12-13: Emotional Development Flashcards
Emotion
Subjective feeling that most often occurs in response to an environmental experience. Accompanied by physiological arousal. Generally communicated to others through expression or action. During childhood, children develop more refined/complex emotions.
Primary vs secondary emotions
Primary: joy, fear, distress, surprise, sadness, interest, disgust. In direct response to events - no real introspection; begin early
Secondary: pride, shame, jealousy, guilt, empathy. Begins around 18 months. More social/self-conscious - child has to be aware of self with respect to others.
Ekman (After Darwin)
Which expressions are basic/universal to all humans/have adaptive value?
Do one month olds have emotion?
Mother says whether the emotion is present. Most common: interest, joy, anger, surprise
Facial Action Coding Systems
Ekman. Measure facial movements that occur/muscle movements lead to different expressions. Can be used for babies as well.
Emotioal development timing
Facial expressions quite early on. 2 months - interest/pleasure, social smile. 3 months - wariness, frustration. 6 months - mimicking. 7 months is when many parents report child is showing definite emotions. 7-12 months: increases in variability between different individuals.
Joy in infants
Early on, reflex smiles - may just respond when interested
3-8 weeks - begin to smile to external stimuli and internal states. 2-6 months - social smile, depending on familiar vs unfamiliar and reciprocation. Duchenne smile reserved for familiar individuals. Not fakeable, unlike simple smiles. Girls smile more than boys
Smile types
Duchenne smile - genuine. Play smile - hyperarousal/excitement. Duplay smile - kind of like a hybrid between the two. Ekman argued that adules show up to 17 different types.
Fear
Phase I - s face at 10-14 months.
Anger
By 2-3 months, infants display expressions and vocalizations of anger. Intensity increases over first 2 years at a constant rate as children gain better understanding of source of frustration and inability to alter situation. May take time before children can successfully cognitively learn how to control and manage anger.
Sadness
Most often observed with separation or non-responsiveness. But this may just be a manipulative tool
Secondary emotions
Social or self-conscious such as pride, shame, jealousy, guilt, empathy, embarrassment. Some evidence at 18 months, really begin to emerge at 2.5 years
Pride vs shame
Pride - satisfaction and joy in accomplishmens particulaly to please others. Shame - deficiency and inability to accomplish tasks.
Jealousy
15-18 months. Particularly if caregiver gives attention to another child. Securely attached children less likely to exhibit jealousy. As child’s emotional understanding increases, jealousy decreases.
Guilt
22 months - slight signs. 33-56 months - squirm, reduced eye gaze, head hanging. So after 3 years, really show guilt.
Empathy
Ability to recognize, share, understand, feel another individual’s emotional state. Most often negative emotions. Rudimentary empathic responding in newborns- cry when hearing cries of other newborns. Egocentric empathic distress at 1 yr - distressed because somebody else is distressed. Quasi-egocentric empathic distress at 12-18 months - engage in activity to reduce distress of others. True empathic distress at 2 years, start to understand others’ perspective.
What children need for emotional understanding
Knowledge about emotions, recognize emotions, learn causes and consequences, appropriate context, modify emotions in selves and others.
Recognizing emotions in others
3-6 months: babies exposed to maybe 32,000 instances of facial expression. 6 months - can recognize positive and negative.
Positive recognition emerges earlier maybe to promote caregiver-infant reciprocity. 3-4 years can label expressions as happy, sad, angry, fearful; emotional scripts.
Multiple emotions
Important aspect of emotional understanding: realization that individual can experience more than one maybe conflicting emotions. At around 7 can understand two emotions of same type; at 11-21 can understand same event causing opposite feelings.
Harris’s emotional comprehension steps
- External aspects - facial expressions
- Psychological natures - discrepancies can exist between expression and feeling
- Children understand that individuals can reflect on their situation. Know that individuals can possess multiple feelings that may be contradictory
Emotional regulation
Management, modification, monitoring one’s emotions. Being able to alter intensity and duration of emotional arousal - for example putting hands over ears while watching scary cartoon, looking away. Contextual appropriateness. Older children use cognitive behavioral strategies (like journals or talking with parents)
Learning expressiveness from parents
Children with parents who exhibit more negative/positive emotions are more likely to show the same emotional expressions.
Gottman’s five basic elements of emotional coaching
- Aware of child’s emotions
- Emotions as opportunity for intimacy and teaching
- Listening empathically, validating
- Labeling emotions in words children can understand
- Helping children to come up with appropriate way to solve problem.
