week 5 - emotional development Flashcards
According to Izard (2010), what structers and systems create emotion?
- processes
- response systems
- feelings
- expressive behaviour
- antecedent cognitive appraisal
- cognitive interpretation of a feeling state
What is emotional development?
- expressing own emotions
- regulating own emotions
- recognising, labeling & understanding the emotions of others
What evidence suggests babies can express emotions from birth?
- photographs of infant emotions can be correctly categorised by adults (Izard et al., 1980)
- fecial musclature is developed enough to display a full range of emotions
- facial actions of fetuses in the 3rd trimester are similar to those seen in children and adults (Hata et al., 2013)
- congenitally blind people involuntarily produce emotion expressions (Cole et al., 1989)
What emotions can parents identify on their childs face?
- a contented baby is happy and smiling
- a discontented baby has pursed lips and is crying
- parents can identify particularly primary emotions (Campos et al., 1983)
What did Steiner et al. (2001) discover about neonates’ facial expressions related to taste?
found that neonates showed a positive facial expression in response to sucrose (sweet), and a negative facial affect in response to quinine (bitter)
- videotaped facial expressions of 23 neonates in the first hour of birth as they drank sucrose & Quinine
- hedonic response to sucrose - positive facial affect
- aversive response to quinine - negative facial affect
What are the stages of attachment and stranger distress according to Bowlyby’s (1958, 1969) 5 stages
- 0-2 months - indiscriminative social responsiveness. inbuilt emotional signals (smiling, crying) designed to draw mother near
- 2-7 months - beginnings of attachment. preferential orientation to discriminated other. more likely to smile at or be comforted by primary caregiver, however the stranger is still accepted
- 7 months-2 years - locomotion; actively seeks proximity to attachment figure(s). separation protest due to fear of strangers
- 2-5 years - goal corrected partnership. the child begins to take account of others needs, and can wait while the caregiver is absent (with explanation)
- school age onwards - proximity seeking reduces. relationship based on IWM
What is self-awareness (morin, 2011)?
The capacity to become the object of ones own attention
What are secondary emotions, and what is required for their development?
secondary emotions (e.g. pride, shame, guilt) rely on the development of self-awareness
When does self-awareness develop in infants?
- 9-12 month olds show preference for pictures of themselves over other babies
- reliable self-recognition typically emerges from 18-24 months. the child begins to develop ‘awareness of self’
How do babies show evidence of self-recognition?
- during their first few years, babies smile and vocalise at their mirror reflections
- is a babies interest in mirrors simply because they see an interesting social stimulus or do babies realise that they are seeing themselves
- to be truly considered self-recognition, a subject must understand:
- that the perceptual experience is not to be taken at face value
- that the source of the visual impression of another person is oneself
- that the appearance of another person provides info about oneself
- that one is looking at an image of oneself
What is the “Rouge Test” (Gallup, 1970) and what does it test?
- a coloured mark is placed on the infant in a place they cannot usually see (i.e. forehead)
- baby is then placed in front of a mirror
- researchers observe whether the baby attempts to touch the mark
- used to test self-recognition
How do self-conscious emotions develop and what are some examples?
self-conscious emotions require integration of more complex knowledge structures, self-awareness, personal responsibility etc
these include:
- guilt
- shame
- jealousy
- empathy
- embarrassment
According to Lewis (2016), how does guilt differ from shame?
Guilt involves feeling empathy for others, remorse, regret, and a desire to undo the consequences of behaviour. Shame is related to feelings of self-worth, where one focuses on oneself and often feels exposed
How did Barrett et al. (1993) distinguish shame and guilt in 2-year-olds?
- a doll was rigged so that one leg would fall off while the experimenter was out of the room
- some toddlers displayed shame - avoiding adult on return, delaying telling them about the mis-hap
- others displayed guilt - repairing doll quickly and told adult quickly, not avoiding them
According to Murris & Meesters (2013), what are the two types of pride?
- authentic pride (“i did that well”)
- hubristic pride (“I did that well”)
What did Lewis (1992) find about pride and shame in relation to task difficulty in 3 year olds?
by 3 years old, children expressed pride more often on completion of a difficult task and expressed shame more often if they failed an easy task
What did Haviland & Lelwica (1987) observe about 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
they observed that babies often mirrored their mothers’ facial expressions; if the mother was happy, so was the baby, and if the mother was angry, so was the baby
What did Montague & Walker-Andrews (2001) discover in their peekaboo experiment with 4-month-old infants, and how did they find this?
They found that infants paid more visual attention in emotion-change conditions, also more for anger/fear than sadness. they also showed increased interest in emotion change conditions compared to the happy condition
4 peekaboo trials which varied in the emotion change in the fourth trial
- change to anger
- change to fear
- change to sadness
- no change - stayed happy/suprise
examined the emotional responses of 40 four-month-old infants
What is social referencing (Feinman, 1982)
the process where an individual uses their perception of another person’s interpretation of a situation to form their own understanding of that situation
- an infant will often watch their mother/fathers emotion expression before reacting to a social situation
- infant more likely to do this when faced with ambiguous situations
What did Repacholi (2009) discover about infants’ responses to a model’s emotional reaction to a task?
infants in the angry condition did not reproduce the action
examined children’s understanding of the link between emotions and actios 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 and 18 month old infants were allocated to 1 of 4 conditions, where the models reaction to the action embodied one of four reactions:
- anger
- happy
- neutral
- control (where they did not pull apart the toy)
- infants observed the model interacting with the object, complete the action and then demonstrate the emotion
- results found no difference between the conditions in terms of the amount of time infants spent with the object
What did Montirosso et al. (2010) discover about children’s ability to label emotions from 4-18 years old?
they discovered that recognition ability (except for disgust) developed with age, and accuracy increased with the intensity of emotional expression. girls were more accurate than boys, particularly with anger and disgust
What researchers investigated the impact of face masks and emotion recognition?
- Carbon, 2020
- Kastendieck et al., 2023
What were the results of Bourke et al’s. (2023) study on emotion recognition and facemasks?
- facemasks improved the accuracy of recognising anger
- facemasks impaired the recognition of happiness and sadness
- facemasks had no impact on language processing
What were the results of Chester et al’s. (2021) study on emotion recognition and face masks?
- masking impacted happiness and sadness recognition but not anger
- masking effect was stronger for children whose families engaged in a greater degree of social distancing during the pandemic
What were the results of Giordano’s (2024) study on emotion recognition and facemasks?
- tested children aged 3-5 years
- children with more exposure to adults wearing masks were better able to identify emotions in masked faces
What was the study and findings of Wermlinger et al. (2022) regarding gaze following in infants during the pandemic?
Compared gaze following behaviours of infants before the pandemic and those in the pandemic
- one hypothesis believed pandemic infants will be more sensitive to gaze direction due to eyes being isolated during mask wearing
- another believed infants will be less sensitive to gaze direction, due to lack of integration of multi-sensory cues
There were no significant differences found in gaze following behavior between infants who experienced the pandemic and those who did not. Additionally, the amount of mask exposure did not affect infants’ gaze behavior
According to Harris (1989), what 3 precursors are needed for a child to project emotions onto others?
Harris argued that a child’s awareness of their own emotions allows them to project these emotions onto others. there are 3 precursors:
- self-awareness
- the capacity for pretense
- distinguishing reality from pretense
What did Harris (1989) find about 4 year old’s ability to understand others’ emotions?
Four-year-olds can identify how someone would feel in a situation, but they have difficulty predicting how someone will feel before the situation occurs
- children were read a story. some children were told ellie the elephant only likes to drink milk, and others only coke. mickey the monkey is mischevious and mixes up the drink containers. e.g. he may pour all the coke from the can and replace it with milk.
- the children are asked how she would feel when she tastes the drink
- 4 year olds can answer correctly (ellie would be pleased if she likes milk, and sad if she likes coke)
- Harris asked children how they think ellie will feel before she has a drink
- 6 year olds can do this, 4 year olds have difficulty
- links to development of theory of mind
What was Harris’ (1989) diana study?
- diana falls over and hurts herself. she knows the other children will laugh if she shows how she feels. so she tries to hide how she feels
- what will diana do and why?
- many 6 year olds were able to identify that diana will pretend to be happy and can explain why
- 4 year old children cannot do this, they can label that she would feel sad, but cannot identify that diana would pretend to feel happy
What did Harris’ conclude from his 2 studies?
- identified that children develop hypotheses about other people’s emotions (involves capacity for pretence)
- as children develop, they begin to understand that other people can feel a different emotion (meta-representation)
- similar to developing a theory of mind
According to Gross (2015), what is the definition of emotion regulation?
all those processes through which people influence the emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them
What is the functionalist perspective of emotional regulation?
emotions function to stimulate a person to act in a particular way to achieve a goal
What are emotional display rules (Saarni, 1984)?
rules that dictate how emotions should be expressed in social situations. e.g. “look pleased and smile when someone gives you something that they expect you to like, even if you dont”
How did Saarni (1984) study childrens ability to develop emotional display rules?
within participants design
age range 6-10 years
- session 1: children asked to complete workbook & videoed completing sample pages. afterwards, presented with attractively wrapped present of sweets, drink and some money. invited to return in 2 days
- session 2: same procedure, but after, children presented with poor quality baby toy
- developmental trend: older children more likely to display appropriate reaction in both conditions
- in condition 2, nearly all 6 year olds displayed dissapointment
- girls more likely than boys to offer positive response in both conditions
- 8-10 year old boys often showed ‘transitional’ response e.g. puzzled expression
3 factors impacted response:
- awareness of social convention
- ability to produce socially prescribed expression
- motivated to carry out prescribed behaviour
What developmental milestones assist children’s ability to regulate their emotions?
- motor functioning develops from crawling to walking, infants will be able to reach a particular object (reduces feelings of anger and frustration)
- changes in cognitive functioning:
- evoke memories to alter emotional responses
- development of representational abilities
- emotions can impact on cognitive functioning such as attention
- improved language ability:
- parents direct through commands ‘please stop crying’
- parent child talk about emotions
- suggestion of emotion regulation strategies
How does social learning theory explain emotional regulation?
initially, infants’ behaviour is controlled externally by parents. Children internalize instructions through modeling, consequences, and direct instruction
- with experience, children begin to anticipate the reactions of others
- they can use this knowledge to self-regulate their behaviour
What were the 3 behavioural strategies coded in the Ratcliff et al. (2024) waiting task?
- self-soothing
- bids (verbal or non-verbal attention seeking)
- distraction
How did Ratcliff et al., (2024) study emotion and behavioural recognition in 2-5 year olds?
- children tested every year
- 8 minute waiting task
- wrapped “suprise” left on table
- children given boring toy to play with during wait
- researchers measured:
- self soothing: physical movements
- bids: verbal or non-verbal attention-seeking
- distraction: child changes focus to another activity
results
- self soothing: steep decline from 2 to 5 years
- bids: 24-36 months show an increase as language ability increases. bids shift from angry to calm. bids then decline from 3 years onwards
- distraction: increases in the frequency, duration, and dominance of distraction with age
According to Eigisti (2006), what is early performance on delay of gratification tasks associated with later in life?
early performance on delayed gratification tasks was associated with better performance on inhibitory tasks 10 years later. it is considered a sign of early functional intergrity of frontal-striatal regions
According to research, what can better emotion regulation in childhood predict?
- SAT scores (Shoda et al., 1990)
- social cognitive and emotional coping in adolescence (Mischel et al., 1988)
- less drug use
- buffers against aggressive tendencies, responses to peer rejection and diminished wellbeing (Ayduck et al., 2000)
- overall better physical health (Mischel et al. 2006)
