Module 9 - Emotional Development Flashcards
Discrete Emotions (Dr. Caroll Izzard)
Focused on the idea that emotions are innate and can be differentiated from one another very early on in life
There are a small number of basic emotions:
Interest, Joy, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Self-Hostility, Fear, Shame, Shyness, and Guilt.
Continuous Emotions
emotions differ depending on arousal (mild-intense) and valence (pleasant-unpleasant). Emotions can be distinguished by plotting scores on these two dimensions.
Circumplex model (Russell, 1980)
functionalist approach to emotional development
Focused on the evolutionary/functional significance of emotions, not on differentiating them.
Emotions are evolutionarily adaptive because they motivate us to attend to environmental stimuli – motivate us to get away from something that’s bad for us, or motivate us to approach something that we like.
Circumplex model
emotions may be innate, the boundaries between emotions are fuzzy and are separated by differences in valence and arousal
Emotions are characterized by what components?
1) Neural Responses
2) Physiological responses
3) Subjective Feelings
4) Cognitions
5) Desire to take action
6) Expressive behaviour
Neural responses
The firing of brain regions like the amygdala, etc.
Physiological responses
Changes in heart rate, stress hormones, etc.
Subjective feelings
How we traditionally describe emotions - happiness, sadness, etc.
Cognitions
Our thoughts or inner dialogue related to the experience
Desire to take action
Typically either approach or avoidance based
Expressive Behaviour
Facial expressions, gestures, etc (although these may not always be expressed)
Theorists who take a functionalist approach to understanding emotional development propose that emotions:
Promote action toward a goal
Emotional development consists of much more than simply experiencing emotions and consists of:
Emotional expression: the ability to express different emotions.
Emotional recognition: the ability to recognize or become aware of different emotions.
Emotional understanding: the ability to verbally label and comprehend the use of emotion in themselves and others.
Emotion development also consists of emotion regulation
How we can organize basic emotions?
1) Valence (pleasant or unpleasant)
2) Discrete categories
Pleasant emotions
- Early smiles within the first two months of an infant’s life are reflexive (e.g., after they’ve been fed or passed gas).
- Social smiles start at around 2 months old.
-7 months, infants are more likely to smile at their caregivers than they are to smile at strangers.
-24 months, young children enjoy making other people smile and laugh.
Unpleasant emotions
-unpleasant emotions are not well-differentiated during the first few months.
-begin to differentiate by 6 months and are clearly different by age 2. By this point, parents and other people can tell the difference between a tired cry and a hungry cry.
-infants do not always demonstrate an emotion that is congruent to the situation.
Fear
adaptive as it motivates us to move out of a situation that could cause danger.
Stranger wariness
The degree to which a child may experience stranger anxiety is altered by several factors, including the size of the stranger, facial expressions, and the predictability of the situation.
Separation anxiety
Separation anxiety tends to peak at ~13 months old; however, this depends on culture and family norms.
Ex: mothers who live in the United States often only have a very short maternity leave, and so these babies will show less separation anxiety than babies who rarely leave their mothers
What does the Visual Cliff study demonstrate?
That infants use social-referencing to determine how to approach and react to ambiguous stimuli.
Social referencing is a major mechanism through which infants learn about the world around them (including emotions!).
Self-conscious emotions
-Sometimes called complex emotions or social emotions.
-They require one to be able to reflect upon actions in order to consider what others might think about them.
-develop later than basic emotions because children must first understand that they are different from other people.
-Self-conscious emotions start to differentiate around ~2 years old, and include emotions like embarrassment, pride, guilt, and shame.
What are some examples of self conscious emotions
-Pride
-Guilt
-Shame
-Embarrassment
Collectivist cultures
emphasize interpersonal relationships and connections with others
individualist cultures
emphasize the individual and their autonomy