Week 11: emotional development Flashcards
An essential part of social competence is the ability to…
Express emotions in a regulated way and understand the emotions of others
What is emotional development?
The way emotions change or remain stable across the lifespan
What are the main distinctions between the emotions of adults and children (4)?
Children display fewer types of emotions
Physiological patterns related to emotions differ from adults (e.g. heartrate, sweating)
Children have fewer and simpler verbal emotional concepts (may only say someone is happy, sad or angry not much of a range)
Children may experience the same types of emotions as adults but manifested in different ways
What are the 3 elements of emotional development?
- Emotional expression
- Regulation of emotional experience
- Emotional understanding or recognition (understand how other people are feeling)
How long do real emotions last?
Between half a second and four seconds
Shorter or longer in duration and it is likely to be fake
Being emotionally competent means…
knowing what expressions are appropriate in the situation
Latency of emotional expression?
Time of stimulation to the time expression begins
Onset of emotional expression?
Latency to the maximal level of expression
Apex of emotional expression?
period the expression is maintained at maximal strength
Offset of emotional expression?
Apex to the disappearance of expression
Intensity of emotional expression?
Depth or strength of the emotional experience
Can infants express emotion?
Yes they can.
Crying (most important to show distress or pain)
Smiling also becomes important
Explain infant smiling?
Reflexive smiles (often during sleep - 1 month) Social smiles (2-3 months in response to a stimulus) Is reinforced when caregivers show appreciation
Emotional masking in childhood?
Children learn to mask negative emotional expression as they learn more about the rules of social interaction
They learn that expressing most intense emotional reactions may not lead to goals being met
Emotional expression in adolescence and adulthood?
- Can be completely masked
- Become more mixed/complex
What is regulation of emotional experience?
How we control and direct our behaviour while emotional signals are being communicated
We can learn to regulate emotion in 3 different ways. What are these?
- Emotionally: ceasing to feel an emotion
- Cognitively: cognitive restructuring or shifting focus
- Behaviourally: doing something that changes the way that they feel
When is regulating emotion important?
In adolescence, as they deal with demands of emerging adulthood
Better self-regulation of emotional experience =
better psychosocial outcomes
Emotional regulation with experience?
It improves with experience however it does decline with cognitive capacities so we see an upside down U from adolescence - middle adulthood - late adulthood
What does it mean to understand and recognise emotion?
interpreting and encoding emotional signals from others
How does emotional understanding/recognition improve?
It improves with cognitive development, so it improves with age
What is an important skill to have to be able to understand and recognise emotions?
Theory of mind
(Understanding that people can feel different to how you do and understanding that what is on their face may not be what they are really feeling)
Knowledge of emotion and their functions across the lifespan is essential for..
Understanding normal development and diagnosing and treating developmental psychopathology