emotional development

Question 1

what are emotions?

Answer 1

emotions represent an evaluative response to a situation/stimulus

Question 2

what are the main 3 aspects of emotions?

Answer 2

PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE: the physical effects of emotions e.g sweat
COGNITION: subjective, conscious experience, the cognitive interpretation of the physiological arousal e.g anxiety vs excitement
BEHAVIOUR: overt expressions of our emotions, such as a facial expression

Question 3

what is the main debate about the development of emotion?

Answer 3

are emotions innate or are they learnt through environment?

Question 4

what are the 2 leading theories about emotion development?

Answer 4

discrete emotions theory
functionalist approach

Question 5

emotion development: what does discrete emotions theory argue? (4)

Answer 5

• Tomkins and Izard
• Emotions innate
• Distinct from one another
• Each emotion is packaged with a specific and distinctive set of bodily facial reactions

Question 6

emotion development: what does the functionalist approach of emotion development argue? (3)

Answer 6

• Campos et al, Saarni et al
• Emotions are not that distinct from each other in early life, environment influences emotional development and how we respond to emotions
• Basic function of emotions is to promote the actions needed towards achieving a goal e.g crying – child demonstrates discomfort, using emotions for a function i.e to get away from the situation in this case

Question 7

how do positive emotions develop over infancy? (5)

Answer 7

• Smiling first clear sign of positive emotion expressed
• Social smiles (not just using the muscles) are directed towards people ad emerge as early as 6-7weeks of age (White, 1985)
• Around 3-4 months children begun to laugh (Kagan et al 1978)
• Around 7 months – start to smile at familiar people (Weinberg and Tronick 1994)
• 2nd year – children begin to use humour (e.g repeating an action) to make others laigh (Dunn, 1998)

Question 8

how do negative emotions develop over infancy? (3)

Answer 8

• First negative emotion is distress
• 2 months – facial expression of anger/sadness can be differentiated between distress/pain (Izard et al 1997)
• 2nd year - differentiating between infants’ anger and other negative emotions is no longer difficult

Question 9

how does fear develop over infancy develop over infancy? (3)

Answer 9

• first clear signs of fear emerge at around 6 or 7 months, when unfamiliar people no longer provide comfort and pleasure similar to that provided by familiar people ( Camras et al., 1991)
• fear of strangers intensifies and lasts until about age 2 but is quite variable across individuals and contexts (Stroufe 1995)
• other fears (such as loud noises) are also evident around 7 months and tend to decline after 12 months (Kagan et al, 1978)

Question 10

how does anger develop over infancy? (3)

Answer 10

• likely to be distinct from other emotions by 4-8 months (Camras et al 1991)
• during their second year, as children are better able to control their environments, they often show anger when control is taken away
• anger outburst peak at around 2 years old – ‘terrible twos’

Question 11

how do self-conscious emotions develop over infancy? (2)

Answer 11

• begin to emerge during 2nd year  15-24 months, embarrassment when centre of attention? (Lewis et al 1992)
• 3 years: pride is increasingly tied to their level of performance (Lewis et al., 1992)

Question 12

what is the difference between guilt and shame?

Answer 12

• GUILT = empathy for others, remorse and making amends
• SHAME = unrelated concern to others, desire to hide actions
• Guilt leads to more prosocial behaviour than shame

Question 13

how do emotions develop during middle childhood? (4)

Answer 13

• less intense and emotionally negative
• emotions expressed become more related to real-life issues due to a growing understanding of the world
• happiness and pride comes from acceptance of peers
• perceptions of others’ motives and intentions develops

Question 14

how does a child’s ability to understand emotions develop during infancy according to reserach? (4)

Answer 14

• develop ability to discriminate emotions - catering of appropriate emotional response
• by 4-7 months, infants can distinguish certain emotional expressions such as happiness and surprise
• by 8-12 months, children start using social referencing to read others’ facial, gestural, or vocal cues to decide how to deal with novel or ambiguous situations
• by age 4-6, children’s explanations for why peers experience negative emotions (e.g., being teased or losing a toy) are somewhat similar to those of adults

Question 15

what is the difference between ‘real’ and ‘false’ emotions?

Answer 15

real - how we actually feel
false - what we put on

Question 16

when do children begin to understand the difference between real and false emotions?

Answer 16

improves between 3-5

Question 17

what are emotional display rules? when do children begin to understand them?

Answer 17

emotional display rules - emotions that are socially acceptable in that situation
refined understanding over preschool and primary school years

Question 18

what are the three main types of ‘emotional display rules’?

Answer 18

Display rules – a social group’s rules about when, where and how much we should display our emotions as well as when we should express/repress the,
Prosocial display rules – used to protect another’s feelings (‘you look nice’ when they don’t)
Self-protective display rules – used for personal gain (e.g pretending to be unbothered by something)

Question 19

outline one piece of emotional display rules research (6)

Answer 19

developing display rules - Gnepp and Hess
- Children from ages 5-14
- Ppt asked to predict and explain what characters would feel and say in certain emotional situations
- Display rules increasingly used as the child got older
- Children’s understanding was greater for verbal display cues than facial display rules
- Children also understood prosocial display rules better than self-protective display rules

Question 20

what is emotional ambivalence? when do children begin to understand this concept?

Answer 20

• emotional ambivalence = interactions of positive and negative emotions
• begin to understand around 10yrs

Question 21

how does a child’s understanding of experiencing more than one emotion develop over childhood? (3)

Answer 21

• 5-7, children understand that they can experience two compatible emotions simultaneously (Harter 1999) e.g ‘I’m happy and excited for my birthday’
• Children then realise they and others can simultaneously experience positive and negative emotions related to different sources (Harter and Buddin, 1987)  ‘I’m happy about my grades, but worried about my dog’s vet appointment’
• 10yrs – begin to understand emotional ambivalence = interactions of positive and negative emotions (Donaldson and Westerman, 1986)  ‘I was mad at my cat for running away, but glad she came home’)