Chapter 5: Emotions Flashcards
What is the first form of communication?
Emotional expression. Children express wide array of emotions from infancy. Emotional expression is first form of communication. Children communicate feelings, needs, and desires by means of these expressions and, thereby, influence other people’s behavior.
What are emotions?
Subjective reaction to something in the environment. Generally accompanied by some form of physiological arousal. Often communicated to others by some expression or action. Usually experienced as either pleasant or unpleasant
What are the primary emotions?
Fear, joy, disgust, surprise, sadness, and interest
emerge early in life- do not require introspection or self-reflection
What are the secondary emotions?
Pride, shame, guilt, jealousy, embarrassment, and empathy- emerge in the second year of life and,
depend on a sense of self and the awareness of other people’s reactions.
Why are emotions important?
- They are a way that children let other people know how they feel.
- They are a window into children’s likes and dislikes and way to communicate their general views of the world
- They are linked to children’s social success
- They are linked to children’s mental and physical health
What is the biological perspective on emotion development?
Emotional expressions are innate and universal, rooted in human evolution, and based on anatomical structures.
Facial expressions of basic emotions are the same in different cultures. Each emotion is expressed by a distinct group of facial muscles
When do all infants begin to smile?
All infants began to smile at 46 weeks post conception—regardless of how long they have been exposed to smiling faces
What are identical twins more similar in than fraternal twins?
Identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins in:
the age at which they first smile, the amount they smile, the onset of their fear reactions to strangers, and their general degree of emotional inhibition
What emotions does the left hemisphere contral vs. the right hemisphere?
The left cerebral hemisphere controls the expression of the emotion of joy; the right hemisphere, the expression of fear
What is the learning perspective on emotional development?
Useful for explaining individual differences in emotional expression. When adults respond to a baby’s smiles with positive stimulation, the baby’s rate of smiling increases.
Children may become classically conditioned (E.g., fear the doctor who gives a painful shot during their first office visit). Children may also acquire fear through operant conditioning (E.g., when an adverse consequence, such as a painful fall, follows climbing up a high ladder)
Children learn other fears simply by observing other people’s reactions
What is the functional perspective on emotion development?
The purpose of emotions is to help people achieve their social and survival goals (e.g., joy of making new friends, fear and avoiding danger).Emotions help children reach their goals. Emotional signals provide feedback that guides other people’s behavior. Memories of past emotions shape how people respond to new situations
What are reflex smiles?
Newborns display reflex smiles - An upturned mouth seen in the newborn. usually spontaneous and appears to depend on some internal stimulus rather than on something external such as another person’s behavior. These smiles have adaptive value for the infant by ensuring caregiver attention and stimulation. Smiling helps keep caregivers nearby and thus becomes a means of communication and an aid to survival
When do infants start to display smiles in response to external stimuli?
by 3-8 weeks
When do infants start to display social smile? and who they are directed at?
By 2-6 months infant displays social smile - An upturned mouth in response to a human face or voice. Smiles more at familiar faces than unfamiliar ones. Smiles more when mother rather than unfamiliar other reinforces their smile
What is a duchenne smile?
a smile reflecting genuine pleasure, shown in crinkles around the eyes as well as an upturned mouth – reserved for caregivers
from birth, do boys or girls smile more?
From birth, girls smile more than boys. Why? Interplay of environmental and biological factors.
What is the role of culture in terms of smiling rates?
European American males and females differ more in their smiling rates than African American males and females. Suggests that African American parents treat their sons and daughters more alike than do European American parents.
What makes babies laugh?
- Auditory stimuli elicit few laughs at any age during infancy
- Tactile stimuli elicit a substantial amount of laughter in infants 7 to 9 months old
- Visual and social stimuli elicit more laughter overall and the likelihood of this laughter increases with age
- Laughing continues to increase in frequency and becomes more social as children mature
What are the two phases of the emergence of fear?
From 3 to 7 months of age, infants develop wariness, which they exhibit when they encounter events they do not understand
From 7 to 9 months of age, infants begin to show genuine fear
What is stranger distress/fear of strangers?
A negative emotional reaction to unfamiliar people, which typically emerges in infants around the age of 9 months. But, not inevitable or universal – cultural differences
What does a baby’s reaction to fear often depend on?
Baby’s reaction may depend on how mother reacts to the situation. Social referencing - The process of “reading” emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in an uncertain situation. Younger infants are likely to act first and look later and older infants are more likely to check with the mother before they act
What is separation anxiety?
A universal fear. It is the fear of being apart from a familiar caregiver (usually the mother or father), which typically peaks at about 15 months of age
What was the visual cliff experiment?
A test of a baby’s fear of heights. There is an apparatus that consists of a glass surface placed over a checkerboard base that is close to the glass on one side, the so-called shallow side, and some distance below it on the deep side. The infant is placed on the shallow side and encouraged to crawl across the deep side to reach the mother. At about 6 months of age, infants begin to refuse to crawl from the shallow side to the deep side–indicating that they see and fear the drop. Experience walking and perhaps falling contributes to the onset of this fear.
What cause fear in 0-1 year olds?
loss of support, loud noises, unexpected looming object, strangers, heights
What causes fear in 1-2 year olds?
separation from parent; injury; stranger; baths
What causes fear in 2-3 year olds?
separation from parents; animals (esp. large dogs); insect; darkness
What causes fear in 3-6 year olds?
separation from parents; animals; darkness; strangers; bodily harm; monsters and ghosts; nightmares
What causes fear in 6-10 year olds?
Snakes; injury; darkness; being alone; burglars; new situations such as starting school
What causes fear in 10-12 year olds?
Negative evaluation by peers; school failures; thunderstorms; ridicule and embarrassment; injury; burglars; death
What causes fear in adolescence?
evaluation by peers; school failures; breaking up; family issues such as divorce; war and other disasters; the future
What are newborns first negative expressions?
Anger; Newborns’ first negative expressions are not anger, per se, but startle, disgust, and distress. By 2 to 3 months old infants reliably display facial expressions of anger. Anger is elicited by pain and frustration
When do secondary emotions begin to develop?
In second year of life secondary emotions arise.
These social or self-conscious emotions depend on children’s abilities to be aware of, talk about, and think about themselves in relation to others
What makes young infants sad?
Young infants become sad when parent-infant communication breaks down
What makes older infants sad?
In older infants, separation from the mother or other familiar caregivers for some period of time can lead to sadness
What is sadness in children?
- Sadness is a signal children can use to control their social partners
- Sadness is an effective emotional signal for eliciting care and comfort from adults
- it occurs less often then anger
Explain the feeling of Pride
Feeling pleased with one’s accomplishments
What elicits pride based on age?
- Succeeding on a difficult task elicits pride
- 7-year-olds use the word proud to reflect good outcomes regardless of whether they succeeded through their own efforts
- 10-year-olds realize that feeling proud occurs only when good outcomes are the result of the person’s own efforts
Explain the feeling of shame
- Perception of deficiency
- Must be able to assess their own behaviour and judge whether it is acceptable in the eyes of others
When is Jealousy expressed and how?
- Can occur as early as 1 year of age
- Children express jealousy when their mother directs attention away from them toward another child, a newborn infant, or even a doll
- Younger children show jealousy with expressions of distress, older children with anger and sadness
Outline the findings of age and guild in the stuffed animal study
- Children are given a stuffed animal that was rigged to fall apart:
- Younger children (22-month-olds) showed more outward expressions of guilt (e.g., frowning, fretting) than older children (33-56-month-olds) who were more subtle (e.g., head hanging)
Outline the finding of the understanding of guilt in 6 and 9 year olds
- Other research indicates that 9-year-olds, not 6-year-olds, better understand guilt and its relation to personal responsibility
- 6-year-olds describe feeling guilty even when they had little control over the outcome of a situation
- 9-year-olds realized the necessity of being responsible for an outcome, in order to feel guilty
What is Empathy
A shared emotional response that parallels another person’s feelings, especially distress
Explain empathy development in young children, mid/late adolescents, and adolescents
- Young children experience empathy only in presence of distressed other
- By mid to late childhood respond with empathy to another’s general condition
- Adolescents are able to respond to difficulties experienced by groups of people
When can children recognize emotions in others
Estimated that between 3-6 months of age, babies are exposed to parents’ and other caregivers’ facial expressions of emotion 32,000 times
- During these interactions, infants do learn to recognize some emotions
Why do we recognize positive emotions earlier then negative ones (Functionalist perspective)
- Positive emotion is rewarding, strengthens the infant-caregiver bond
- Negative emotion calls on coping abilities the infant does not have
What effects children’s ability to recognize emotion? and who’s emotional expressions do they recognize first? (learning perspective)
- Early experience affects children’s abilities to recognize emotions
- Most infants recognize their mother’s emotional expressions earlier than they recognize those of their father or a stranger because spend more time with her
- Quality of parent-child interactions also matters
Example: Abused or neglected children are poorer at emotional recognition
When do children develop emotion recognition
- Most children can recognize and correctly label other people’s expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, and fear by age 3-4
- School-age children
increase their understanding that different events elicit different emotions
patterns of personality affect individuals’ emotional reactions
What is am Emotional Script
Linking the emotional reaction likely to accompany a particular event
Explain the ages associated with emotional script development
- Age 3-4 – can identify situations that lead to specific emotions
- Age 5 – can understand situations that lead to a particular emotion and also specific facial displays or behaviours
What is the multiple emotions/multiple causes understanding
Awareness that a person can have more than one feeling at a time and can event experience conflicting feelings
what is the emotions understanding of a 4-6 year old
conceive of only one emotion at a time
what is the emotions understanding of a 6-8 year old
conceive of two emotions of the same type occurring simultaneously
what is the emotions understanding of a 8-9 year old
conceive of two distinct feelings in response to different situations at the same time
what is the emotions understanding of a 10 year old
conceive of two opposing feelings when the events are different or there are different aspects of the same situation
what is the emotions understanding of a 11-12 year old
conceive of the same event causing opposing feelings
What is emotion regulation
The managing, monitoring, evaluating, and modifying of emotional reactions to reduce the intensity and duration of emotional arousal
What makes children feel better and why
- Being able to regulate emotions makes children feel better
- Emotion regulation increases the likelihood that other people will respond to the children positively
What are changes in emotional regulation abilities associated with
maturation of the brain’s prefrontal cortex
Explain how young children regulate their emotions
Young infants use very simple tactics for regulating their emotions
Turning away; self-distraction
How early does emotional regulation start
Even before birth, fetuses sooth themselves by putting their thumbs in their mouths
Explain how preschoolers regulate their emotions
Self-distraction, the orientation of attention toward or away from a stimulus, approach or retreat from a situation, use of language skills
Explain how elementary school children regulate their emotions
- Become more aware of the range of possible regulatory strategies and their efficacy in different situations
- they increasingly use cognitive and behavioural coping strategies to regulate their emotions
At what age do children develop the ability to display rules
8-10
What is displaying rules
an implicit understanding in a culture of how and when an emotion should be expressed. Can display an emotion other than the one experienced or felt.
E.g. smile when not happy
What may be biologically advantageous in terms of emotion regulation?
- Temperament
- Children who are both temperamentally reactive and poor at controlling their attention (unable to focus on a comforting object or thought) are poor emotion regulators
What predicts children’s later adjustment
Emotional Regulation
What is emotional regulation associated with
- less aggressive and disruptive behaviour
- social competence
- peer acceptance
What is the effect of parents on children’s socialization
- Children learn about emotion expression and emotion regulation by observing and interacting with parents
- A positive correlation between parent and child expressiveness (i.e., reflect each other)
What happens when parent’s scold or punish their children in terms of socialization
When parents scold or punish their children for expressing emotions, especially negative ones, children have difficulty regulating their emotions
What is emotional coaching as defined by Gottman and DeClaire
- Parents can actively coach their children and give them “lessons” that help them understand and regulate their emotions
What are the five aspects of parenting that make up “emotional coaching”
- Being aware of the child’s emotions
- Recognizing emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
- Listening empathically and validating the child’s feelings
- Labelling emotions in words children can understand
- Helping children come up with an appropriate way to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting situation
How do parents help their children learn about emotions?
by reminiscing with them about shared past emotional experiences
What are the benefits of mothers who discuss feelings with their children?
Children are better able to recognize others’ emotions and have better emotional regulation
What do mothers who are good at regulating their own emotions offer their children?
They offer them more lessons and display a better balance between positive and negative emotions
what do peer reactions teach children?
- Peer reactions teach children the consequences of expressing negative and positive emotions
- Peers can help children improve their emotional understanding and knowledge as well
- Engaging in pretend play with siblings and friends also helps children understand other people’s feelings
how does teacher socialization with toddlers help them develop emotionally
With toddlers, teachers use physical comfort and distraction to help children regulate their negative emotions
how does teacher socialization with preschoolers that help them develop emotionally
With preschoolers, teachers use verbal mediation and explanations that help the children understand the causes of and ways of expressing their negative emotions
What is Emotional learning just as important as?
academic learning for school readiness
what happens when emotional development goes wrong
- Excessive anger may lead to aggression and violence
- Excessive fears may cause considerable discomfort for children and their families
- The most common emotional problem in childhood is childhood depression
How does a mood disorder manifest
- despondent mood
- loss of interest in familiar activities
- possibly expressed as irritability and crankiness
- difficulty concentrating or focusing on tasks
