Social Development Study Guide PDF

Week 1 - Introduction Key Questions: ​ What is the study of social development? ​ What are the critical questions examined in social development? Describe what the study of social development entails. What are the 4 “R’s” and how do they provide a framework for studying social development?...

Week 1 - Introduction Key Questions: ​ What is the study of social development? ​ What are the critical questions examined in social development? Describe what the study of social development entails. What are the 4 “R’s” and how do they provide a framework for studying social development? ​ Social development entails all the ways in which children acquire the attitudes, values, and behaviors that enable them to fit into the world of people and social institutions. ​ 4 Rs: ○​ Social Responsiveness → the degree of influenceability by others ○​ Social Reasoning → Expectations about others’ behaviors and the interpretation of social situations ○​ Social Relationships → Bonds & affiliations with others ○​ Social Regulation → meeting the behavioral expectations of others ​ Social development framework ○​ Describe the critical questions of social development ​ biological and environmental influences ○​ How do biological and environmental influences affect social development? ○​ Is our development rooted in Nature (biology & maturation) or is our development rooted in Nurture (the environment and learning)? ○​ The modern view, today, is that the Environment & Biology both influence development. How is the expression of a particular gene shaped by the environment? ​ role children play in their own development ○​ Do children play a passive role in their development? Is their development shaped by external sources? ○​ Do children play an active role in their development? Are they curious and seek out information?  ○​ The transactional model gives that ongoing interchanges between social partners across result in modifications of the social behavior of each person. ○​ Today, we see that children are active agents who, to an extent, shape, control, and direct the course of their development. ​ appropriate unit for studying social development; continuous and discontinuous development ○​ What is the appropriate unit for studying social development? Do we focus only on the individual child? Or, do we focus in on social dyads—a pair of social partners, such as friends, parent or other caregiver and child, marital partners, etc? Or, do we focus on social groups? ○​ Are all units important? ○​ All units serve specific roles and purposes for social development and are important. ​ role of the situation vs. the child ○​ Is social behavior the result of the situation or the child? ○​ Does the child behave differently in different situations, or do individual characteristics lead children to behave similarly across different situations? ​ the universality of social development; ○​ Is social development universal across cultures? ○​ Are there culture-free laws of development (acquiring the basic foundations of social life) OR are there variation in beliefs and child-rearing practices across cultural settings (variation in patterns of social behavior)? ○​ Some aspects of social development are universal while others are culturally specific. ​ variation across historical eras; ○​ How does social development vary across historical eras? ○​ There are gradual shifts: Family timing and structure; modes of communication; mothers working outside the home, etc. ○​ There are also significant events: War, economic depression, natural disasters, etc. ○​ So, do children develop the same regardless of what’s happening around them? ​ social development as related to other domains; ○​ Is social development related to other developmental domains? ○​ Yes!! It’s interdisciplinary. ○​ Cognitive, language, perceptual, motor, and social development all work relatively together. ​ importance of mothers vs. others; ○​ How important are mothers for children’s social development? ○​ Mothers aren’t the only key players. They are important, but so are others. ○​ Fathers, siblings, grandparents, relatives, teachers, caregivers, etc. all play a significant role ​ single vs. multiple pathways of development; ○​ Is there a single pathway for social development? ○​ Normative steps vs. varied routes: ​ Multifinality: two individuals start out similarly but end at very different points ​ Equifinality: individuals follow very different paths to reach the same developmental endpoints ​ influences on judgments of children’s social behavior Week 2 - Theoretical views and research with children Key Questions: ​ What are the main theoretical perspectives that guide research on social development? ​ How are social behaviors learned? ​ How do we study the impact of context? ​ What are the main issues to consider when working with children? ​ How is the nature of children's play influenced by context? Review each of the theoretical perspectives presented, describe their main principles (no need to go into details), and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. ​ Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory — Psychological growth is governed by unconscious biologically based drives and instincts and is shaped by encounters with the environment. ○​ Five main stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages ○​ Early experiences are essential for determining later behavior. ​ Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory – Each stage of development depends on accomplishing a psychological task in interactions with the social environment ​ Learning Theories – Emphasize how new behaviors are acquired through a gradual and continuous process of learning. ○​ Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning ○​ Watson’s Little Albert Classical Conditioning ○​ Skinner’s Operant Conditioning ​ Bandura’s Cognitive Social-Learning Theory – Children learn social behaviors by observing and imitating other people ○​ e.g. Bobo Doll Study ​ Siegler’s Social Information-processing Theory — Focuses on how children take in, use and remember information to make decisions about social actions. ​ Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory — Children actively seek new experiences and from them construct mental structures. ○​ They assimilate new information into existing structures and accommodate structures when the information doesn’t fit. ​ Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory — Focuses on the contributions of social and cultural factors to children’s development. Children grow and change as a function of their own efforts and the guidance of skilled others. ​ Bronfenbrenn’s Ecological Model – see below ​ Ethological – Observe behavior in natural settings and study patterns of behavior across human and infrahuman species and across human societies. ​ Evolutionary Theory — Social behaviors reflect survival needs and processes of human evolution. ​ Life Span Perspective — Emphasizes development over the entire life course. Explain why several complementary theories are needed for the study of social development. ​ Several complementary theories are needed for the study of social development because there are different ways we learn. Some forms of social learning and development are involuntary while others are voluntary. ​ Different things influence different things. Compare and contrast classical and instrumental/operant conditioning, and describe the social learning view on the development of social responsiveness. ​ Classical conditioning: ○​ It’s pairing a learned response to one stimulus with another stimulus ○​ Provides training for an automatic, reflexive response ○​ Behaviors will invariably/always follow patterns of a particular stimulus, then get transferred to another stimulus that would not normally produce it. ​ Operant/Instrumental conditioning ○​ A response to a stimulus is instrumental to gaining a reward ○​ Voluntary behavior is designed to operate on the environment in a way that will gain something desired or avoid something unpleasant ○​ Works in two ways: negative/positive punishment/reinforcement ​ Reinforcement increases the chances that a behavior will occur again. ​ Positive reinforcement adds something pleasant to increase behaviors ​ Negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant to increase behaviors ​ Punishment decreases the chances that a behavior will occur again ​ Positive punishment adds something unpleasant to decrease behaviors. ​ Negative punishment removes something pleasant to decrease behaviors. ○​ Also includes shaping, generalization, and discrimination ​ Social learning view on the development of social responsiveness ○​ Social responsiveness arises from social contingencies Describe what is meant by bidirectional contingencies, and how children are thought to learn from observing others. Be sure to provide research to back up your answer. ​ Bidirectional contingencies mean individuals learn from their environment and others, and vice versa. We learn from each other and influence learning in others. ○​ e.g. A child’s behavior impacts how their parents react, but how their parents act also impacts how the child will behave. ​ Social contingencies can be acquired passively, too, by observing the contingencies of others (observational learning). ​ Research in contingencies for preschool aggressive behavior → Patterson et al. ○​ Preschoolers were observed for 16 weeks for instances of aggressive acts (bodily attack, attack with an object, verbal or symbolic attack, or infringement of property or territory) ○​ The responses of the victim and the consequences to the aggressor are recorded ​ Positive response → The victim is passive and cries, creating a defensive posture from the aggressor ​ Negative response → the victim tells the teacher, the victim recovers the property, the victim retaliates, or the teacher intervenes. ○​ Baseline aggression is measured during the initial 16 weeks. And then four months later, the children are observed again for 10 weeks. ○​ The results found that: ​ 80% of aggressive acts were followed by positive consequences to the aggressor. ​ Positive consequences led to repeated aggression toward the same victim. ​ Negative consequences led to a change in some sort: (1) different aggression with the same victim or (2) same aggression with a different victim ○​ There was also an impact on the aggression of these preschoolers: ​ Children who were initially high in aggression became more aggressive. ​ This could be because they learned that there weren’t many consequences and/or the victims didn’t retaliate → SHOWS THEY LEARNED FROM CONTINGENCIES ​ Children who were initially low but successfully retaliated against aggression also became increasingly aggressive ​ This could be because they learned how to retaliate/stand up for themselves → SHOWS THEY LEARNED FROM CONTINGENCIES ​ Children who were initially low and did not retaliate against aggression did not increase in aggression ○​ The results show that children learn from social contingencies and events with their peers. ​ Other research with mothers & children also found that social contingencies are further bidirectional. ○​ A study had 32 mothers and 2 10-year-old actors who were trained to behave either in a (1) anxious-withdrawn way or (2) conduct-disordered way ○​ The research found that mothers adjusted to children’s behavior, suggesting bidirectionality  ​ Mothers were more encouraging and offered more rewards to the “anxious-withdrawn” child but were more restrictive and critical with the “conduct-disordered” child What is meant by a learning-performance distinction and what do we know about the extent to which children learn vs. perform observed behaviors? ​ The Learning-Performance Distinction discusses whether children will actually perform behaviors that they’ve learned/observed. ○​ Learning is when behaviors are acquired through observation that may/may not ever be performed. ○​ Performance is behaviors that are actually repeated by the child ​ A step further from the Bobo Doll Study, the learning-performance distinction was studied. ○​ 1. Children observed a model doing a series of behaviors. ○​ 2. Then, children were allowed free play in the room where the model had been observed. ​ The number of actions that were imitated spontaneously and without incentive were recorded. Then, the children were offered a bribe to show as many of the model’s actions as possible. ○​ The findings found that ​ More imitation occurred when the model was reward or received no punishment ​ There was equal imitation under the incentive ​ And more imitation by boys than girls. ○​ This study shows that children can learn behaviors, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will perform them. Identify and provide examples for each of the levels in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model. ​ Microsystem → the immediate social context ○​ Home, religious settings, neighborhood, school, etc. ​ Mesosystem → the interconnections between microsystems ○​ e.g. parent-teacher conferences ​ Exosystem → the larger environment with no direct contact ○​ e.g. local industry, school board, local government, parents’ workplace, etc. ​ Macrosystem → values of society/culture in which the individual lives ​ Chronosystem → time & transitions Describe the various methods of gathering data (e.g., self-reports, reports by others, focus groups, observations) and the strengths and weaknesses of each. ​ Self-report → Information a person provides about themself ○​ Weaknesses → children are less attentive, are slower to respond, and have more trouble understanding the questions that researchers ask.  ○​ Strengths → children are the best at knowing how they themselves feel ​ Reports by others → based on observations over time and provide an objective reality ○​ Strengths → provide perceptions, expectations, beliefs, and interpretations of the child’s environment ○​ Weaknesses → Children’s behavior may be influenced by others & reports may be incorrect ​ Focus groups → a group interview in which an interview poses questions that are answered by the participants ○​ Strengths → provide opportunities for parents and children to talk about their concerns, values, and goals; learn about cultural differences ○​ Weaknesses → group setting might make it hard to speak up ​ Observations → provide insight into children’s behavior by observing them in both naturalistic and structured settings ○​ Strengths → Children can be more comfortable in familiar settings and environments ○​ Weakness → Children may act differently with an observer around and observer bias Explain why it is important to protect children’s rights when conducting research. Discuss special ethical issues that should be considered (i.e., informed consent), and what precautions are taken to ensure that children are protected. ​ Protecting children’s rights makes sure research is conducted ethically and protects their rights and health. ​ Informed consent is an agreement to participate based on a clear understanding of the purposes of the study and the procedures that will be followed. ​ Ethical guidelines include protecting participants from physical and emotional. Summarize the key takeaways from “The Overprotected Kid” and “Inside a European Playground” and explain their relevance to the study of social development. ​ The Overprotected Kid & Inside a European Playground ○​ As health and safety codes have changed over the years and playgrounds have become more regulated, the amount of risky play has decreased. ○​ In today’s playgrounds, there’s less chance for creativity and imaginative play. ○​ However, in an adventure playground in England, the toys and equipment are not bolted down to the ground and are open to be moved around and managed. It allows children to be more creative and risky with their play. ○​ This form of play allows children to overcome fears and phobias. Additionally, when there’s little parental supervision, parents do enforce their fears and phobias on the child. ○​ Additionally, when children have more chances for risky play, the chances of them developing mental illnesses and disorders decrease. Describe the main points about the impact of context, both geographical and historical, as portrayed in the documentary “Where do the Children Play?” How do “free range” parenting and adventure playgrounds add to our understanding of contextual influences? ​ “Where do the Children Play?” emphasized that context plays an important role when it comes to play and children’s accessibility to it. Whether they live in urban, rural, or suburban areas, these types of communities impact the type of play they experience, the safety of it, and the level of its resources. In addition, socioeconomic status plays an important role. Lower-income communities have less up-kept play areas, but the community is different and stronger. Higher-income communities have more up-kept play areas, but there’s less socialization. ​ “Free range” parenting allows children to learn the skills to be adaptable and independent adults. However, there’s a level of privilege that comes with free-range parenting. Often, suburban, white, high SES parents and families are able to exercise free-range parenting in a better manner than their opposite counterparts. Week 3 - Biological Foundations Key Questions: ​ What makes us think biological processes are involved in social responsiveness? ​ What biological processes might account for these tendencies? ​ How does experience also play a role in these biological processes? ​ Why would we think differences in social responsiveness are linked to biological differences? ​ What characteristics of individual children seem to go along with differences that have known biological links? ​ What evidence do we have that environment contributes to differences? Describe what is meant by biological preparedness. Provide research examples illustrating this concept. Explain how this preparedness is adaptive. ​ Biological preparedness is the concept that individuals have biological underpinnings that prepare and make infants ready for social interaction and ensure their survival. ​ Biological Preparedness Habit #1: Behavior follows biological rhythms that they can control and regulate; they can interact with other individuals (e.g. their parents) ○​ Prepare for the time-based nature of social interaction ​ Biological Preparedness Habit #2: Attracted to visual social stimuli; infants stare longer at objects and things that represent the human face and its light/shadow contrasts ​ Biological Preparedness Habit #3: Auditory preparedness for social interaction; early on, infants recognize their mother’s voice (and eventually their father’s, too) ○​ Prefer high-pitched sounds, too ​ Biological Preparedness Habit #4: Prefer and can distinguish the smell of their own mother’s milk Describe the overall developmental sequence of brain development and how the sequence is linked to advancements in various areas of functioning (Note: no memorization of detailed brain structures expected). ​ There is an orderly sequence to brain development during infancy with both gradual and continuous changes and periods of relatively rapid development. ​ Changes are linked to advances in auditory, visual, motor, and socioemotional development. ​ The motor cortex has growth spurts, first, going from reflexible behavior to more control over voluntary movement. (rooting & startle response go away and shift into walking and crawling, searching for objects, etc.) ​ The visual cortex has growth spurts, causing infants to start to look longer at facelike stimuli. ​ A growth spurt in the auditory cortex allows the infant to be more sensitive to human voices and language input from caregivers.  ​ The growth spurt in the cortex from 5-7 years involves the development of the prefrontal cortex and is associated with executive processes. ​ Brain changes in adolescence are associated with social behavior. Define experience-expectant and experience-dependent processes. Provide examples. ​ Experience-expectant processes → Brain processes that are universal and are experienced by all human beings across evolution. ○​ e.g. When children have defects in their eyes, their visual cortex fails to develop properly because it doesn’t have the visual stimulation it expects to have. ​ Experience-dependent processes → Brain processes that are unique to the individual and responsive to particular cultural, community, and family experiences. ○​ e.g. American children have brains that are more developed in the area of fine motor and eye-hand coordination needed for success at video games while children in Mozambique have motor cortexes that reflect skills associated with hunting and fishing Define what a mirror neuron is and how it is related to social behavior. ​ A mirror neuron is a nerve cell that fires both when a person acts and when a person observes the same action performed by someone else as if the observer themself were acting. ​ Important for (1) learning new skills by imitation, (2) understanding others’ actions and intentions (empathy), and (3) linked to language acquisition and the development of the theory of mind Clearly define heritability and explain how it is studied. Define what monozygotic and dizygotic twins are and how they are used in the study of human behavior genetics. ​ Heritability → the quality of a characteristic (e.g., social behavior) being transmissible from parent to offspring ​ Monozygotic vs. Dizygotic twins ○​ Monozygotic Twins → Twins that are created when a single zygote splits in half and each half becomes a distinct embryo with exactly the same genes (identical twins) ○​ Dizygotic Twins → Twins that develop from two different eggs that have been fertilized by two different sperm, producing two different zygotes (fraternal twins) ​ Importance: ○​ Twins share the same environment (for the most part). When they have the same environment, we can know if certain behaviors are rooted in genetics. ○​ Researchers assume that if identical twins show more resemblance on a particular trait than fraternal twins do, the resemblance is influenced by genes.  ○​ In contrast, if, on a given trait, the two types of twins resemble each other almost equally, the researchers assume that the resemblance is influenced by the environment. Define temperament. Describe the three different types of temperament identified in the research by Thomas and Chess. ​ Temperament → Broad patterns of personality and behavior. ○​ Constitutionally based individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity and self-regulation, modifiable experience. ○​ An individual’s typical mode of response including activity level, emotional intensity, and attention span. ​ The three temperament types: ○​ Easy (flexible) – positive mood, low intensity of reactions, fast adaptation, etc ○​ Difficult (spirited) – negative mood, sleeps and eats irregularly, easily upset by new situations, high intensity reactions (fussing, crying), etc ○​ Slow-to-warm up – low-moderate activity, mild intensity of reactions, tend to respond negatively to new stimuli at first but slowly adapt after repeated contact ​ However, there were ⅓ of children who didn’t fall under these temperamental types and fell somewhere in between. Describe Rothbart’s 3 temperament dimensions (effortful control, negative affectivity, extraversion-surgency). ​ Effortful control – one’s ability to focus or shift attention and suppress dominant or inappropriate responses ​ Negative affectivity – prevalence of negative emotions such as frustration, fear, and discomfort ​ Extraversion – activity level and engagement with others Discuss benefits and drawbacks of measuring temperament via parent report, teacher report, and observational ratings. ​ Parent ratings — questionnaires filled out by parents (e.g. Infant Behavior Questionnaire [IBQ], Child Behavior Questionnaire [CBQ]) ○​ Pros: ​ Know the child the best ​ Establishes cultural norms and what is normal for the child ​ Creates and controls the environment ​ See them during the day and in different contexts ○​ Cons: ​ Biased ​ Parental mental illness could impact perceptions of the child ​ Teacher ratings — teacher/daycare provider versions of questionnaires ○​ Pros:  ​ Less biased (more objective) ​ Can compare to past experiences ​ Can report on peer interactions ​ Understand and see children’s adaptability more ○​ Cons: ​ Children may act differently in school, causing warped teacher perception ​ Less 1:1 ​ Children are in only one context ​ Could be biased due to race, favoritism, gender, etc. ​ Observational measures — structured situations designed to assess temperament ○​ Pros: ​ Unbiased ​ Standardized for all participants ​ Direct feedback ​ Designed to measure for specific characteristics ○​ Cons: ​ Unfamiliar ​ Culturally biased (more Eurocentric) ​ A limited sample of behavior ​ Contrived setting Describe what is known about the biological bases of temperament (genetic factors, neural correlates, early evidence of temperament). ​ Genetic Factors ○​ Scientists believe that temperament is at least in part genetically organized and that genetic influences become increasingly prominent throughout early childhood. ○​ Heredity contributes to individual differences in temperament dimensions, such as emotionality, fearfulness, anxiety, activity level, attention span, persistence, and sociability. ○​ There has been some progress in identifying genes or clusters of genes that are associated with variations in temperament. ○​ But, the environment plays a moderating role in how these genetic influences are expressed. ○​ As we get older, temperament becomes less closely linked to genetic factors. ​ Neural correlates ○​ Researchers have discovered some of the neurochemical and neurological underpinnings of temperament. ○​ Neurochemical molecules, such as epinephrine, dopamine, vasopressin, and oxytocin, seem to play a role. ○​ And, individual differences in effortful control, impulsivity, and proneness to frustration have been linked to activity in the anterior and lateral prefrontal areas of the brain.  ​ Early Evidence of Temperament ○​ Temperamental characteristics appear early—even prenatally Discuss the correlates and consequences of temperament for children’s social development. What is known about the stability of temperament? How is it influenced by environmental factors? ​ Children who are irritable, difficult, impulsive, and emotional experience a higher rate of problems in later life. ​ Fearful, shy, inhibited children, whose temperaments are characterized by low levels of extraversion-surgency, are more likely to have internalizing problems, such as fear, sadness, and withdrawn behavior, anxiety symptoms and disorders, guilt, and low empathy. ​ Children with poor effortful control exhibit more externalizing problems, including disruptive, aggressive, and hyperactive behavior. ​ Factors that may contribute to relations between temperament and later problems: ○​ Children with difficult temperaments may find it more difficult to adapt to environmental demands and may be more affected by stress and the toll it takes on emotional well-being. ○​ Children with difficult temperaments may elicit more adverse reactions from other people and thus suffer the psychological damage caused by harsh parenting and social rejection. ○​ Temperament may interact with conditions in the environment. ​ If parents are under stress, have marital conflicts, are hostile themselves, and lack a supportive family or friendship network, children’s difficult temperaments are more likely to develop into externalizing problems than if the family is positive and peaceful. ​ The consequences of temperamental predispositions to some extent depend on how well parents and others are able to accept and adapt to the child’s particular characteristics. ​ Development progresses more smoothly when parents and children have a good fit and parents are naturally in tune with their infant or adjust their approach to suit their child’s temperament. Explain the difference between genotype and phenotype, and describe reaction range as a means by which environment influences genetic expression. ​ Phenotype: The visible expression of a person’s particular physical and behavioral characteristics created by the interaction of the person’s genotype with the environment. ​ Genotype: The particular set of genes a person inherits from their parents. ​ Reaction Range: The range of possible developmental outcomes established by a person’s genotype in reaction to the environment in which development takes place. Explain the difference between shared and nonshared environments. ​ Shared Environment: The degree to which siblings living in the same family are similar to one another on a particular social behavior for non-genetic reasons. ○​ More specifically, the shared environment in behavior-genetic research is estimated by determining how similar identical twins are on a social behavior of interest and then subtracting out similarity that can be attributable to genetic variation. ​ Nonshared environment: The variation in an outcome that is “left over” once accounting for additive genetic and shared environmental contributions to a social behavior or trait of interest. Describe how genes and environments work together via passive, evocative, and active gene-environment associations. ​ Passive gene-environment association — Environment created by parents with particular genetic characteristics encourages the expression of these tendencies in their children. ​ Evocative gene-environment association — People’s inherited tendencies elicit certain environmental responses. ​ Active gene-environment associations — People’s genes encourage them to seek out experiences compatible with their inherited tendencies. ○​ Niche seeking Week 4 - Emotional & social-cognitive processes Key Questions: ​ What’s involved in the development of emotion? ​ How does children’s understanding and regulation of emotions contribute to differences in social behavior? ​ How does children’s responsiveness to others’ emotions contribute to differences in social behavior? Define what emotions are, specifically primary and secondary emotions. Explain why emotions are important. ​ Emotions are a subjective reaction to something in the environment, are generally accompanied by some form of physiological arousal, and are often communicated to others by some expression or action. ​ Primary emotions are fear, joy, disgust, sadness, and interest. These emotions emerge early in life and do not require introspection or self-reflection. These emotions have been found to be universal throughout varying cultures. ​ Secondary emotions are pride, shame, guilt, jealousy, embarrassment, and empathy. These emotions start to emerge in the second year of life and depend on a sense of self and the awareness of other people’s reactions. ​ Emotions are important for a variety of reasons: ○​ Emotions are a way that children let other people know how they feel. ○​ Emotions are linked to children’s social success. ○​ Emotions are linked to children’s mental and physical health. Understand the different perspectives on emotional development (biological, learning, functional). ​ Biological Perspective ○​ Useful for explaining the expression of basic emotions ○​ Introduces the idea that emotional expressions are innate and universal, rooted in human evolution, and based on anatomical structures. ​ Learning Perspective ○​ Useful for explaining individual differences in emotional expression. ○​ The frequency with which children smile and laugh is related to their caregivers’ behavior. ○​ Learning experiences can also reinforce children’s fear responses. ○​ Through classical and operant conditioning, children learn different types of responses, what reactions to have, and how to act. ​ Functional Perspective ○​ Posits that the purpose of emotions is to help people achieve their social and survival goals, provide feedback that guides other people’s behavior, and that memories of past emotions shape responses to new situations. Describe the development of primary and secondary emotions. ​ Primary emotions have biological roots. ○​ These emotions emerge early and at roughly the same age in all infants universally. ○​ Development of positive emotions ​ Birth ​ Reflexive smile (associated with tension release) ​ 2-3 months ​ Social smile (aimed @ primary caregivers) ​ Smile at events they can control (e.g. getting music to play by waving arms) ​ 3-6 months ​ Smile when interacting with smiling companions ​ 6-8 months ​ Reserve biggest smiles for familiar companions ○​ Development of negative emotions ​ Birth ​ Distress to hunger, pain, and discomfort ​ 2-6 months ​ Anger in response to the removal of control, or thwarting goals (e.g. if arm-waving no longer produced music; few physiological indicators of stress ​ Sadness in response to difficulting eliciting positive response from caregiver (e.g. still face; increase in physiological indicators of stress) ​ 6-8 months ​ Fear in response to perceived threats (e.g. separation anxiety & stranger anxiety) ​ Secondary Emotions ○​ Higher-order emotions related to injury to, or enhancement of, the sense of self ​ Emerge between 18-24 months after self-recognition (e.g. rouge test) ​ Embarrassment, pride, shame, and jealousy ​ By age 3, also see envy and guilt ​ But: expression is affected by expected standards and external monitors ​ e.g. presence of others and cultural norms. Explain the difference between reflex and social smiles. Define Duchenne's smile and explain when it is more likely to be displayed.  ​ Reflexive Smile ⇒ An upturned mouth seen in the newborn that is usually spontaneous and appears to depend on some internal stimulus rather than on something external such as another person’s behavior. ​ Social Smile ⇒ An upturned mouth in response to a human face or voice, which first occurs when the infant is about 2 months old. ​ Smile Development: ○​ Birth ​ Reflexive smile (associated with tension release) ○​ 2-3 months ​ Social smile (aimed @ primary caregivers) ​ Smile at events they can control (e.g. getting music to play by waving arms) ○​ 3-6 months ​ Smile when interacting with smiling companions ○​ 6-8 months ​ Reserve biggest smiles for familiar companions ​ Duchenne Smile → A smile reflecting genuine pleasure, showing in crinkles around the eyes as well as an upturned mouth. ○​ This smile is shown to be reserved for their mothers and involve not just an upturned mouth but wrinkles around the eyes as well, making the whole face seem to light up with pleasure. Describe stranger distress or fear of strangers, when in development it emerges, and what factors might affect its display. ​ Stranger Distress/Fear of Strangers ⇒ A negative emotional reaction to unfamiliar people, which typically emerges in infants around the age of 9 months. ​ Starts to emerge when infants start to develop fear. ​ By 7 to 9 months, infants start to show true fear and have an immediate negative reaction to an event or person they don’t recognize and don’t like. ​ Factors that might affect its display ○​ Culture → Stranger distress is not common across all cultures. ○​ Whether the stranger is introduced in the house versus an unfamiliar setting. → If babies meet strangers in their own homes, they are less afraid than when they meet them in an unfamiliar setting. If infants are seated on their parent’s lap when the stranger approaches, they rarely show fear. ○​ How the parent reacts to the stranger → When infants see their mother interacting positively with the stranger, they are likely to smile, approach the stranger, and offer toys. Conversely, when the mother looks worried, the baby is apt to cry more and smile less at the stranger. Explain what social referencing is and the role it plays in emotional development.  ​ Social Referencing → The process of reading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in an uncertain situation. ​ Social referencing allows infants and toddlers to read their parents’ reaction to determine how they should react. ​ Social referencing allows parents to act as a secure base to explore and interact with strangers and unknown situations. ​ However, this undergoes clear changes as infants develop. Younger infants are likely to act first and look later; older infants are more likely to check with the parent before they act. Describe individual differences in emotional expressiveness. ​ Factors that influence individual differences in emotional expressiveness: ○​ Cognitive abilities (theory of mind, language abilities, and understanding “mixed emotions”) ○​ Parental socialization ​ Responsiveness and sensitivity of parents ​ Acceptance of emotions ​ Emotion coaching ○​ Emotion-talk ○​ Emotion Regulation ​ Individual differences in emotional expressiveness are the variations between people in how openly and visibly they display their emotions, including facial expressions, verbal communication, and body language. Explain why recognizing others’ emotion is important and how it develops. Describe how the understanding of multiple emotions and causes develops. ​ Emotion knowledge consists of knowledge regarding others’ mental states, including the ability to differentiate emotional states across and within situations and to use beliefs and desires to attribute emotions during common emotion-eliciting situation. ​ Recognizing others’ emotions develops as individuals learn about their sense of self, an awareness of others, and learning emotional scripts. ○​ Emotional scripts enable children to identify and predict emotional reactions to specific events. This starts to develop at age 3/4 and continues to get stronger through childhood, into middle childhood. Define emotion regulation, explain how it develops and its significance for development of social competence ​ Emotion Regulation – Monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions in order to change the occurrence, intensity, or duration of feelings and physiological reactions. ○​ Starts in early infancy  ○​ Parents act as “Hidden Regulators” → Move from Caregiver regulation → dyadic regulation → Self-regulation ​ Building emotion regulation: Learning “Display Rules” ○​ Experimenters asked 1st, 3rd, and 5th graders to do a favor for them and then gave them a snack. Several days later, the researcher asked for another favor, but this time, they gave each child an unattractive gift (a plastic baby key ring). They videotaped facial expressions when they opened their gifts and rated them for positivity/negativity. ​ Results: As children get older, they get better at masking emotions, and girls tend to mask better. ○​ Cultural differences in expressions of anger and shame ​ 8- to 12-year-olds in the US and Nepal were compared, and children responded to hypothetical situations. ​ The results found that US children reacted more with anger than shame while Nepalese children reacted more with shame than anger. ​ Emotional development leads to Social Competence ○​ Competent emotional expressivity leads to more frequent expressions of positive rather than negative emotions ○​ Competent emotional knowledge leads to correctly identifying others’ feelings and underlying causes ○​ Competent emotional regulation leads to adjusting expressions of emotional arousal to an appropriate level of intensity ○​ ⇒ leads to more positive peer relationships Describe how parents, other children, and teachers contribute to the socialization of emotion. ​ Parental Socialization ○​ Children model and imitate their parents’ behaviors. ○​ The more positive emotions expressed by parents, the more likely they are to express positive emotions. ○​ Learn emotion regulation for their parents, learning how to understand and process stress and redirect attention and emotions ○​ Emotion coaching ​ Being aware of the child’s emotions ​ Recognizing emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching. ​ Listening empathically and validating the child’s feelings ​ Labeling emotions in words children can understand ​ Helping children come up with an appropriate way to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting situation ​ Other Children & Peer Socialization ○​ Peers and siblings also socialize children’s emotions  ○​ Peer reactions teach children the consequences of expressing negative and positive emotions. ○​ Peers can help children improve their emotional understanding and knowledge as well. ○​ In one study, kindergarten children who had good relationships with their peers increased in emotional knowledge over the year more than children who were socially isolated—presumably because they had more opportunities to learn about the nuances of emotions in their interactions with their peers. ○​ Engaging in pretend play with siblings and friends also helps children understand other people’s feelings. ○​ Similarly, children learn about emotions when their siblings make positive or negative responses or alter their parents to the child’s angry outburst. ​ Teacher Socialization ○​ Teachers also facilitate children’s emotional development. ○​ Especially in the preschool years, teachers play a significant role in the development of the emotional skills that are so important to children’s social success. ○​ Although there is pressure to push academic learning in preschool to prepare kids for elementary school, several investigators have recognized that emotional learning is an important component of school readiness and have trained teachers to help preschoolers improve their emotional competence. Define empathy and explain how it contributes to differences in social behavior. ​ Empathy – the ability to experience (not just infer) the emotions others display ○​ Some developmental facts ​ Roots in emotional responses to others’ distress and “connecting” in interactions ​ True empathy emerges with self-recognition → efforts to comfort & console || && role taking and seeing others’ perspectives ○​ Empathy leads to prosocial behavior? (Fabes, Eisenberg, & Eisenbud, 1993) ​ 3rd and 6th graders watched videos of children in distress; researchers measured physiological responses and compared it with mothers’ resorts of children’s tendencies to help others ​ Results: ​ Concerned expressions & decreased heart rate (shows orienting and attending) are linked to helping tendencies ​ Facial & physiological distress is linked to a less likelihood of helping responses ​ Help responses increased with age ​ Example 2: Emotional Contagion ○​ Children’s emotions often match the emotional states of others, even when the children are not experiencing the same arousing situation  ○​ Exposure to background anger: (e.g. family conflict) ​ Increases angry reactions and aggression toward peers ​ Decreases positive reactions with peers Describe the key findings of Morris et al. (2017).