Chapter 10: Emotional Development Flashcards
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What emotions do infants show at birth?
- interest (in things and people)
- distress (crying)
- contentment (diaper is changed, full of food, cuddling with them)
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What are basic emotions?
discrete emotional expressions of anger, sadness, joy, surprise, and fear
- emerge between 2-7 months
- appear so early in life, therefore they are probably biologically predetermined
- tend to emerge in all infants at the same time
- tend to be interpreted similarly across all cultures
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is social smile?
smile in response to seeing familiar people, therefore time has to pass before those familiar people become familiar
- emerges between 2-3 months
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is emotion regulation
ability to manage one’s emotions
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What are strategies for emotion regulation in infants?
infant is anxious:
- suck vigorously on something (pacifier, blanket, toy, thumb)
- look away from what’s bothering them (trying to detach, but can’t walk away)
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What are strategies for emotion regulation in toddlers?
toddler is anxious:
- suck on things
- rub things on their face
- find ways to distract themselves (play with toys, walk away and leave the room)
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What parental interactions and techniques help infants learn to manage their emotions?
- cuddling
- patting on the back, stroking their head/back to calm them down
- remove infants from the situation
- selective reinforcement
- model positive emotions by not yelling/screaming/getting angry
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is selective reinforcement?
when infant expresses positive emotions, the parent encourages those emotions
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What parental interactions and techniques help toddlers learn to manage their emotions?
- talk to them about emotions
- give verbal instructions on how to calm down
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What happens if a caregiver does not accurately interpret a child’s emotional displays?
caregiver may misinterpret it as manipulation rather than what the child is actually feeling
results in insensitive reaction that can interfere with infant’s emotional development
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What are maladaptive (negative) social contexts?
parental stress, depression, and conflict makes it difficult for child to learn how to manage their emotions
- mothers who are depressed tend to be less responsive to their child, show less affection, use more negative forms of touch, show more negative emotions and behaviours
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is the Test of Wills?
something that challenges the parent-child interaction and tests who is stronger emotionally
ie. if the toddler can crawl and walk, you have to stop them from going onto the street, which the child does not like
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is the result of a Test of Wills?
development of motor skills that introduces a new set of challenges, because the caregiver has to limit the child’s exploration to keep them safe
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is social referencing?
looking to caregivers’ emotional expressions for clues to interpret ambiguous (unclear) events
when child finds themselves in a situation they’ve never been in before, they often look to caregiver to see how they are reacting, to figure out how they should react themselves
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is stranger wariness (stranger anxiety)?
fear of unfamiliar people
- emerges at 6 months, peaks at 12 months, decreases in 12-15 months
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What does the variation amongst stranger wariness (stranger anxiety) in children depend on?
varies depending on ______ in which they meet a stranger
- temperament
- past experience (met very few unfamiliar people, they are more likely to express stranger wariness)
- situation (loud location, they are more likely to express stranger wariness because they are already overstimulated)
Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
What is stranger wariness (stranger anxiety) influenced by?
culture and caregiver’s anxiety
ie. Eastern cultures: babies are more exposed to different people
ie. Western cultures: babies aren’t exposed to new people except parents, sometimes for a few months
Emotional Development in Childhood
What happens to emotion regulation skills as a child ages?
emotion regulation skills improve
Emotional Development in Childhood
What influences the improvement of emotion regulation skills?
developmental advances and interactions with others
- the more you interact with others, the more likely they’ll understand and identify a variety of emotions, and anticipate the emotions of others
Emotional Development in Childhood
What are emotional display rules?
socially desirable responses that children should make in certain situations
- younger children (age 2-5) are not good at following this
- school-aged children are (6-12)
Emotional Development in Childhood
What are children learning in regard to emotional display rules?
- children are learning to think before they speak
- children are learning that certain emotions can be intentionally hidden, and in certain situations they should be hidden (don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings)
ie. pretending that you like your grandma’s terrible cooking
ie. pretending that you like the age-inappropriate gift given to you
Emotional Development in Childhood
What are contextual risks to emotional development?
- neighbourhood and community violence
war and terrorism - war and terrorism
Emotional Development in Childhood
What are contextual risks to emotional development linked with?
linked with anxiety and PTSD symptoms
Emotional Development in Childhood
How does exposure to community violence present constant threat to a child’s sense of safety?
- children are learning that the world is a dangerous and unpredictable place, and parents are unable to offer them protection
- can affect their natural curiosity and desire to learn by exploring their world, and as a result they become less curious and explore less
What is resilience?
ability to achieve despite the presence of risk factors
- even though the child is experiencing risk factors, they still have positive outcomes
What are risk factors?
individual or contextual disadvantages/challenges that tax one’s coping capacities
What are individual risk factors?
- physical, cognitive, or psychosocial challenges or delays
- difficult temperament (children are at risk for child abuse or neglect because they are harder to deal with)
What are contextual risk factors?
things that can be changed by someone else
ie. divorce, family violence, bullying, sexual abuse, child abuse, low SES, exposure to poverty-stricken and dangerous neighbourhoods (ACEs)
What problems emerge in children who experience more risk factors?
the more risk factors a child experiences, the more difficult it is for them to adjust, and the more likely they are to have emotional, psychological, and health problems
What are protective factors?
individual or contextual conditions that promote positive outcomes and reduce poor outcomes in the face of risk factors
Explain the relationship between protective factors and resilient children.
children who are resilient have protective factors that protect them against the risk factors
more protective factors = more resilient
What are individual protective factors?
- friendly personality
- high levels of self-control
- easy temperament
- good problem-solving skills (fluid intelligence)
What are contextual protective factors?
- any adult who is there to be supportive (ie. parent, coach, teacher, friend’s parent)
- after school programs
- kids who attend regular religious service
- connected to extended family
What do contextual protective factors represent?
regular routines and community connections that help the child be resilient
What is attachment?
a relatively enduring emotional tie between two people, each striving to maintain their closeness and acting to ensure the relationship continues over time
What are Bowlby’s Four Stages of Attachment Formation?
(1) Indiscriminate Social Responsiveness (birth to 2 months)
- babies learn to associate caregivers with the relief of distress
- they will respond to any caregiver who reacts to their signals
(2) Discriminating Sociability (2 to 6-7 months)
- prefer certain familiar people over others (usually parents, or any regular caregiver)
- most likely to react more positively with the caregivers they know and are familiar with
(3) Attachments (7-24 months)
- specific attachments to one or more caregivers
(4) Reciprocal Relationships (24-30 months and onward to adulthood)
- both individuals engage in taking turns in initiating interactions within the attachment relationship
- make conscious efforts to interact with the other person because they are important to you
What is a secure base?
a foundation for an infant to return to when frightened
- infant knows that they can go into the world and explore, but if they get scared, they can go back and their attachment figure is there
What is separation protest (separation anxiety)?
reaction to separations from attachment figure characterized by fear, distress, crying, and whining
- increases at 8-15 months, then decreases
appears across many cultures
What experiment tests separation protest (separation anxiety)?
tested in Ainsworth’s Strange Situation experiment
How is separation protest (separation anxiety) different to stranger wariness?
the child will exhibit separation protest even in the presence of a familiar figure who is not a caregiver
What is the internal working model?
set of expectations about one’s worthiness of love, the availability of attachment figures during times of distress, and how one will be treated
When does the internal working model develop? How does it develop the model?
in infancy as the attachment is forming
how that attachment forms tells the infant if they are worthy of love
- has everything to do with the availability of the attachment figure during times of distress, and how the infant is treated
- when the infant is in distress and the attachment figure is not available, that sends the message that they are not worthy of love
How does the internal working model affect adulthood?
- affects how worthy of love you think you are in adulthood
- challenging to form intimate love relationship
What is security of attachment?
extent to which the infant feels she can count on parent(s) to be there to meet her needs
- 65% of infants are securely attached, 35% insecurely attached
What does the security of attachment depend on?
attachment completely depends on the caregiver’s response—ability to consistently and sensitively respond to a child’s signals and needs is the most important determinant of infant attachment
What is a secure attachment?
caregiver will be there for the infant when needed
What is an insecure attachment?
caregiver will not be there for the infant when needed
What are the positive developmental outcomes linked with secure attachments in childhood?
- more positive interactions with others
- greater social competence (when they interact with others, those interactions are positive, and others perceive them as having good social skills)
- better able to read others’ emotions
- more positive self-concept
What are the positive developmental outcomes linked with secure attachments in adolescence?
- still very socially competent
- better at making and keeping friends
- have greater emotion regulation skills
- exhibit less delinquent behaviour
What are the developmental outcomes linked with secure attachments in adulthood?
- desire closeness because it makes them feel good
- easily comforted by their partners because they were easily comforted by their parents as an infant
- much more likely to form secure attachment with their own infant
What are the developmental outcomes linked with insecure attachments in adulthood?
- feel anxious and avoidant in relationships
- have fear of abandonment
- feel unworthy of love
- become possessive and jealous
- not very trusting
