PSY311 3. Temperament Flashcards

Question 1

Q

Emotions

Answer

A

• More than a feeling...
• Changes in:
1. Affect
2. Physiology
3. Thoughts
4. Behaviours

Question 2

Q

Emotions

Answer

A

4 components related to emotion
affect: positive or negative feelings
physiology: heart rate, galvanic skin response, brain activity
thoughts: cognitions that change feelings or feelings that change cognitions
behaviours: how we communicate, our goals and motivations, how we approach them

Question 3

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Emotions

Question 4

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Emotions

Question 5

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Theories of Emotional Development

Answer

A

Discrete Emotions Theory
• Izard & Malatesta, 1987
• Basic emotions are inborn products of evolution
• Each emotion is accompanied by a specific
facial reaction
• Emotions are apparent very early in life
Functionalist Perspective
• Barrett & Campos, 1987
• No discrete emotions in infancy – global experiences
• Purpose of emotions is to influence behaviours to promote action toward goals
• Children learn to adapt emotions to their
environments
• Emotions emerge with age

Question 6

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Theories of Emotional Development

Answer

A

-Discrete: emerge according to maturation timeline
basic emotions not preceded by global affective states
hardwired to emerge at certain times in development
emotions become part of schema
baby has to make cognitive links between situations that elicit emotion and the emotion itself
Functionalist: e.g. overall excitement
get us to do things
takes infants time to learn that emotions can influence the world around them
as they age, expressions become more associated with specific emotions

Question 7

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Theories of Emotional Development

Question 8

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Theories of Emotional Development

Question 9

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Theories of Emotional Development

Question 10

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Primary (Basic) Emotions

Answer

A

– At birth
•Interest, contentment, disgust, distress
– At 2 to 7 months
•Joy, surprise, anger, fear, sadness
– Deep biological roots
– Cognitive development is necessary

Question 11

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Primary (Basic) Emotions

Question 12

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Primary (Basic) Emotions

Question 13

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Primary (Basic) Emotions

Question 14

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Primary (Basic) Emotions

Question 15

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Development of Positive Emotions:

Happiness

Answer

A

• First show contentment through smiles in
response to soothing stimuli
– Reflexive responses to tension release
• At 6 to 10 weeks show social smiles
• At 3 to 6 months show big smiles
– Share positive affect
• At 6 to 7 months discriminate recipients and
use smiles to share or prolong positive
interactions

Question 16

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Development of Positive Emotions:

Happiness

Answer

A

-gently rocked, skin stroked, soft voice
smiles can be shown even when sleeping
first showing of happiness
social smiles: interactions with caregivers
big smiles: smile when caregivers are smiling
6-7 months: learn who they’re smiling at
reserve biggest smiles for those they know well
to keep familiar people around

Question 17

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Development of Positive Emotions:

Happiness

Question 18

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Development of Positive Emotions:

Happiness

Question 19

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Development of Positive Emotions:

Happiness

Question 20

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Interest

Answer

A

-alert and attentive
presented right at birth
relaxed interest: no sign of tension
curious or wide-eyed wonder
most common expression
excited interest or knit-brow interest
forehead muscles contracted
interactions with mothers and fathers
form of intense focus
interest with lip roll
maybe regulate emotions, but unclear function

Question 21

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Interest

Question 22

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Interest

Question 23

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Joy

Answer

A

-responses are indicative of age
wide range of stimuli that baby can respond with joy to
early in life response tied to physical stimuli
multi-sensory stimulation
later in life, more tied to events

Question 24

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Joy

Question 25

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Joy

Question 26

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Surprise

Answer

A

-rarely seen in very young infants
little is known because it doesn’t always consistently occur where you think they’ll be surprised
mostly not surprised with jack in the box
quickly resolves into another emotion - either interest, smiling or negative emotion

Question 27

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Surprise

Question 28

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Surprise

Question 29

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Development of Negative Emotions

Answer

A

• First show generalized distress to discomfort
• Over first 6 months show increased anger and
sadness
• Fear develops the latest of the primary
emotions – 6 to 8 months
– Stranger anxiety (peaks at 8 to 10 months)
– Separation anxiety (peaks at 14-18 months)

Question 30

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Development of Negative Emotions

Answer

A

distress to hunger or pain
red-faced anger when they don’t have control over toys
learning and cognitive development increase experience
both anxiety peak after 8 months
stranger anxiety: distressed and seek comfort of caregiver when with someone unfamiliar
they have to first develop bond with caregiver or else everyone’s a stranger
separation anxiety: when can’t see mom or anticipate mom is leaving
when very young, primary caregivers more intuned to the baby’s needs
views: apprehensive to new people and when mom leaves is that it signals danger (evolutinary)
or infants don’t like it when they can’t explain it in they’re minds, it is an unpredicatable situation in their mind (cognitive developmental)
depends on temperament and attachment to caregiver

Question 31

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Development of Negative Emotions

Question 32

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Development of Negative Emotions

Question 33

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Anger

Answer

A

most common negative expression
anger cry face rarely occurs in infants without other negative emotions - blends
prototypic anger face is rare - may be before interaction
anger/sadness blend: when interacting with mother
increases with age

Question 34

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Anger

Question 35

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Anger

Question 36

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Sadness

Answer

A

still face paradigm: reliably creates sadness
can’t elicit positive response from caregivers
model for when mothers experience depression
extremely responsive to social interactions

Question 37

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Sadness

Question 38

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Sadness

Question 39

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Fear

Answer

A

last primary emotion to emerge
requires cognitive development to appraise environment and people as different, confusing or dangerous
Prototypic fear vs. fear/surprise blend

Question 40

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Fear

Question 41

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Fear

Question 42

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Secondary (Complex) Emotions

Answer

A

• Embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy, and pride
• Self-conscious emotions
• Emerge 2-3 years of age
– Self-recognition
– Awareness of rules or standards for judging conduct
• Subject to parental influence

Question 43

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Secondary (Complex) Emotions

Answer

A

damage to or enhancement of the self
need to be able to recognize self as separate entity and know what’s expected in a given situation
e.g. “watch me”, “i did it”, “i’m bad at this”
mothers who were critical, children had showed more pride after success and shame after failure
more praising mother, children felt more pride after success and less shame after failure
show more of these emotions when parents watch them
only as school age do they show internalization of self-conscious emotions

Question 44

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Secondary (Complex) Emotions

Question 45

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Secondary (Complex) Emotions

Question 46

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Development of Children’s Understanding of Emotions

Answer

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• Recognize emotions in sounds at birth
• Preference for photos of happy faces at 3 months
• React appropriately to emotions at 3 to 7 months
• Use social referencing at 7 to 10 months
– Acquire knowledge this way
• Before age 3 - fail to label others’ expressions or
use “happy” to describe most emotions
• Between ages 3 and 4 begin to use “sad” or “mad”
for negative emotions
• Between ages 4 and 5 begin to use “scared”

Question 47

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Development of Children’s Understanding of Emotions

Answer

A

at birth respond to other infants crying by crying
show happiness in response to high pitched tones they hear from parents
pay more attention to baby talk
understanding of emotions develops during preschool and school age
can become joyful for happy expressions and sad to sad expressions
social referencing: using others’ emotional expression to get information on ambiguous situations
becomes more common with age
infants and toddlers bad at labelling other’s emotion - maybe haven’t acquired the vocabulary
fear is latest of emotional description to develop
even 5 year olds rarely use words such as surprised, pride, disgust until school grade

Question 48

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Development of Children’s Understanding of Emotions

Question 49

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Development of Children’s Understanding of Emotions

Question 50

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Development of Children’s Understanding of Emotions

Question 51

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Measuring Ability to Understand Emotions

Answer

A

Short stories with pictures, ask children to describe or pick a
face showing how the character feels
1. During the preschool period – rapid learning about the
causes of primary emotions
2. It takes much longer (even into middle school) to learn to
recognize complex emotions

Question 52

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Measuring Ability to Understand Emotions

Answer

A

by age 3, learn to recognize girl at bday party is happy
by 4, learn that boy who lost dog is sad
by school age, learn that girl is scared because she is lost in the grocery store

Question 53

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Measuring Ability to Understand Emotions

Question 54

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Measuring Ability to Understand Emotions

Question 55

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Emotion Regulation

Answer

A

The process of adjusting one’s emotions to
appropriate levels of intensity in order to
accomplish goals
Affect: Calm, dampened anger
Thought: “This is not a big deal, he is just in a bad mood”
Physiology: Slow, deep breaths
Behaviour: No harsh words or angry facial
expressions, argument resolved
Affect: Angry, aggressive
Thought: “He’s doing this on purpose to hurt me!”
Physiology: Increased heat rate, temperature
Behaviour: Hurtful language, angry facial expression,
aggressive behaviour, argument esca

Question 56

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Emotion Regulation

Answer

A

no linear process in regulation
able to regulate depending on 4 components - affect, physiology, behaviour, thought
young children aren’t able to change 1 of these components, so they don’t have the skill to regulate yet

Question 57

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Emotion Regulation

Question 58

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Emotion Regulation

Question 59

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Emotion Regulation

Question 60

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Emotion Regulation

Question 61

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Development of Emotion Regulation

Answer

A

• During first year emotion regulation is mainly done
by parents, but starts to increase at 6 months
– Girls better at emotion regulation than boys
• By age 18 to 24 months try to control others that
upset them
• 2 to 5 years – conversations about emotions
(causes, consequences) with parents
– Help children develop strategies
• Distraction from uncontrollable stressors
• Helping child understand situation

Question 62

Q

Development of Emotion Regulation

Answer

A

soothe them, pacifiers, rock them, address needs
early on, need to have some amount of time where infants pacify themselves
after 6 months, important to learn how to pacify themselves
naturally learn to avoid negative situations or other strategies to pacify selves
baby girls quicker to try to self regulate
baby boys more likely to get caregiver to pacify them
by 18-24: use distraction
2-5 years - conversations hugely important
emotion dialogue is a big component
learn how to reappraise the situation
point out things that they don’t like children doing

Question 63

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Development of Emotion Regulation

Question 64

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Development of Emotion Regulation

Answer 26

A

• Emotional display rules are culturally
defined rules that specify when and
which emotions should or should not
be expressed – continue to develop throughout
grade school years

Answer 27

A

6/7 - girls more better due to gender socialization
more pressure to act more appropriately for girls
research done in context of NA
stronger and more clearly emotional display rules in Japan

Answer 28

A

Three components of emotional competence:
1. Emotion expression
2. Emotion knowledge
3. Emotion regulation
•
Denham et al. (2003)
– Assessed the three components in 3- to 4-year-olds
– Measured the children’s social competence in preschool
and again in kindergarten
– Results:
• •
In preschool:
– Emotion expression relates to better knowledge and regulation
– BUT only emotion regulation predicts greater social competence
In kindergarten:
– Emotion knowledge and emotion expression predict greater social competence, more than emotion regulation

Answer 29

A

expression: frequently expressing positive and infrequently expressing negative emotions
knowledge: identify others’ feelings as well as events that lead to emotions
regulation: adjust experiences and expression to achieve goals
how emotional competence related to social competence (to maintain positive relationships with others)
all 3 aspects are important predictors of social components
different components play more or less of a role at different ages

Answer 30

A

• Rothbart and Dayberry (1981) – “Constitutionally based individual
differences in reactivity and self-regulation”
• Personality traits – patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviour that
are products of our experiences, and show consistency across
situations and stability over time
– Temperament traits are a subset of personality
– Temperament is emotional, motor, and attentional tendencies and
regulative capacities
– Temperament does not include specific thoughts, like concepts
about the self and others
• Seen very early in life
– Earliest individual differences in personality
• Can also be present in nonhuman animals

Answer 31

A

reactivity: how reactive are we? how intense is it? how long till we calm down?
biological basis
self-regulation: do we approach or avoid things?
ability to control actions
personality: more widely known than temperament
personality represents projections of temperament
influences development of personality

Answer 32

A

• A person is described as “impulsive” and
“arrogant”
– Which is temperament and which is personality?
• Impulsive = temperament
• Arrogant = personality
– Why?
① Only impulsivity is present in infants
② Only impulsivity is present in nonhuman animals
③ Only arrogance is a product of experience
④ Only arrogance is related to specific thoughts

Answer 33

A

Latin temperamentum – mixture (of the bodily humors)
• Vindician’s (4th century AD) fourfold typology: – Melancholic person = moody, fear, sadness
black bile
– Choleric person = touchy, aggressive, active
yellow bile
– Sanguine person = sociable, easygoing
blood
– Phlegmatic person = calm, even tempered
phlegm
• Galen (2nd century AD) - “The nature of the soul is not the
same for all”
• Wundt (1903) – typologies abandoned for basic dimensions
(strength, speed of change of feelings)

Answer 34

A

-hypocratic bodily humors
consistent patterns in behaviours and emotions
linked to human physiology
related to psychopathology
dimensions of individual variability
strength of feelings

Answer 35

A

Britain Eastern Europe
• Pavlov’s laboratory (1935)
• Studied dogs’ conditioning ability and proneness to
experimental neurosis
• “They never fully adapt themselves to the conditions
of life, are easily broken, often and quickly become ill or neurotic” Pavlov (1935)
Value judgements!
• Webb (1915) – had observers rate college students on 39
qualities
• Organized into broad factors
• Burt (1938) – emotional instability vs. stability, extraversion-introversion
• Eysenck (1947) – proposed physiological basis for
temperament
• Said that introverted people are more reliable
than extraverts

Answer 36

A

-factor analysis of survey data to see correlations
create higher order factors
physiology: limbic system functioning

eastern europe:
pavlov: experimental neurosis
when required dog to make difficult distinctions
pavlov made value judgements based on temperament
they are seen even in modern day research

Answer 37

A

• Thomas, Chess, Birch, Hertzig, and Korn,
1963
–Children are different from each other from
infancy
–Children are active agents in their own
development
– Sometimes a child’s temperament makes
parenting difficult

Answer 38

A

-wasn’t until 63 ppl used temperament
- children’s primary reaction models
children influence parents depending on temperament

Answer 39

A

looked at setting + reaction
wrote it out in cue cards
9 dimensions of temperament
1. level and frequency of motor activity
2. rythmicity: regularity, more predictable
3. tendency to approach or withdraw
4. how easily can get child to behave
5. threshold for getting reaction
7. how pleasant, joyful vs unfriendly
8. how much external environment distracts them
9. how long they spend on activities

Answer 40

A

5 of 9 dimensions to categorize
patterns of temperament from analysis
Easy: regular in routines
Difficult: hard to figure them out
not 100% your fault as a parent
Slow-to-warm up:
half and half
other 35% are hard to categorize
labels are easy to understand and how ppl usually describe children

Answer 41

A

• Extensive interviews of 22 parents of 3- to 6-
month-old infants
– Asked about infants’ reactions in everyday situations
• e.g., feeding, diaper changing, playing, bathing
• Later added 119 more families
Interviewer: “What did the baby do the first time he was given cereal?”
Parent: “He couldn’t stand it…”
Interviewer: “What makes you think he disliked it? What did he do?”
Parent: “He spit it out and when another spoonful was offered he turned his
head to the side.”

Answer 42

A

• Performed a content analysis, 9 categories emerged:

Activity level
Rhythmicity
Approach versus withdrawal
Adaptability
Threshold
Intensity
Mood
Distractibility
Attention span/persistence

Answer 43

A

• “Easy” infants (40%)
– High in approach, mostly positive
mood, adaptable to change, not
intense, regular
• “Difficult” infants (10%)
– High in withdrawal, mostly negative
mood, inadaptable to change, intense,
irregular
• “Slow-to-warm-up” infants (15%)
– Withdraw at first but then approach,
sometimes moody, adaptable to change
if given time, mild intensity, sometimes irregular

Answer 44

A

• Chess and Thomas (1986)
– “When the child’s capacities, motivations, and
temperament are adequate to master the demands,
expectations, and opportunities of the environment”
– Does not mean that the child’s temperament has to
match the parent’s temperament
• Roy – “a highly distractible child”
– Easy to soothe as an infant
– Unreliable and forgetful as a child
– Mother nags Roy, Roy tunes her out
– Parents unable to see continuity in Roy’s temperament
from infancy to now

Answer 45

A

Difficult for whom?
Same behaviour can be “easy” or “difficult” at
different ages
Attaches negative label to child
Perceptions of “difficult” vary by culture
Some “difficult” dimensions predict positive child
outcomes
Inconsistency of measurement of difficulty
Most children are not “difficult” across every
aspect of temperament

Answer 46

A

Pluess and Belsky (2010)
– Used the NYLS definition of “difficult” temperament,
assessed 1,364 6-month-old infants
– Looked at children’s outcomes (reading, vocabulary, work
habits, math, social skills, beha
Parenting quality
(maternal sensitivity) and
quality of child care
environment are
important influences on
child outcomes, but
depends on
temperament!

Answer 47

A

• Questioned Thomas and Chess’s (1977) definition of
temperament as “style”
– Intensity, threshold, adaptability, and rhythmicity not consistent
across situations and responses
• More biological view of temperament
• Temperament dimensions go beyond style to include the
“what” and “why” of behaviour
• Developed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) and the
Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ)
CBQ Factors
1. Surgency
2. Negative affectivity (negative reactivity in infants)
3. Effortful control (orienting/regulation in infants)

Answer 48

A

Appearance around 2-3 months
• Tendency toward positive emotions
• Rapid approach to potential rewards
• High activity level, similar to extraversion in
adults
• Become “revved up” at the sight of
something interesting

Answer 49

A

Fearful
• Appearance around 6 months
• Slowed approach, inhibition, or withdrawal from new,
intense, or unpredictable stimuli
Anger/Frustration: • Appearance around 2
months
• Distress in response to aims/expectations
being blocked or limited

Answer 50

A

• Develops rapidly from ages 2 to 7
• The ability to inhibit a dominant response
(inhibitory control) in order to perform a
subdominant response
– Focused and controlled attention
– Suppression of inappropriate responses
– Planning
• Controlling one’s actions, emotions, and
attention (self-control)

Answer 51

A

Adult
Temperament
Questionnaire
Factors
Big Five Personality
Theory Traits
Negative affect Neuroticism
Effortful control Conscientiousness
Surgency Extraversion
Orienting
sensitivity
Openness to
experience
Affiliation Agreeableness

Answer 52

A

Most change occurs between ages 20-40
• Increases in agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and openness
• Decreases in neuroticism
• Maturity:
– Positive thoughts about self and others
– Aware of and open to experiences
– View of self as significant
– Recognize and accept strengths and
weaknesses in self and others
– Recognize values as important and live
congruently with values
– Assume responsibility for self and
others

Answer 53

A

Shyness
Anger/
Frustration Fear Effortful
control
INTERNALIZING
DISORDERS
Affiliation
High-intensity
pleasure EXTERNALIZING
DISORDERS

Answer 54

A

Preschool children
given the choice
to get a reward
immediately or
wait for a more
preferred reward
Spontaneous
thoughts/strategies
Suggested thoughts/
strategies
(distractions from
rewards)
Reward exposed
Reward hidden Typically longest
delay

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PSY311 3. Temperament Flashcards

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