Emotional Development

Question 1

What are emotions?

Answer 1

Subjective reactions to stimuli in the environment. Generally accompanied by physiological arousal, action or facial expression.

Question 2

Why study emotion?

Answer 2

They help us understand people - understanding emotions aids in smooth social function.
They let others know how we’re feeling.
They are a window into children’s likes and dislikes.
Emotions help us adapt to our environment.

Question 3

What does emotion knowledge at a young age predict?

Answer 3

Children who have a wide range of emotion vocabulary when starting pre-school are more popular with others.
Emotion knowledge at age 5 predicts social and academic success at age 9, even after controlling for gender, verbal ability and temperament.

Question 4

What are the 6 primary emotions?

Answer 4

Joy, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, interest.

Question 5

How do we determine emotions in infants?

Answer 5

Facial expressions.

Question 6

In the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) what is the sequence of emotion understanding?

Answer 6

External understanding, ages 3-5.
Mentalistic emotions, ages 5-7.
Reflective emotions, ages 7-9.

Question 7

What does external understanding include?

Answer 7

Recognising faces.
External causes.
Reminiscence.

Question 8

Give an example of an external cause question.

Answer 8

“A boy is trying to draw but his sister keeps taking his pens and throwing them. how do you think the boy feels?”

Question 9

Give an example of a reminiscence question.

Answer 9

“How do you think the girl feels when she thinks about her cat who died?”

Question 10

What do mentalistic emotions include?

Answer 10

Hidden emotions.
Desire.
False beliefs.

Question 11

Give an example of a hidden emotions question.

Answer 11

“A girl’s grandpa gives her chocolate. she doesn’t want her mother to know as then she won’t get another one. how does the girl feel about having just had chocolate? how does the girl try to look on her face when she sees her mother?”

Question 12

Explain the findings from Joshi and McLean’s study.

Answer 12

There are cultural differences in hidden emotion. in england 4 year olds had a low chance of getting the hidden emotion question right. by 6 the chance of getting the answers right was 70%. in india, 4 year old boys had the same low chance as 4 year old english children. BUT 4 year old indian girls were just as likely to get it right as english 6 year olds.

Question 13

What are the findings on desire?

Answer 13

The researcher tells the child about a fictional character who likes one drink and doesn’t like another. only 25% of 3 year olds always said unhappy if the character didn’t get what they wanted, but 75% of 5 year olds.

Question 14

How did Bradmetz and Schneider assess false beliefs and emotion?

Answer 14

Based on the story of red riding hood. children asked who red riding hood thinks opens the door to her (correct ans. grandma) and how red riding hood feels when the door is opened (correct ans. happy).

Question 15

What did Bradmetz and Schneider find in their study?

Answer 15

Measured if they got the action and emotion right. at age 6-7 they generally pass action (measures false belief). only at age 8 were children equally likely to fail and pass emotion. this suggests emotion is harder to understand.

Question 16

What did Avis and Harris find with their false beliefs x emotion study?

Answer 16

When the children reached about 4.5 - 6 years old they were above chance of answering action and emotions correctly. this suggests that the red riding hood study may have been too scary for the children and they didn’t understand it as well.

Question 17

At what age do children generally pass theory of mind tests? (just false belief, not including emotion)

Answer 17

4.

Question 18

What do reflective emotions include?

Answer 18

Ambivalent emotions.
Moral emotions.
Emotion regulation.

Question 19

What are the stages of ambivalent emotion understanding?

Answer 19

4-6: you can only feel one emotion at a time.
6-8: you can feel two emotions of the same valence at the same time.
8-9: you can feel opposing emotions to different situations that occur at the same time.
10: you can feel opposing emotions in response to different aspects of the same situation.
11-12: one event can cause opposing feelings.

Question 20

What does research on moral emotion understanding show?

Answer 20

Only 30% of 7 year olds say that a gender matched protagonist feels sad when they fail to confess a misdemeanour to their mum. 90% at age 11.

Question 21

What is the happy victimiser effect?

Answer 21

When the only thing that is considered is the outcome for the person who committed the misdemeanour - don’t consider others emotion. e.g why would I feel sad for not telling my mum I took a biscuit? i got a biscuit so I’m happy.

Question 22

Give some limitations of the TEC.

Answer 22

Researcher is involved - unknown person can have an effect on children’s behaviours.
Language and grammar based - children may understand emotions but do not fully understand stories.
Cultural differences.
There is overlap between ages.
Studies use static emotion - everyday emotions are active.
Should use more than one item to assess something.

Question 23

Give some positives of the TEC.

Answer 23

Comprehensive - assesses 9 different emotional components.
Extensive use around the world.
Validity of measures - stories used are similar to things the children will have been exposed to and will understand.

Question 24

What effects do parents have on emotional development?

Answer 24

Model emotion behaviour.
Develop the emotional climate in the family.
Specific behaviours, such as emotion coaching and dismissing.

Question 25

What are the findings of Murray’s research on infants and mothers with social phobia?

Answer 25

25% of children whose mothers have social phobia develop social phobia.
SP infants at 10 months show no difference to non-SP infants. By 14 months SP infants start showing avoidance behaviours.

Question 26

How can parents help their children learn about emotions?

Answer 26

By reminiscing with them about past shared emotional experiences. Children whose mothers talk to them about their feelings have a better understanding of emotion.

Question 27

Do mothers or fathers conversations predict a child’s emotion understanding?

Answer 27

Proportion of labels in conversation with mother at time 1 predicted child’s emotion understanding in time 2. conversations with fathers predicted nothing.

Question 28

What were the findings of Karstad’s research?

Answer 28

Looked at parents emotional availability, parents mentalisation scores and child’s social and verbal skills affect on understanding of hidden and ambivalent emotions. Emotion availability predicted nothing, the other variables predicted increase in emotional understanding in 2 years.

Question 29

What were the different conditions in Karstad’s study?

Answer 29

Self-summary: the child gives a summary of the story, unrelated to emotions.
Self-explanation: the child explains the emotions in the story.
Experimenter-explanation: The experimenter explains the emotions in the story.

Question 30

What affect did the conditions in Karstad’s study have on outcome?

Answer 30

Children’s emotion understanding increases in explanation conditions.