Emotional Development: Chapter 10

Emotional Development: Chapter 10 Study Notes

• Modern theories underscore the functional value of emotion.
• Emotions aid in adapting to one's environment, with fear helping to avoid danger and happiness strengthening relationships.

Basic Emotions

• Basic emotions encompass a subjective feeling.
• Physiological changes and overt behaviors are elements of basic emotions.
• Examples of basic emotions are happiness, anger and fear.
• When feeling happy, a person might smile and experience an increased heart rate.

Key Emotion: Happiness

• Happiness is regarded as a basic emotion experienced universally.
• Happiness involves a subjective feeling, physiological change, and overt behavior.

Elements of Basic Emotions

• A subjective feeling constitutes one aspect.
• A physiological change is also an aspect.
• An overt behavior is a component.
• When scared, subjective feelings of fear are felt.
• An increased heart rate is a physiological response.
• Running away is an overt behavior.

Subjective Feelings Defined

• Subjective feeling is the personal experience of an emotion.
• Feeling as though floating on air due to happiness exemplifies a subjective feeling.

Assessing Infant Emotions

• Researchers use facial expressions to gauge an infant's emotional state.
• Infants' emotions are conveyed through their faces as they cannot verbally communicate.

Development of Basic Emotions

• Children experience basic emotions quite early in life.
• Babies exhibit emotions like happiness and anger through smiles and cries in their first few months.

Adaptiveness of Happiness

• Happiness aids in building stronger interpersonal relationships.
• Smiling when happy can induce happiness in others, strengthening bonds.

Emotional States in Young Babies

• Many scientists suggest that young babies experience broad positive and negative emotional states.
• Babies have general feelings of good or bad without specific emotions like guilt or pride.

Emergence of Social Smiles

• Social smiles typically emerge around two to three months of age.
• Social smiles indicate that babies are beginning to engage in social interaction.
• Social smiles are often displayed when an infant sees another person.
• Social smiles demonstrate happiness to interact with others.

Emergence of Fear

• Fear emerges before guilt, embarrassment, and pride.
• Babies begin displaying fear, such as stranger wariness, around 6 months old.

Distinct Displays of Anger

• The first distinct displays of anger typically occur between four and six months.
• Anger may arise if a toy is taken away or when a baby can't reach something they want.

Infants and Fear

• Presence of an unfamiliar adult can trigger first signs of fear in an infant.
• Stranger wariness is a sign of fear.
• Babies become wary and may cry upon seeing someone they don't know.
• Stranger wariness manifests around 6 months.

Minimizing Stranger Wariness

• Introducing babies to strangers in a familiar environment can minimize stranger wariness.
• Babies tend to exhibit less fear of strangers in places they know well.
• Stranger wariness acts as a restraint for mobile infants from wandering away from familiar caregivers.
• Stranger wariness ensures babies stay close to those they know and trust.

Complex Emotions

• Embarrassment is considered a complex emotion.
• Complex emotions involve an evaluative component.
• Complex emotions typically do not emerge until 18 to 24 months of age.
• Developing an understanding of the self is important to feel complex emotions.

Self-Understanding

• Some understanding of the self paves the way for complex emotions.
• Understanding the self is usually obtained at roughly 15 to 18 months.

Preschoolers' Fears

• Preschool children are known to be afraid of the dark or imaginary creatures.
• A better understanding of the difference between appearance and reality diminishes imaginary fears.

School Worries

• A seven-year-old who worries about school is not unusual.
• It is unusual if their concern grows to the point that they refuse to go to school.

Cultural Emotion Expression

• Asian children show more pride in class achievement.
• The Asian child is less embarrassed by a public display of individual achievement in comparison to their North American counterpart.
• Complex emotions are triggered by different events in different cultures.

Perception and Facial Expressions

• Infants begin distinguishing different facial expressions by six months.
• A six-month-old baby is expected to match her emotion to her mother's when her mother smiles and talks in a pleasant voice.

Emotion Regulation

• A one-year-old who uses the reaction of her mother to regulate her own behavior is using social referencing.
• Infants use their parents’ facial expressions to help them interpret unfamiliar situations.
• Using parents' facial expressions to help interpret unfamiliar situations is social referencing.
• Recognizing others' emotions is important in social referencing.
• Children begin to realize people can have "mixed feelings" over the elementary school years.
• A child can feel both good and bad at the same time.

Display Rules

• Display rules are culturally specific standards for appropriate displays of emotion.
• Children's understanding of emotions is related to a positive, rewarding relationship with parents and siblings.

Regulation of Emotion

• Infants regulate their emotions.
• Emotional regulation involves the use of cognitive strategies to ignore or remind oneself of something.
• Moving closer to a parent shows emotion regulation.

Temperament

• Temperament is an infant’s consistent mood and style of behavior.
• Temperament is a stable behavior style across situations and biologically based.
• The biggest group of babies are categorized as easy babies.
• Irina who is cheerful and adjusts well to new situations would fall under the easy temperament classification.
• Adriana who cries, responds intensely, and doesn't have a regular sleeping and eating schedule is classified as a difficult baby.

Temperament Classifications

• Carrie, who is often unhappy and dislikes new foods falls under the slow-to-warm-up category.
• A difficult baby and slow-to-warm-up baby would both be often unhappy.
• Temperament structure appears to be similar worldwide.
• Jevan who is hard to console is considered to be high on the dimension of negative affect.
• The amount of time a child devotes to an activity is their persistence.
• Artem enjoying vigorous play shows a high activity level.
• Negative affect is more influenced by heredity than the other temperament dimensions.

Twin Studies

• Identical twins are more alike in temperament than fraternal twins.
• Lack of confidence will have her child more likely to develop an intense, difficult temperament.
• Children less likely to benefit from high-quality childcare than those without the variant have a specific variant of the DRD4 gene.
• European American babies tend to be more emotional in stressful situations.
• Asian infants are less emotional.
• Japanese mother, Seiko, spends with her baby more time than European counter parts to have a close physical contact.

Influences of Temperament

• The influence of temperament depends on the environment.
• Studies show that temperament from infancy to childhood is somewhat stable.
• Temperament measured in the first few months of life is moderately related to temperament measured later in infancy.
• Inhibited two-year-olds tend to be shy four-year-olds.
• Preschoolers with difficult temperaments are more likely than children with easy temperaments to have behavior problems when they start school.
• Shy children often have problems interacting with peers.
• Allan with a difficult temperament is likely than Ethan to have behavioral problems when they start school.

Social Relationships

• Children with greater self-regulation have more positive life outcomes.

Attachment

• Attachment increases the infant's likelihood of survival.
• Children are more likely to survive with an attachment to an adult.
• The four phases Bowlby described in the growth of attachment are preattachment, attachment in the making, true attachment, and reciprocal relationships.
• The infant singles out the attachment figure at approximately seven months.

Fathers

• Infants usually form attachments to mothers and fathers.
• Typical fathers are likely to spend more time playing.

The Strange Situation

• The Strange Situation is used to study attachment relationships.
• Researchers use the Strange Situation to study relationships.
• Harjit exhibits secure attachment where she wanted to be held for a moment and then play by herself.

Attachment Classifications

• The majority of North American babies have secure attachment.
• Aida having an avoid attachment with her mother by ignoring her return.
• Babies with sign upset at departure and not consoled at return show resistant attachment.
• They may be confused when her mother leaves and not really understand what's happening.
• Secure attachment is the most common.
• Securely attached babies tend to interact more confidently and successfully with his peers than insecurely attached.
• Children with secure attachments tend to have more satisfying social relationships.

Attachment in Parents

• Parents that are sensitive and responsive to their babies.
• Parents should respond to your infant predictably and sensitively.
• They are more likely to form a secure attachment.

Expectations

• Expectation for a parent's availability is a internal working model.

Secure Adults

• Michelle is a secure adult because she remembers her childhood in a happy manner.
• In contrast, Jude is dismissive because he describes it generally and idealizes his parents.

Attachment Factors

• The single most important factor related to secure attachment is the quality of parenting.
• Government interventions put attachment at risk.