Lecture 10: Emotional Development

Question 1

Emotions

Answer 1

Researchers generally agree that emotions represent an evaluative response to a situation or stimulus and typically involve 3 aspects

Question 2

Three aspects of emotions

Answer 2

Physiological response- the physical effects of emotion e.g., slightly increased pulse rate, sweaty palms, “butterflies” in our stomach.

Cognition- subjective, conscious experience, the cognitive interpretation of the physiological arousal, e.g., anxiety vs excitement.

Behaviour- this is the overt expression of our emotions, such as facial expressions.

Question 3

What characterises emotion

Answer 3

characterised by a motivational force or action tendency and by changes in physiology, subjective feelings, and overt behaviour.

Question 4

what are the different types of emotions formed during infancy

Answer 4

Discrete emotions theory.

Functionalist approach

Question 5

Discrete emotions theory

Answer 5

Tomkins (1962) and Izard (1991) argue that:

Emotions are innate and are distinct from one another from very early in life
Each emotion is packaged with a specific and distinctive set of bodily and facial reactions

Question 6

the functionalist approach

Answer 6

Campos et al. (1994), Saarni et al. (1998) argue that,

Emotions are not distinct from one another early in life and that the environment influences emotional development.
The basic function of emotions is to promote action toward achieving a goal
e.g., use facial expressions to avoid certain interactions.

Question 7

How do researchers code and classify emotion

Answer 7

To make their interpretations of infants’ emotions objective, researchers have devised highly elaborate systems for coding and classifying the emotional meaning of infants’ facial expressions (e.g., Saarni et al., 1998)

These systems identify emotions first by coding dozens of facial cues and then by analysing the combination in which these cues are present. But is hard to determine what emotions they are experiencing and to differentiate among the various negative emotions that young infants express.

Question 8

Characterising of some emotion types

Answer 8

emotion type
goal connected with the emotion
meaning regarding the self
meaning regarding others
action
action tendency

Question 9

positive emotions

Answer 9

Smiling is the first clear sign of positive emotion that infants express

Young infants smile from their earliest days, but the meaning of their smiles appears to change with age

Social Smiles are directed toward people and first emerge as early as 6 to 7 weeks of age (White, 1985)- directed towards the people right in front of you. Smile develops more meaning as they get older

Question 10

Happiness

Answer 10

After about 3 or 4 months of age, infants laugh as well as smile during a variety of activities (Kagan et al., 1978)

At about 7 months, infants start to smile primarily at familiar people, rather than at people in general (Weinberg & Tronick, 1994)

During the second year of life, children start to clown around and are delighted when they can make other people laugh (Dunn, 1998)

Question 11

Negative emotions

Answer 11

The first negative emotion that is discernible in infants is generalized distress

By 2 months of age, facial expressions of anger or sadness can be differentiated from distress/pain in some contexts (Izard et al., 1997)

By the second year of life, differentiating between infants’ anger and other negative emotions is no longer difficult

Question 12

Distress

Answer 12

The interpretation of negative emotions is complicated by the fact that infants sometimes display negative emotions that seem incongruent with the situation they are experiencing

It has been suggested that young infants are experiencing undifferentiated distress when they evidence negative emotion, and that anger and distress/pain are not differentiated in most contexts (Oster et al., 1992)

Question 13

fear

Answer 13

The 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)

The fear of strangers intensifies and lasts until about age 2 but is quite variable across individuals and contexts (Stroufe, 1995)

Other fears (such as fear of loud noises) are also evident at around 7 months and tend to decline after 12months (Kagan et al., 1978)

Question 14

Anger and sadness

Answer 14

Anger is likely to be distinct from other negative 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 from them or when they get frustrated

Question 15

Sadness

Answer 15

Sadness is often exhibited in the same situations as anger, though less frequently (Izard et al., 1997)

When young children are separated from their parents for extended periods of time, they can show intense and prolonged sadness (Robertson & Robertson, 1971)

Question 16

Self-conscious emotions

Answer 16

Feelings that relate to our sense of self, and our awareness of how others react to us
e.g., guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride

Often begin to emerge during the second year of life
15-24 months: embarrassment when made the centre of attention (Lewis, 1995)
3 years: pride is increasingly tied to their level of performance (Lewis et al., 1992)

The situations likely to induce self-conscious emotions in children vary somewhat across cultures.
t was found that Japanese children were less likely to be proud of personal success compared to group success (Mascolo et al., 2003)

Question 17

Guilt

Answer 17

is associated with empathy for others

involves feelings of remorse, regret, and the desire to make amends

Question 18

Shame

Answer 18

unrelated to concern about others

involves a desire to hide and be less conspicuous

Question 19

Broken doll (Barrett et al., 1993)

Answer 19

Guilt leads to more prosocial and responsible behaviour than shame

2-year-olds “broke” a rigged doll (Barrett et al., 1993)
those who showed shame avoided the adult when they returned to the room and delayed telling them about the broken doll

those who showed guilt repaired the doll and told the adult soon after they returned

Parental practice often determines whether a child is likely to experience guilt (“You did a bad thing”) or shame (“You’re a bad boy/ girl”) (Hoffman, 2000)

Question 20

Emotions into middle childhood

Answer 20

Children become less intense and less emotionally negative with age in the preschool and early school years (Murphy et al., 1999).

School-age children’s fears are generally related to real-life important issues rather than monsters (Silverman et al., 1995)

The emotions they express and the situations that have caused particular emotions also slowly change.

Question 21

happiness and pride in middle childhood

Answer 21

Happiness and pride come from achieving goals and acceptance by peers

By the early school years, children’s perceptions of others’ motives and intentions are important in determining whether they will be angered (Dodge et al., 1984)

It is naughtier to steal one cookie, than to accidentally drop the whole cookie jar and break all the cookies.

Question 22

Understanding emotions

Answer 22

The ability to discriminate and label different emotions helps children respond appropriately to their own and others’ emotions

Young children are best at identifying happiness, and their ability to distinguish different negative emotions gradually appears during the late preschool and early school years (Eisenberg et al., 1997)

Question 23

Understanding emotions by 4-7 months

Answer 23

By 4-7 months, infants can distinguish certain emotional expressions such as happiness and surprise

Question 24

understanding emotions by 8-12 months

Answer 24

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 (Saarni et al., 1998)

Question 25

understanding emotion at 2 years old

Answer 25

Borke (1971) showed that 2-year-olds can identify happy situations in stories (e.g., having a birthday party), but were less accurate in identifying sad situations (e.g., losing a pet) until age 4

Question 26

understanding emotions by age 4-6 years

Answer 26

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 (Fabes et al., 1988)

Question 27

Real and false emotions

Answer 27

Children’s understanding of the difference between real and false emotions improves considerably from age 3 to age 5 (Cole, 1986; Banejee, 1997)

Over the preschool and primary school years, children develop a more refined understanding of emotional display rules

Cognitive development, social factors such as gender, are all likely contribute to children’s understanding and use of display rules

Question 28

Display rules

Answer 28

A social group’s informal norms about when, where and how much one should display emotions, and when and where one should suppress/ mask them

May be facial displays (monitor, falsify and inhibit facial expressions) or verbal displays (monitor, falsify and inhibit speech)

Prosocial display rules are used to protect another’s feelings (e.g., pretending to like someone’s cooking when you do not)

Self-protective display rules are used for personal gain (e.g., pretending not to be bothered by losing a race)

Question 29

Developing display rules

Answer 29

Gnepp and Hess (1986)

Children in 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th grade (aged approx. 5, 7, 9, and 14 years)

Predict and explain what characters would feel and say in the emotion-laden situations * Use of display rules increased up to 5th grade (age 9)

Children’s understanding was greater for verbal display rules than for facial display rules

Children also understood prosocial display rules better than self-protective display rules

Question 30

Understanding simultaneous `emotions

Answer 30

Sometime between the ages of 5 and 7, children come to realize that they can feel two compatible emotions simultaneously (Harter, 1999)
“I’m happy and excited when I have a birthday”

Over the next few years, children realise that they (and others) can simultaneously experience positive and negative emotions related to different sources (Harter & Buddin, 1987)
“I was happy about my grade in the test but worried about my granny in hospital”

Question 31

Understanding ambivalent situations

Answer 31

At around age 10, children begin to understand emotional ambivalence, resulting from the interaction of positive and negative emotions (Donaldson & Westerman, 1986)
“I was mad at my cat for running away but glad that she came home”