week 5 Flashcards
Expressing emotions
Research suggest that babies can express emotion from birth
Parent are able to identify the emotions their baby is expressing
A number of creative methods have been employed to examine emotional expression
Steiner et al 2001
Videotaped facial expressions of 23 neonates in the first hour of birth as they drank sucrose and quinine
Effect has been replicated. evidence for similar reactions in non-human primates suggest evolutionary basis
Attachment and stranger distress
0-2 months- indiscriminate social responsiveness inbuilt emotional signals designed to draw mother near
2-7 months- beginnings of attachment, preferential orientation to discriminated others more likely to smile at be comforted by primary caregivers strangers still accepted
7-2 years- locomotion-actively seeks proximity to attachment figures separation protest; fear of strangers
2-5 years- Goal-corrected partnership-> child begins to take account of other’s needs-can wait while caregiver is absent with explanation
school age-> proximity-seeking reduces. Relationship based on IWM
Secondary emotions and self-awareness
Self awareness the capacity to is the capacity to become the object one ones own attention
Secondary emotions- rely on development of self-awareness
9-12 months-babies show preference for picture of themselves over other babies typically emerges 18-24 months
Self-recognition
During their first years babies smile and vocalise at their mirror reflections
To truly be considered self recognition a subject must understand:
(i) that the perceptual experience is not to be taken at face value,
(ii) that the source of the visual impression of another person is oneself,
(iii) that the appearance of another person provides information about oneself,
(iv) that one is looking at an image of oneself.
The Rouge test (Gallup 1970)
A coloured mark is placed on the infant in a place they cannot usually see it, such as on the nose/forehead
They are then placed in front of a mirror
Researchers observe whether the baby attempts to touch the mark
Self-recognition typically appears reliably from 18-24 months
Display of secondary emotions
Self-conscious emotions require integration of more complex knowledge structures, self-awareness, personal responsibility, predicting other people’s reactions…
Self-conscious emotions include:
Guilt
Shame
Jealousy
Empathy
Pride
Embarrassment
Shame vs Guilt
Guilt involves feeling empathy for others, includes feelings of remorse or regret and includes the desire to undo consequences of behaviour
Shame is related to feelings of self-worth. When feeling shame we focus on ourselves and often feel exposed
Shame and guilt can be distinguished in behaviours of 2-year-olds
Guilt feelings increase between age 2 and 3.
Guilt observed at 22 months relatively stable across preschool years (
Shame vs pride
Positive emotion encouraging positive behaviours.
Two types of pride (Muris & Meesters, 2013)
Authentic: I did that well
Hubristic: I did that well
Pride and shame in relation to ability (Lewis, 1992)
By 3 years old, children expressed pride more often on completion of difficult task
Expressed shame more often if failed an easy task
Recognising Emotions
Haviland & Lelwica (1987) observed mother-baby interactions at 10 weeks old
Asked mothers to adopt a happy or sad face and tone of voice
Used the Maximally Discriminative Facial Movement Coding System to code mothers’ and infants’ facial expressions
If mother was happy so was the baby
If mother was angry so was the baby
Not exactly the same with sadness, but baby did engage in chewing and sucking
Peekaboo (Montague & Walker-Andrews, 2001)
Four peekaboo trials which varied in the emotion change in fourth trial
Change to anger
Change to fear
Change to sadness
No change – stayed happy/ surprised
Examined the emotional responses of 40 four month old infants
Results showed different affective responses and different patterns of visual attention to each condition:
They paid more visual attention in the emotion-change conditions. Also more for anger/fear than sad
They also showed increase interest / surprise in emotion-change conditions vs. happy
Social Referencing
An infant will often watch their mother/ father’s emotion expression before reacting to a social situation
Infant more likely to do this when faced with ambiguous situations
Repacholi (2009)
Examined children’s understanding of the link between emotions and actions using a social-referencing task
Observed a model completing a simple task (pulling apart a toy that consisted of two previously combined tubes) and reacting to the action.
15- (n=96) and 18- (n=96) month old infants. Allocated to one of four conditions, where the models reaction to the action embodied one of the following four reactions:
Anger
Happy
Neutral
Control (where they did not pull apart the toy, they simply looked at it)
Repacholi (2009) findings
Infants observed the model interacting with the object, complete the action and then demonstrate the emotion
Found no difference between the conditions in terms of the amount of time infants spent with the object
Infants in the angry condition did not reproduce the action…
Labelling emotions
Studies shown so far indicate that infants are able to interpret emotions.
Studies have also attempted to explore when children can accurately label and describe emotions.
However, difficult to study this as infants are required to have a high level of language ability .
