12-13: Emotional Development

Question 1

Emotion

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

Primary vs secondary emotions

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

Ekman (After Darwin)

Answer 3

Which expressions are basic/universal to all humans/have adaptive value?

Question 4

Do one month olds have emotion?

Answer 4

Mother says whether the emotion is present. Most common: interest, joy, anger, surprise

Question 5

Facial Action Coding Systems

Answer 5

Ekman. Measure facial movements that occur/muscle movements lead to different expressions. Can be used for babies as well.

Question 6

Emotioal development timing

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

Joy in infants

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Smile types

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Fear

Answer 9

Phase I - s face at 10-14 months.

Question 10

Anger

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

Sadness

Answer 11

Most often observed with separation or non-responsiveness. But this may just be a manipulative tool

Question 12

Secondary emotions

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Pride vs shame

Answer 13

Pride - satisfaction and joy in accomplishmens particulaly to please others. Shame - deficiency and inability to accomplish tasks.

Question 14

Jealousy

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Guilt

Answer 15

22 months - slight signs. 33-56 months - squirm, reduced eye gaze, head hanging. So after 3 years, really show guilt.

Question 16

Empathy

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

What children need for emotional understanding

Answer 17

Knowledge about emotions, recognize emotions, learn causes and consequences, appropriate context, modify emotions in selves and others.

Question 18

Recognizing emotions in others

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

Multiple emotions

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Harris’s emotional comprehension steps

Answer 20

1. External aspects - facial expressions
2. Psychological natures - discrepancies can exist between expression and feeling
3. Children understand that individuals can reflect on their situation. Know that individuals can possess multiple feelings that may be contradictory

Question 21

Emotional regulation

Answer 21

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)

Question 22

Learning expressiveness from parents

Answer 22

Children with parents who exhibit more negative/positive emotions are more likely to show the same emotional expressions.

Question 23

Gottman’s five basic elements of emotional coaching

Answer 23

1. Aware of child’s emotions
2. Emotions as opportunity for intimacy and teaching
3. Listening empathically, validating
4. Labeling emotions in words children can understand
5. Helping children to come up with appropriate way to solve problem.