CCAP College 2 Flashcards
Emotion Communication, Regulation and Culture
why do we express emotions?
strong communicator to regulating relationships
We All Like Positive Emotions (Messinger, 2008): how does emotion socialization work?
POSITIVE EMOTIONS:
- smiling signals joy, but also: ‘it’s okay’
- powerful request for positive response, establish and maintain relationships
- stimulates attachment in caregivers
negative emotions
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
- less accepted and requires better, more complex social skills
- children need to learn social rules for when, how and how strong to express negative emotions
Comparison of Sadness, Anger and Fear Facial Expressions When Toddlers Look at Their Mothers (Buss & Kiel, 2004)
mothers tend to give more warmth to children’s sad expressions; they ignore/react negatively to anger expressions
- method: a strange man comes in, and children INTENSIFY FEAR, because their mothers react tot his.
- method: toy is taken away from child; children DON’T INTENSIFY ANGER, BUT BECOME SAD because their mothers react to this
conclusion: children already understand not to communicate anger, but sadness (like conditioning)
difference between emotion EXPERIENCE and emotion EXPRESSION/COMMUNICATION
difference between emotion EXPERIENCE and emotion EXPRESSION/COMMUNICATION
what you feel is not necessarily what you express
regulating emotion expression
when emotion experience and expression can interfere with person goals
the role of culture in emotion communication
different non-verbal rules (do you look someone in the eyes or not?)
cultures have different ‘standards’ for levels and mode of emotion expression
some words have no translation in other languages
Adolescents’ Responses to Online Peer Conflict: How Self-Evaluation and Ethnicity Matter (Novin, Boss & Rieffe, 2018)
1: examining adolescent’s responses during online peer provocation
2: examining individual differences during online peer provocation
method:
- peer provoking game with pre-programmed fictitious peer; increasing provoking comments and behavior
role of
- self-evaluations
- self-esteem
- sense of coherence (SoC) = evaluation of ability to respond adaptively in challenges)
hypothesis:
- the higher the self-esteem, the fewer displeasure responses
results:
- NO difference between Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch
- BUT only in Moroccan-Dutch does higher self-esteem lead to more displeasure responses
- SoC important in staying calm
2 general responses (Novin, Boss & Rieffe, 2018)
1: constructive: effect is to neutralize and solve
2: unconstructive: effect is to worsen and escalate
Anger Expression Depends on Relationship (Saarni, 1999)
with good friend: to restore relationship or conflict
with rivaling sibling: instrumental repair, less remorse, unstable harmony
within hostile relationship: further escalation
effects of Emotion Regulation (ER)
1) response-focused ER (suppression)
2) antecedent-focused ER
1) response-focused ER (suppression)
- regulation of emotion EXPRESSION
- decrease in behavioral responses
- increase OR EQUAL emotion experience
2) antecedent-focused ER
- regulation of emotion EXPERIENCE (emotion awareness and coping)
- decrease in behavioral responses
- decrease in emotional experience
“the automatic or intentional modification of emotional state, that promotes adaptive/goal-directed behavior”
how to do antecedent-focused ER?
hypothesis 1
step 1: know own emotions (EA)
step 2: regulate arousal level (coping)
hypothesis 2
step 1: cognitive control
step 2: regulate arousal level (coping)
why is emotion awareness (EA) important?
it signals that the event is meaningful and reveals one’s wishes and expectations
- analysis of emotion-evoking elements to deal with situation adaptively
normal development of EA
monitoring learned through EMOTION SOCIALIZATION
- often based on bodily/behavioral signals (trembling, hiding one’s face)
- labeling emotions = starting point of EA
EA in autistic children
- often reported over-arousal in youth
- higher level of alexithymia in autistic youth
alexithymia
difficulty with recognizing, labeling and dealing with own an other’s emotions
coping; regulate arousal level
dealing with a negative experience
- infants: cover ears of avert gaze
- toddlers: self-soothe in mothers absence
- children: fixing or distraction
approach strategies in young children
problem solving (nicely or aggressively)
social support seeking
avoidance strategies in young children
walking away
distraction
self-stimulation
strategies in older children = more cognitive
they “think about it” rather than “do something”
reappraisal
