Emotion Flashcards
Four components of emotion
Cognitive component (evaluate situation) Subjective feeling (scared) Behavioural response (run) Physiological reaction (heart rate increase)
Why study emotion?
Emotion knowledge at 5 predicts social and academic skills (Izard et al., 2001)
Emotional competence
Halberstadt et al. (2007)
Three factors:
Emotional expression (18mo+)
Emotional understanding
Emotional regulation (manage emotions)
Emotion understanding ages
External emotions (3-5yo) Mentalistic emotions (5-7yo) Reflective emotions (7-9yo)
External emotions
Children learn facial expressions of emotions
External situations in which emotions arise
If something produces emotion it could happen again
Mentalistic emotions
People feel different emotions to themselves
Sometimes people hide their emotions
Requires development of concept of self
Rouge test - 18mo+
Reflective emotions
Learn about emotions that are moral (shame/guilt)
Emotions are regulated
Denham et al. (2007) - how do children learn emotions?
Witness other people’s emotions
Lern from others how to respond to their emotions
Taught about emotions
Social referencing (Feinman, 1982)
Infant looks to caregiver to gauge reaction before reacting themselves
Wary reaction to strangers (Klinnert, 1984)
7mo+
Some studies found reaction in line to mother’s facial exprsession
Visual cliff (Sorce et al., 1985)
Children more likely to cross glass floor if mothers showed happy expression rather than fearful
Children and mothers with social anxiety
Murray et al. (2008)
25% of children whose mothers have SA develop it too
Participants: 10 & 14mo infants
Condition 1:
Infant in high chair while mother with SA and comparison interacted with stranger
Condition 2:
Stranger approached and picked up infant
Results: No difference for 10mo infants but infants of mothers with SA at 14mo had higher social avoidance
Parke et al. (2006) - scolding
Parents that scold or punish their children for expressing emotions cause child to have difficulty regulating emotions.
Fivush (2007) - reminiscing
Parents help their children learn about emotions by reminiscing with them about past emotional experiences
Dunn (2004) - emotional regulation
Children whose mothers discuss feelings more are better able to recognise others’ emotions and have better emotional regulation
Periman et al. (2008) - emotional regulation
Mothers who are good at regulating their own emotions offer more lessons and children are able to regulate their emotions better
Emotional expression understanding
Positive correlation between parent and child expressiveness.
Link between family emotional expressiveness and child’s.
No link between family emotional expressiveness and emotion understanding
Aznar & Tenebaum (2013)
Spanish parents told stories to 4 & 6yo children
Two types of stories:
Reminiscence - conversation about past experience
Play-based story
Emotion understanding asessed using TEC (emotion comprehension) before the story and 6 months later.
RESULTS:
Father’s talk didn’t predict emotion understanding
Mother’s emotion labels during play predicted emotion understanding
Could be that men are less emotional but most likely because mothers stayed at home and the fathers worked as a study in USA with less traditional gender roles suggested fathers do predict emotion understanding.
Role of peers
Peer interaction teaches children consequences of emotion expression (Fabes et al., 1996).
Peers can help children improve emotion understanding (Dunsmore et al. 2004).
Engaging in pretend play with siblings and friends helps children understand other people’s emotions (Dunn & Hughes, 1991).
Children’s talk
Talk about mental states with friends predicts understanding of mind and emotion (Hughes, 1998)
Using a large variety of emotion words means children are more liked by their peers (Fabes et al., 2001)
Kyratzis (2001) - emotion talk in genders
10 preschool children (girl group and boy group)
At the beginning of the year boys referred to being afraid but not by the end.
Boys used rougher, aggressive talk.
Girls followed a u-shaped pattern - emotion talk more frequent in the middle of the year
Reese, Bird, Tripp (2007) - mother/child talk
5-6yo and mothers
Conflict situation, past experience.
Positive emotion talk during posiive situation and negative emotion in conflict situation related to self esteem.
Positive and negative explanations during negative past conversation.
Tenebaum, Alfieri, Brooks & Dunne (2008)
Children from NYC and London (8yo)
Method:
- Children assessed on language ability, mental state comprehension, false belief understanding and emotion comprehension.
- Training condition were read stories read stories, did language games and conversations were aimed at use of inner state terms.
Results:
- Training outperformed control group on most measures.
Gender differences in emotion
Women more emotionally expressive than men.
Boys more emotionally expressive than girls
6mo boys displayed more emotion than girls
Boys cry longer than girls when upset
Boys are aroused quicker than girls so aren’t being more emotional but they find it more difficult to regulate their emotions.
Reminiscing
Important for socialisation
Reflect & interpret
Focus on specific types of emotions
Can discuss consequences
Parents who reminisce with children means children have more reflective emotions and better autobiographical memory.
Fivush et al. (2000) - reminiscing
40-45mo
Mothers and fathers discussed with them when they felt happy, sad, angry or scared
Results parents: Mothers talked more than fathers Mothers used more emotion than fathers Talked about causes of emotions more with daughers Talked more about sadness with daughters
Results children:
Talked more about causes of events with mothers
Girls used more emotion words talking about scary events
Zaman & Fivush (2013)
4.5yo
Asked about happy, sad, conflicts etc with parents
Looked for cognitive elaboration (explanation)
Adult women elaborate more than men
Results:
Mothers more elaborative than fathers on emotions
Social cognitive perspective - modelling
Morris et al. (2007) - emotion conversation
Modelled emotion behaviours
Looked at emotional climate in the family
Looked at specific behaviours (coaching, dismissing)
Coaching & Dismissing
Coaching - see emotion expression as healthy, communicate concern and teach children how to manage feelings.
Dismissing - find children’s emotional displays distressing, respond with criticism and distraction.
Cassano & Zeman (2010) - expectations
8-10yo
Children told experimenter sad event and parents told whether they violated expectations or not.
Results:
Fathers more likely to dismiss boys emotions if they violate
Mothers behaved the same no matter what
No difference in the way parents treated daughers
Cervantes & Callanan (1958) - mother emotion talk
2, 3, 4yo children and mothers
Does mothers frequenct and quality of emotion talk correlate with children’s verbalisation and understanding of emotion?
Explanations - causes of emotions, control, solution
References - interpersonal approach & sensitivity
Results: 2yo - Girls > Boys Age 3-4yo - No gender differences Mothers boys - more explanations than references Mothers girls - same amount of both
Goes against research that says that mothers are more emotional with daughters.
Aznar & Tenebaum (2015)
Same method as first study.
Mothers used more emotions words than fathers
4yo - mothers used more emotions words with daughters than sons in play story
4yo - fathers used more emotion words with daughters than sons in reminisce
Tenebaum, Ford & Alkhedairy (2011) - peer talk
5-8yo girls and boys in mixed and same-sex dyads
Girls mention more emotional words than boys
Conclusions
Gender differences small
Parents model gender-typed use of emotions
Parents engage girls more than boys in emotion talk
Create an environment in which girls can use emotion talk but boys can’t.
No gender difference in emotion understanding but there is in expression
