chapter 6: emotions + temperament Flashcards
what book did Darwin write in 1872
the expression of emotions in man and animals
what did Darwin argue regarding emotions
biological aspects of emotions - our emotions are subject to natural selection - in animals too
emotions research after Darwin
facial coding system - divided the face into action units (AU) and categorized emotions based on them – different kinds of emotions move different kinds of muscles
ethology
approach which emphasizes the evolutionary origins of many behaviours that are important for survival
four questions of ethology
o Mechanism (causation) – how does this behaviour occur in an individual?
How does the brain of the bird work?
o Ontogeny (development) – how does this behaviour arise in an individual?
Do birds raised in isolation also show this behaviour?
o Adaptive value (function) – Why is this behaviour adaptive for the species?
Does bird song have importance for mating behaviour?
o Phylogeny (evolution) – how does this behaviour arise in the species
how’s Erikson similar and different from Freud
o Similar to Freud: developmental stages in which a conflict needs to be resolved
o Different from Freud: social conflicts rather than sexual/internal ones
Erickson’s stages
o Trust vs mistrust – infancy (0-18 months) – feeding/comfort – Is my world safe?
o Autonomy vs shame and doubt – early childhood (2-3) – toilet training/dressing – Can I do things by myself or need I always rely on others
o Initiative vs guilt – preschool (3-5) – exploration/play – Am I good or bad?
o Industry vs inferiority – school age (6-11) – school/activities – How good can I be?
o Identity vs role confusion – adolescence (12-18) – social relationships/identity – Who am I and where am I going?
o Intimacy vs isolation – young adult (19-40) – intimate relationships – Am I loved and wanted?
o Generativity vs stagnation – middle adulthood (40 to 65) – work and parenthood – Will I provide something of real value?
o Ego identity vs despair – maturity (65+) – reflection of life – Have I lived a full life?
Bowlby’s attachment styles
o Secure – healthy communication style, able to ask for help when needed, can self-regulate emotions
o Anxious – clinginess, fear of abandonment, needs constant reassurance
o Avoidant – difficulty expressing emotions, tends to be emotionally withdrawn from others, unwilling to ask for help
o Disorganized – incorporates characteristics of anxious and avoidant styles, fear of rejection but difficulty with intimacy, low self-worth
who’s the founder of the evolutionary theory of socialization
Belsky
two types of Belsky’s models
o Type 1 – trouble at home
Childrearing: harsh, rejecting, insensitive, inconsistent
Insecure attachment, mistrustful internal working model, opportunistic interpersonal orientation
Early maturation and puberty -> earlier sexual activity, short term unstable pair bonds, limited parent investment – because there is a lower life expectancy
o Type 2 – no trouble at home
Childrearing: sensitive, supportive, responsive, positively affectionate
Secure attachment, trusting internal working model
Later maturation and puberty -> later sexual activity, long-term enduring pair bonds, greater parental investment
three areas of children’s emotional development
o Recognising different facial emotional expressions and conveying their own emotions
o Understanding of emotions – when do they realise that certain situations are likely to elicit particular emotional responses?
- The ability to empathise with others
o Regulating their own emotions
basic Ekman’s emotions
happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust
how did Ekman research emotions
Fore people from New Guinea - had to choose a photo of the facial expression that matched the emotional context + same for people in the US (difficult between surprise and fear)
what are the basic and complex emotions
Basic – happiness, interest, surprise, disgust, sadness, distress, anger, fear
Complex – pride, shyness, jealousy, guilt, shame, embarrassment
why are complex emotions in young children controversial
such emotions require sophisticated cognitive understanding (recognizing that one’s behaviour may have fallen short of expected standards)
social referencing
infants and young children look at their caregivers for advice when faced with a difficult or uncertain situation and seek social cues to guide their actions
visual cliff experiment
Mothers coaxed their 12-month-old infants close to the deep side before posing a happy or fearful expression
None of the infants crossed over to the deep side if mother seemed fearful, but when she looked happy ¾ of infants crossed to the deep side
habituation-dishabituation to assess infants’ discrimination of facial expressions
o Infants at 3 months could distinguish between photos of people smiling and frowning
o Infants 4-7 months could distinguish between expressions of happiness and surprise
o Neonates could discriminate between happy, sad, and surprised expression posed by a live model
o Doesn’t necessarily mean that they can understand the meaning in the expressions
when can children use emotion words to explain and comment on their own and other people’s current behavior + predictions
28 months
alternative explanation for children talking about emotions
use a script that later gets replaced by true understanding
skills in the emotion understanding task
o Can label facial expressions depicting happiness, anger, sadness, and fear
o Understand that these core emotions are triggered by certain situations
o Can predict a person’s emotional responses in a non-egocentric manner
puppet emotions task
children (2-3) heard about a puppet who voiced emotions opposite to infants about particular situations - they had to choose a face that would match its feelings - performed above chance but with variation
brocoli vs cracker
children at 18 months - gave the experimenter food they prefer even when infants don’t
milk Coca Cola experiment
story: character replaced milk with Coca Cola - how would they react when they first saw the container and what when they opened it?
children at 4 - can pass the regular false belief task, but did badly on this one, only at 6 can pass
test of emotional comprehension results
o Up to age 5 – children are typically able to understand the public aspects of emotions – how situations trigger or reactivate emotions and how emotions are outwardly expressed
o By age 7 – children can understand the mentalistic nature of emotions – they are related to knowledge and beliefs, but the emotion one expresses might not be the emotion one feels
o Between 9 and 11 – children realise that one can feel two emotions in response to the same event, that cognitive strategies can be used to regulate emotions and that morals and moral transgressions relate to emotional responses
emotions for Quechua Indian children
delay in emotional understanding up to 11, but no major differences in the order of stages
what is children’s emotional understanding positively correlated with
theory of mind tasks - understanding others’ beliefs
mind-mindedness
caregivers who are able to read their infant’s signals appropriately, a good predictor of attachment security
callous-unemotional traits
general poverty of affect, showing a lack of remorse and a disregard for accepted values
no deficits in performance on theory of mind, only able to “talk the talk” of emotions
what’s the main idea for the constructivist perspective of emotion
emotional development is shaped by nurture and is active
proof for the constructivist perspective of emotion
when used unconstrained methods in research, less agreement
emotional regulation
adjusting one’s emotional state to a suitable level of intensity – this prevents emotional overload and allows one to function in a consistent manner
when do children start regulating their emotions
2nd year of life, but less able to deceive someone of their pleasant feelings
MRO research
mutually responsive orientation - when it’s high children’s behavior doesn’t predict conscience but when it’s low it does
what can the marshmallow test predict
later success in life, even forty years later
alternative explanation for the marshmallow test
reliability of the situation - If before the experiment, the researcher proved to be trustworthy (promised something and then delivered) – much longer waiting time in children
temperament
individual differences in reactivity and regulation in affect, activity and attention
what are the big 5 dimensions of personality
openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
6 clusters of temperament
- Cluster 1 – unregulated
o High activity, low inhibition, under-controlled
o Difficult to deal with at home or in classroom
o Benefit from: consistent positive interactions, gentle discipline
o Low on conscientiousness, high on extraversion - Cluster 2 – regulated
o Low activity, anger and approach + high inhibition and attention focus
o Well behaved, over-controlled, reserved
o Benefit from: encouragement to try new things
o High on conscientiousness, low on extraversion - Cluster 3 – high reactivity
o High on anger, approach, fear and shyness + low activity, inhibition and attention focus
o Experience life intensively, easily overwhelmed
o Benefit from: consistent positive interactions
o High on neuroticism - Cluster 4 – bold
o High activity and approach, low fear and shyness
o Easily excitable, jump into tasks, confident, natural curiosity
o Benefit from: organized and structured activities
o High on extraversion, openness to experience - Cluster 5 – average
o Average, easygoing, but maybe also unmotivated, uninterested
o Fly under the radar, may need extra attention to not disengage - Cluster 6: well-adjusted
o Average on all temperament traits, high on inhibition and attention focus
o Easygoing, get along well at school and home
o High on conscientiousness, rest average
how many children have the high reactivity temperament and how many show signs of serious social anxiety
20% and 1/3
what are children who’re highly reactive also more likely to have
a sympathetically more reactive cardiovascular system, asymmetry of cortical activation in EEG favoring a more active right frontal area, more power in the EEG in the higher frequency range, a narrower facial skeleton
two main subsections of temperament
Reactivity – responses to internal and external environment and Self regulation – goal-directed regulation of reactive, behavioural, attentive and affective processes – automatic and involuntary
how high is the heritability of temperament
0.5 to 0.8
what does temperament shape
o Children interpret and respond to their environment differently
o Children evaluate themselves relative to others differently
o Children select and structure their environments differently
o Children need different parental discipline styles
o Children elicit different responses from their parents
bidirectional/transactional models
child development is an outcome of relations between child characteristics and the environment
differential susceptibility hypothesis + difference from the diathesis-stress model
temperament increases children’s responsiveness to parenting practices associated with both the positive and negative outcomes
o Differs from the diathesis-stress model – presumes that a child may be more vulnerable to poor parenting due to its temperament, but doesn’t make predictions about the child’s reaction to positive parenting
vantage sensitivity model + differences
general proclivity of a child to benefit from the well-being and competence-promoting features of parenting
o Differs from the diathesis-stress framework focus on the positive consequences of not succumbing to an adverse experience
o From differential susceptibility – predicts that some children may shine when raised in a warm, loving environment but remain relatively unaffected by negative parenting
three characteristics of evidence-based parenting interventions
incorporate information abt temperament and its influence on child behaviour and adjustment
Open acknowledgement that parents of children with high emotionality, impulsivity, low effortful control need extra support – avoid “parent blame”
New approach – specifically tailoring strategies for children with certain temperamental traits or profiles
what’s a major problem with intervention
high drop out rates - 60%
classification of temperament
o Difficult temperament – intense negative mood, high withdrawal in response to new situations, slow adaption to change and irregular biological functioning – 71% experiencing behavioural problems
o Easy – regular biological functioning, readily adapt to change, show positive approach behaviours in new situations, display mild or moderate levels of positive affects
o Slow to warm up – initial withdrawal from new people or situations, slow to adapt to change, low activity levels
how many traits did factor analysis find
4 instead of 9: activity, attention, irritability, social inhibition
goodness of fit
match between a child’s temperamental characteristics and the expectations, demands and opportunities of their environment
behavioral inhibition + cause
temperamental style characterized by heightened motor and emotional reactivity to novelty, timid, wary and avoidant of unfamiliar situations
50-80% accounted for by genes - hyperexcitible amygdala
social reticence, not engaging with peers, lack of assertiveness, anxiety, loneliness
cool little kids
o Six session parent-focused intervention which includes psycho-education, parent management skills, cognitive restructuring, graded exposure, relapse prevention
Parents apply strategies of cognitive restructuring and graded exposure to their own anxieties to gain insight into their child’s experience of the strategies
- avoidance of parent blaming, acknowledgment of different temperaments
difference between cool little kids and INSIGHT
not temperament based, designed for anxious children + INSIGHT is universal
results for cool little kids
rates of anxiety reduced, 11 years later - met criteria for fewer internalizing disorders, lower self-reported life interference (fewer for boys)
3 Rs of child management in INSIGHTS
Recognising children’s unique qualities as expressions of their temperament
Reframing perceptions to help parents understand that every child’s temperament has strengths and weaknesses
Responses from parents and teachers can positively influence child’s behaviour
two strategies of INSIGHTS
o Gaining compliance
Positive parenting – warmth, affection, praise, attention, goal setting, monitoring
Parental discipline – non-physical including time outs, loss of privileges and experiencing natural consequences
o Fostering self-regulation/giving control
Scaffolding – structuring or simplifying the environment in relation to child’s temperament – the challenge can also be removed if it’s too much – children learn to enhance their self-regulation
Stretching – when child succeeds, stretch the situation gently
puppets for INSIGHTS
Coretta the Cautious (high withdrawal and negative reactivity), Hilary the Hard Worker (high task persistence, low activity, negative reactivity levels), Gregory the Grumpy (high negative reactivity and activity levels, low task persistence), Freddy the Friendly (high approach, low reactivity)
incredible years program
o Prevention and treatment programme for conduct disorder and other difficulties
o Teaching participants new skills (problem solving using role play, goal setting and home activities)
two types of conduct problems
Emotionally-dysregulated (hot tempered) vs callous-unemotional (CU) traits
tuning to kids program
o Parenting-based approach to managing anxiety in young children
o Parents learn a new approach to managing their children, using attachment-based play, praise and reward for confident behaviours, planned ignoring for unwanted behaviours + parents are thought cognitive strategies
o Intervention group – 7 times more likely to be anxiety-free at the end of the treatment – lasts for 12 months
timid to tiger program
o Parenting-based approach to managing anxiety in young children
o Parents learn a new approach to managing their children, using attachment-based play, praise and reward for confident behaviours, planned ignoring for unwanted behaviours + parents are thought cognitive strategies
o Intervention group – 7 times more likely to be anxiety-free at the end of the treatment – lasts for 12 months
