Emotions & Temperament

Question 1

Emotion vs. affect

Answer 1

• an internal, affective response about something in environment
• general positive or negative feeling

Question 2

2 broad categories of emotion

Answer 2

1. primary/basic: joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, interest, surprise
2. secondary/self-conscious: requires development of sense of self and other; can be evaluative or non-evaluative

• evaluative: shame, pride, guilt (involves societal standards)
• non-evaluative: embarassment, envy

Question 3

Discrete emotions theory

Answer 3

• different emotions reflect discrete systems that evolved as universal biological reactions to common challenges
• each emotion has an expression, neural signature, physiological state
• universally experienced and detected
• emerge at particular times in infancy

Question 4

Emergent theory of emotions

Answer 4

• emotions are the outcome of a process involving changes in body and cognition about what’s happening in environment
• emotions are global early in infancy (e.g. positive/negative affect) then become more, but not completely, discrete
• different people experience different emotions differently (e.g. crying due to sadness, happiness, anger)

Question 5

2 ways to measure emotion

Answer 5

1. behavioral changes: facial expressions, vocalizations, approach/avoidance
2. physiological changes: heart rate changes, sweating, brain responses

Question 6

Emotional expressions vs. display rules

Answer 6

• emotional expressions: observable behavioral responses associated with emotions
• display rules: how and when one should express emotions

• babies/kids notoriously bad at display rules (though some differences observable in infancy)
• display rules vary by culture, gender, and must be learned

Question 7

When is the first cry-face seen?

Answer 7

from ~20 weeks gestation

Question 8

Evolution of happiness from 2-5 months

Answer 8

• neonatal smile: due to internal sensations, mainly during REM sleep
• smiling due to external stimuli (3-8 wks): due to touching, high-pitched voice, etc.
• social smile (6-8 wks): typically to familiar people and one-to-one interactions (cross-cultural differences)
• laughing (2-5 mos): during interesting/positive sensations and stimuli (also have cross-cultural differences)

Question 9

When and how can you elicit anger in infants?

Answer 9

2-4 mos: removing interesting objects/events, arm-holding, preventing them from reaching goals, contingency disruption paradigms (perhaps because requires means-ends reasoning)

• newborns have general distress (e.g. hunger, pain, cold) when under/overstimulated
• peaks between 18-24 mos as infants increasingly want control over environment
• sadness elicited in similar situations, including when caregivers leave/become non-responsive

Question 10

When do babies first show signs of fear?

Answer 10

• by ~7 mos, same time as when they recognize (and focus on) fear expressions in others
• fear bias: preferentially look to/fail to disengage from fearful faces (ERP brain responses selective to fear)

also when they begin to match vocal and facial emotion!

Question 11

Stranger vs. separation anxiety

fear

Answer 11

stranger anxiety: fear of strangers
* clearly in place by 7-8 mos, peaks at 8-12 mos, less by age 2
* individual differences (temperament, experience, situation) and cultural differences

separation anxiety: fear of caregiver leaving
* begins ~8 mos, declines by ~15 mos
* cross-cultural universal despite differences in child-rearing practices

• stranger anxiety is greater outside home, if not in parents’ laps, and to males
• little stranger anxiety among Efe people in Congo where group caregiving is common

Question 12

How do babies experience surprise?

Answer 12

a reaction to the unexpected (~6 mos)
* not same as startle (present from birth)
* relatively infrequent (e.g. not clearly observable in violation of expectation experiments)

Question 13

How do babies experience disgust?

Answer 13

• distaste for bitter tastes present at birth
• babies generally don’t get disgusted by gross things
• broader disgust emerges aroung age 4

Question 14

How do babies experience secondary/self-conscious emotions?

Answer 14

begin by ~18-24 mos (require sense of self)
* shame/embarrassment: eyes lowered, head hung, hiding face
* guilt: reparations (positively-oriented compared to shame)
* pride after success (not until age 2)

individual and cross-cultural differences in tendency to experience these emotions (cultures also value them differently!)

Question 15

Broken toy procedure

self-conscious emotions

Answer 15

trick 24-month-olds into thinking they broke experimenter’s favorite toy; respond with:
* shame (avoid experimenter, deny guilt) or
* guilt (fix toy, admit they broke it)

Question 16

When do babies begin distinguishing emotions?

different from understanding!

Answer 16

by 3 mos, babies distinguish between clearly different expressions based on habituation (e.g. teeth vs. no teeth)

Question 17

Social referencing

Answer 17

by 10-12 mos, babies use others’ emotional reactions to appraise a novel situation

• negativity bias: negative signals are more likely to change babies’ behavior
• younger babies need facial and, especially, vocal cues
• more likely to retain messages with age

Question 18

Emotion regulation

Answer 18

strategies for adjusting our emotional states to a comfortable level of intensity

e.g. attention focusing/shifting, inhibiting thoughts/behaviors, planning

Question 19

Evidence for self-regulation in babies

but still need parents help!

Answer 19

• young babies fall asleep if overwhelmed
• 4 mos: look away from aversive stimuli
• 4-6 mos: self-soothe via physical sensations (e.g. learn through sleep training)

toddlers generally not well-regulated (e.g. tantrums from communication difficulties) though highly culturally-variable

Question 20

Co-regulation

Answer 20

parents regulate babies’ emotions because they are unable to do it on their own by slowly increasing stimulation over first months (e.g. skin-to-skin holding, rocking, shushing, feedin)

• touching premature babies in NICU has long-lasting benefits
• US babies who were held/cuddled more had better emotional functioning as adults

Question 21

Consequence of failure to co-regulate

Answer 21

incorrect development of stress systems (e.g. can develop colic)

Question 22

Still-face paradigm

Answer 22

• alternatingly, mother interacts normally with baby (2 mins) then adopts a neutral expression
• infants show distress during “still-face” phases (e.g. attempts to get mother back or self-regulate, less attentive)

Question 23

Effect of depressed mothers on infants

Answer 23

• flat affect, sleep issues, less attentive to surroundings and sad faces (suggests happy faces are novel)
• negative interactions with mom and strangers (attachment issues)
• more right frontal EEG asymmetry (withdrawal) and more cortisol

Question 24

Effect of anxious mothers on infants

Answer 24

• more wary of strangers over time (if also inhibited)
• less able to disengage from angry faces

Question 25

Temperament

Answer 25

• stable individual differences in emotional reactivity and regulation
• present from infancy and tied to biology but also influenced by environment

emotional reactivity: quickness and intensity of emotional arousal, attention, regulation

Question 26

6 dimensions used to measure temperament in babies

NY longitudinal study (Thomas & Chess) vs. Rothbart

Answer 26

• Thomas & Chess: activity level, adaptability, intensity, regularity, approach/withdrawal, mood
• Rothbart: activity level, attention span/persistence, fearful distress, irritable distress, positive affect, effortful control/inhibition

resulted in similar temperament range across cultures (with some proportional differences)

Question 27

3 types of babies according to temperament

Thomas & Chess

Answer 27

1. easy (40%): happy, adaptable, regular routines, not under/over-sensitive
2. slow to warm up (15%): negative, unadaptable, low activity and intensity, withdrawn
3. difficult (10%): unhappy, unadaptable, irregular, intense reactions

Predicts functioning as adults: shyness in slow to warm up infants and high risk for adjustment problems in difficult infants

Question 28

Inhibited infants

Kagan, Fox, et al.

Answer 28

15% of 4-month-olds
* inherit a physiology that predisposes them to fear
* overstimulated/upset by novelty
* helped by warm, supportive parenting (without overprotection)

e.g. “fostering” rhesus studies: reactive babies with laid-back parents became less fearful

Question 29

Predictions for inhibited infants

Kagan, Fox, et al.

Answer 29

• predispositions only retained 20-30% of time
• tend to become shy with peer difficulties and 4-6x more likely to develop anxiety (a cascade!)

compared to uninhibited infants who tend to become sociable

Question 30

Physiological symptoms of inhibited infants

Answer 30

in response to novelty,
* greater amygdala reactivity
* higher heart rates
* higher cortisol
* greater pupil dilation
* higher blood pressure
* greater cooling of fingertips

Question 31

Baseline EEG activity to a neutral stimulus

inhibited vs. uninhibited infants

Answer 31

• inhibited infants show greater activity on the right (right frontal asymmetry), associated with negative stimuli
• uninhibited infants show greater activity on the left (left frontal asymmetry), associated with positive stimuli

Question 32

How stable is an infant’s temperament?

Answer 32

not very stable
* increase in attentional control with age (e.g. BI babies may learn to self-regulate by focusing on other stimuli)
* develop personality (temperament + environment), where environmental influences (e.g. parenting, culture) can either promote stability or change
* stability is greater later in life

Question 33

Goodness of fit

Answer 33

despite different temperaments, most children can flourish if placed in the right environment (and can suffer in wrong one), so must alter environment to best suit each child

e.g. children that inherit “difficult” genes from parents may induce harsher parenting

Question 34

Temperament of East Asian infants

compared to North American/European infants

Answer 34

calmer but more wary of strangers
* less active, irritable, vocal, and emotionally expressive
* more easily soothed by self and others
* more fearful

likely due to focus on gentle soothing of infants and close family ties vs. active stimulation and independence

Question 35

Which temperament is valued in East vs. West?

Answer 35

West
* inhibited is bad, independence/boldness is good
* shyness associated with negative outcomes and decreases over time

vs. East (opposite!)

differences diminishing over time as Western ideals take over (e.g. shyness now more associated with negative outcomes in China)

Question 36

How does self-concept develop?

Answer 36

sense of oneself as a physical body, separate from others
* observations that some parts of the world always stick with you as you go (e.g. self vs. attachment figure)
* experiencing your effect on the environment

Question 37

Evolution of self-concept

Answer 37

• 2-4 mos: learn contingency with environment and display positive/negative emotion (e.g. mobile task)
• 8 mos: show separation anxiety
• 1 yr: joint attention and directing others’ attention
• 2 yrs: recognize self in photographs and show self-conscious emotions

• mobile task: show anger when contingency (e.g. ability to control mobile) is removed
• young infants prefer those who imitate (interact contingently) them but distinguish those inividuals from themselves