomes a traumatic recurring event. A child quickly learns that their bids for connection and requests for need fulfillment are not heard. An ignored child responds to impoverished environments in protective ways. The child does not cry when no one is listening. The ignored child adopts protective mechanisms for survival .

Misattunement and Repair

The goal of a parent is perfect attunement. We can strive to appropriately attune to all our child’s need but misattunements in any relationship will occur. Healthy relationships repeatedly address misattunment through repair behaviors.

Fosha reports that these misattunements are quite common. she wrote that “although the ‘affectively positive mutually coordinated interactive state’ is striven for, departures from it are frequent. In normal, optimally interactive dyads, only about 30 percent of their time together is actually spent in the affectively positive, mutually coordinated interactive state.” Fosha continues, “the rest of the time is spent in mis-coordinated interactive states, accompanied by negative affect, attempts to get back to coordinated states, and positive affect” ( Fosha, 2000 ).

​Fosha emphasizes that repair from misattunement is more important than the ability to be emotionally in sync. She explain that “repeated experiences of interactive error followed by successful interactive repair establish ‘the expectancy that repair is possible.'” Fosha explains that the child develops resilience and an “adaptive stick-to-it-iveness” from these repeated departures and repairs ( Fosha, 2000 ).

In many ways, we prepare our children to respond to the imperfect connections they will have in their adult relationships by the way we respond to the imperfect connection we have with them in their childhood.​

Children that experience repeated disconnection without repair may falsely believe in adulthood that they will find a relationship where no disconnection exists. Sadly, they will expect perfect harmony from partners and feel disappointment when the inevitable differences arise .

Misattunement and Ignored Messages in Adult Relationships

While the Tronick’s still face experiments were conducted on infants, the phenomenon and emotional impact of disconnection impacts us at all ages of life. Partners that ignore can hurt, leaving us momentarily experiencing abandonment. Repair is essential. We must consistently work through disconnections by offering repair.

T. Franklin Murphy wrote, “differences are inevitable in close relationships. Two people can never be exactly the same; and when they are different, occasionally, these differences collide in goals, opinions, desires, and behaviors. Couples handle these differences in a variety of healthy and unhealthy ways. The goal, however, isn’t to create a relationship without disagreement, but to navigate the disagreements in way that protects the bonds of intimacy, allowing each partner to develop both autonomously and as a member of the relationship” ( Murphy, 2022 ).

The narcissist, psychopath, and manipulator may use this powerful tool to damage self confidence, conveying the message that their victim’s feeling are unimportant. John Gottman refers to the tuning out from a partner as stonewalling. He suggests that this is a defensive protection against emotional flooding  ( Gottman, 2015 ).

We all need connection, a sense of being heard, and the security of knowing our emotions and bids for connection matter. Acceptance validates our experience. We need more than a still, unresponsive face.

Associated Concepts and Theories

Tronick’s Still Face Experiment is a foundational study in developmental psychology, illustrating the importance of emotional connection and responsiveness between caregivers and infants. Several associated concepts and theories have emerged from this experiment:

• Attachment Theory : This theory, developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, emphasizes the importance of a secure attachment between a child and caregiver. Tronick’s experiment supports the idea that emotional availability and responsiveness are crucial for the development of secure attachment.
• Emotion Regulation : The experiment demonstrates how infants look to their caregivers to help regulate their emotions. When the caregiver’s face becomes still and unresponsive, the infant struggles to self-regulate, leading to distress.
• Social Referencing : This concept refers to the process by which infants look to their caregivers for cues on how to react to unfamiliar or ambiguous situations. The Still Face Experiment shows how infants become distressed when they cannot get these cues from their caregiver’s facial expressions.
• Theory of Mind : Although more directly studied in older children, the Still Face Experiment hints at the early stages of understanding that others have thoughts and feelings different from one’s own. The infant’s attempts to engage the unresponsive caregiver reflect an expectation of social interaction.
• Transactional Model of Development : This model suggests that child development is the result of ongoing transactions between the child and their environment. The Still Face Experiment illustrates how these interactions can significantly impact the child’s emotional and social development.
• Dyadic Systems View of Parent-Child Interaction : This view posits that the parent-child relationship is a dynamic system where both members influence each other. The experiment shows how the infant’s behavior changes in response to the caregiver’s non-responsiveness.

These concepts and theories underscore the complexity of the caregiver-infant relationship and the profound impact that emotional communication has on a child’s development.

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

In the delicate balance of human interaction, the Still Face Experiment stands as a beacon, illuminating the path toward a deeper understanding of our shared human experience.

The silent yet profound conversations unfold in the gaze between a caregiver and their child. The unspoken language of emotion, the dance of facial expressions, and the tender choreography of social engagement—all play out in the early stages of human development, shaping the architecture of the mind and the landscape of the heart.

The Still Face Experiment is more than a study; it is a mirror reflecting the intrinsic need for connection that is wired within us. It is a testament to the resilience of the infant and the power of reparation that follows moments of disconnection. In the stillness of a caregiver’s face, we witness the infant’s plea for interaction, a plea that echoes throughout our lives in our continual search for understanding and empathy.

Let us not forget the lessons learned from these silent exchanges. They call upon us to be present, responsive, and emotionally available to those who look to us for guidance, comfort, and validation. Every expression, every nod, and every glance can be a building block in the foundation of another’s world.

In closing, Tronick’s experiment challenges us to consider the impact of our emotional presence on others. Perhaps, we start by putting our smart phones down and sharing glances during important interactions. We can be mindful architects of our relationships. We can nurture bonds with intention, recognizing the profound effects that our simplest gestures have on the developing mind.

Last Update: May 22, 2024

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Book Spotlight:

Gottman, John ( 2015 ). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert. Harmony; Revised ed. edition.

​Heller, Lawrence; LaPierre, Aline ( 2012 ). Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship. North Atlantic Books; 1st edition.

Murphy, T. Franklin ( 2012 ). Emotional Attunement. Psychology Fanatic Published 8-1-2012. Accessed 1-17-2023.

Murphy, T. Franklin ( 2021 ). Emotional Validation. Psychology Fanatic. Published 12-30-2021. Accessed 1-17-2023.

Murphy, T. Franklin ( 2022 ). Repair Attempts. Psychology Fanatic. Published 3-29-2022. Accessed 1-31-2023.

Siegel, Daniel J. ( 2012 ). Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology).  ‎W. W. Norton & Company.

Striano, T. ( 2004 ). Direction of Regard and the Still‐Face Effect in the First Year: Does Intention Matter?. Child Development, 75(2).

Trevarthen, ​Colwyn ( 2009 ). The Functions of Emotion in Infancy: The Regulation and Communication of Rhythm, Sympathy, and Meaning in Human Development. In  The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). Editors Diana Fosha PhD; Daniel J. Siegel M.D.; Marion F. Solomon Ph.D. W.W. Norton & Company; 1st edition.

Tronick, Edward, Adamson, Lauren & Brazelton, T. Berry (1975). Infant Emotions in Normal and Perturbed Interactions.

Tronick, Edward, Adamson, Lauren, Wise, S., & Brazelton, T. Berry ( 1978 ). The Infant’s Response to Entrapment between Contradictory Messages in Face‐to-Face Interaction. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 17(1).

Tronick, Edward D. & Brazelton, T. Berry. ( 1977 ). Mutuality in Mother-Infant Interaction. Journal of Communication, 27(2), 74-79.

Tronick, Edward ( 1989 ). Emotions and Emotional Communication in Infants. American Psychologist, 44(2), 112-119.

Yazbek, A., & D’Entremont, B. ( 2006 ). A longitudinal investigation of the still‐face effect at 6 months and joint attention at 12 months. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24(3).

Gottman Institute.  The Research: The Still Face Experiment

Additional Resource:

Ed Tronick and the “Still Face Experiment”

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6 thoughts on “Still Face Experiment”

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My daily cerebral turmoil mostly consists of a formidable combination of adverse childhood experience trauma, autism spectrum disorder and high sensitivity, the ACE trauma in large part being due to my ASD and high sensitivity. [I self-deprecatingly refer to it as my perfect storm of train wrecks.]

Coexisting with and seriously complicating the above is “core shame”. Dr. Joseph Burgo’s book [Shame: Free Yourself, Find Joy and Build True Self-Esteem] on the various forms/degrees of shame, including the especially emotionally/mentally crippling life curse known as core shame, is quite revelatory.

While my father had an ASD about which he wasn’t formally aware, I believe that my mother had suffered a nervous breakdowns and perhaps even postpartum depression around the time I was born. If so, it likely would have excluded shared/joyful interaction with me as an infant.

It would help explain why I, among other debilitating traits of core shame, have always felt oddly uncomfortable sharing my accomplishments with others, including those closest to me; and maybe even explain my otherwise inexplicable almost-painful inability to accept compliments. I’d always attributed it to extreme modesty. … And the list goes on.

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