Emotional Development Flashcards
Explain emotional display rules
Children learn when to display emotions and when not to, shaped by differential reinforcement and cultural rules.
- regulate emotions to achieve goals; suppress by turning away, self-soothe, cry
- suppress and replace; by age 3 they begin to disguise emotions and at school age they have an increasing awareness of social sanctioned emotional expressions.
Explain children’s ability to recognise and interpret emotions
- their ability to interpret emotions is evident from 7-10 months (use social referencing)
- talking about emotions helps distinguish and understand emotions and develop empathy
- emotional recognition and understanding improves by 4-5 years. By 8 they recognise different situations elicit different reactions in different people. Between 6-9 they recognise it is possible to experience multiple emotions simultaneously.
- emotional competence linked to social competence.
Define temperament
A constitutionally based individual difference in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity and self-regulation.
What are the six core dimensions of temperament?
- Fearful distress: wariness/withdrawal
- Irritable distress: anger/frustration
- Positive affect: smiling/approach
- Activity level: gross motor movement
- Attention span/persistence: orientation and focus
- Rhythmicity: predictability
Explain hereditary and environmental influences on temperament and stability over time
- heredity: twin studies showed moderate heritability in activity level, demands for attention, irritability and sociability.
- environment: shared environment on positive dimensions but not negatively-toned dimensions. Non-shared environment on negatively-toned dimensions. Culture value different dimensions.
- stability: moderate stability in activity level, irritability, sociability, fearfulness and inhibition
Describe the early temperament profiles offered by Thomas and Chess.
Three profiles, which are easy (40%), difficult (10%), and slow to warm up (15%). The difficult and slow to warm up profiles are associated with adjustment problems. There’s a goodness of fit which is between temperament and parenting routine.
What is goodness of fit?
The compatibility between environment and a child’s temperament. Poor ness of fit occurs when temperament is not respected and accommodated.
Explain basic (primary) emotions and when they appear in development.
Basic emotions are the set of emotions at birth or emerging early in the first year that some theorists believe to be biologically programmed. These emotions include interest, distress, disgust, contentment, anger, sadness and joy.
Explain complex (secondary) emotions and when they appear in development.
Complex emotions are self conscious or self evaluative emotions that emerge in the second year and depend, in part, on cognitive development. These emotions include embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy and pride.
What is the difference between self conscious and self evaluative emotions?
Self conscious emotions are titled as such because each involves some damage or enhancement of our sense of self. Self conscious emotions such as embarrassment won’t emerge until the child can recognise herself in a mirror or photograph. Self evaluative emotions are titled as such because emotions such as shame, guilt and pride may require both self recognition and an understanding of rules or standards for evaluating ones conduct.
What factors influence the development of self conscious and self evaluative emotions?
Parents
What is social referencing?
The use of others emotional expressions to infer the meaning of otherwise ambiguous situations.
Explain emotional competence
Emotional competence has three components; competent emotional expressivity, competent emotional knowledge and competent emotional regulation. Emotional expressivity is the frequent expression of more positive emotions and relatively infrequent displays of negative ones. Emotional knowledge is the ability to correctly identify other people’s feelings and the factors responsible for these emotions. Emotional regulation is the ability to adjust ones experience and expression of emotional arousal to an appropriate level of intensity to successfully achieve ones goals.
Explain how emotional competence is linked with social competence.
Children who express predominantly positive affect and relatively little anger or sadness tend to be appraised more favourably by teachers and to establish more favourable relationships with peers than those who are angry, sad, or otherwise moody much of the time.
