Emotional Development - Child Psychology - Brandon University - 82:274 PDF

82:274 │ Child Psychology Dr. Marysia J. Lazinski, C. Psych. Emotional Development CHAPTER 10, SECTION 10.1: EMERGING EMOTIONS CHAPTER 10, SECTION 10.2: TEMPERAMENT CHAPTER 10, SECTION 10.3: ATTACHMENT  OUTLINE Previously: Chapter 3: Prenatal Development Chapter 5: Percept...

82:274 │ Child Psychology Dr. Marysia J. Lazinski, C. Psych. Emotional Development CHAPTER 10, SECTION 10.1: EMERGING EMOTIONS CHAPTER 10, SECTION 10.2: TEMPERAMENT CHAPTER 10, SECTION 10.3: ATTACHMENT  OUTLINE Previously: Chapter 3: Prenatal Development Chapter 5: Perceptual & Motor Development Now: Chapter 10: (Socio-) Emotional Development – Emerging Emotions – Temperament – Attachment Next Time: TEST 1!  Learning Objectives After this section, you should be able to: Describe the development of emotions and emotional self-regulation Emotional Development Question we will try to answer: What are the emotional lives of infants and children like? Question for you to consider: Why do we have emotions? Emerging Emotions: Overview The Function of Emotions Expressing Emotions Understanding Emotions Regulating Emotions THE FUNCTION OF EMOTIONS The Function of Emotions Emotions are useful because they help people adapt to their environments: 1. Emotions Motivate and Organize Us for Action 2. Emotions Communicate to Ourselves 3. Emotions Communicate to and Influence Others – Particularly important for infant – Behaviours such as crying and smiling are important tools for the infant – Children appear to develop strong emotional relationships more easily and intensely in the infant years – Humans are a social species: social and emotional development are inextricably linked! The Function of Emotions Fear leads to… avoiding danger Happiness and love to… strengthens relationships Anger to… draw boundaries Disgust to… avoid things that make us ill  Emotions Emotions: Internal reactions or feelings, either positive or negative Affect: The outward expression of emotions through facial expressions, gestures, etc. An infant’s ability to display and recognize affective states is the foundation for mutual regulation with their caregiver Basic / Primary Emotions Basic emotions: – Universal in humans and other primates – Evolutionary history of promoting survival – Consist of a subjective feeling, physiological change, and overt behaviour – E.g., interest, fear, sadness, disgust Newborns experience two global arousal states: – Attraction to pleasant stimulation – Withdrawal from unpleasant stimulation Gradually, emotions become clear, well-organized signals – Emotions become more varied and complex with age Emergence of Self-Conscious Emotions Self-conscious (complex) emotions: Higher-order feelings involving injury to or enhancement of sense of self Include guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, pride Appear in the middle of the second year Require adult instruction in when to experience the emotion Vary from culture to culture: – Cultures differ in events that trigger emotions, and in the extent to which THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS Expressing Emotions: Crying Children experience emotions in response to various situations and events, based on age – e.g., fear can be elicited in different ways, depending on a child’s age From birth, infants indicate – interest by staring – distress by crying Crying is the most important form of infant communication – often occurs when deprived of familiar caregiver For crying to be communicative it must vary, and listeners must be able to recognize its meaning Babies use different types of cries to communicate different meanings – over time become more sophisticated in their crying ability – caregivers also become more Expressing Emotions Babies indicate – pleasure by smiling, starting around 6 to 10 weeks – pleasure in response to other people, or social smiles, starting at about 2-3 months – pleasure by laughing, reflecting faster processing of information, at around 3–4 months Displays of anger emerge later, around 3 to 4 months Angry reactions increase with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sWGk intentional behaviour YCxLEQ Stranger anxiety/wariness – Stranger Anxiety appears around 6 months https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyHnb – Infants use the familiar caregiver U9pSvU - Part 1 Expressing Emotions, Baby Facial as a Expressions secure base  Self-Conscious Emotions Self-conscious (complex) emotions appear later ~ 18-24 months Preschoolers become increasingly sensitive to praise and blame – Around age 3, self-conscious emotions are clearly linked to self- evaluation – Caregivers can promote adaptive levels of pride and shame by focusing on how to improve performance, not on the child’s worth In middle childhood, pride and guilt become clearly governed by personal responsibility – Children experience self-conscious emotions even when no adult is present – By age 9, most children experience relief and regret appropriately Pride motivates children to take on further challenges Guilt, embarrassment and shame prompt them to make amends and strive for self-improvement – Consequences of shame for adjustment vary across cultures Shame can contribute to adjustment problems Empathy and Sympathy Empathy becomes more common in early childhood, serving as a motivator of prosocial behaviour: – Prosocial behaviour: actions aimed at benefiting others – Sympathy: feelings of concern or sorrow for another – Empathy: experiencing someone else’s feelings For children with poor emotion regulation, empathizing leads to personal distress, not to sympathy Development of empathy is promoted by – sociable, assertive temperament – secure parent–child attachment Brene Brown: Empathy vs. Sympathy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS Understanding the Emotions of Others At 2–3 months, babies match the feeling tone of the caregiver At 4–5 months, they gradually discriminate a wider range of emotions By 4-6 months, infants can identify facial expressions associated with different emotions Social referencing (8–10 months): – Actively seeking emotional information from a trusted person in an uncertain situation – In unfamiliar or ambiguous environment, infants rely on caregivers for cues to interpret situation – Toddlers use others’ emotional messages to evaluate the safety of surroundings, to guide actions, and to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTylRr4kB gather information oM – Part 2 Understanding Emotions Understanding Emotion Young, preschool-aged children have an increasingly accurate understanding of the causes, consequences, and behavioural signs of emotions They learn that desires and beliefs motivate behaviour (Theory of Mind) Cognitive development and secure attachment help children learn to: – infer how others are feeling based on their behaviour – realize that thinking and feeling are interconnected – find ways to relieve others’ negative emotions Children’s emotional understanding is better developed when caregivers readily: – label and explain emotions – express warmth and enthusiasm when conversing about emotions – discuss negative experiences and those involving disagreements Attachment security allows for more open caregiver–child communication about feelings Knowledge about emotions is important for social relationships Emotional Understanding During elementary school, children understand that people can have mixed feelings School-aged children become – more likely to explain emotion by referring to internal states rather than to external events – more aware of circumstances likely to spark mixed emotions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcfmHoUiNnw – appreciative of mixed emotions and, in others, contradictory facial and situational cues Gains are supported by cognitive development and social experiences, which contribute to a rise in empathy Socialization of Emotional Expression Initially children’s affective expressions mirror their emotions, but over time, they learn to control their affective displays Children mask their feelings – To avoid negative outcomes – To protect self-esteem – To fit with norms and conventions – Out of a concern for others’ feelings and well-being These reflect children’s increasing awareness of emotional display rules – Children learn the display rules for their cultural context: the expectations or attitudes regarding the expression of affect Socialization of Emotions Emergence of emotions in infancy is guided primarily by biological processes – Is universal across cultures – However, even in early infancy, it is shaped by cultural practices: E.g., in cultures where infants are in nearly constant physical contact with caregivers, there is little need to express emotions Modeling is one important way in which emotions are socialized: - E.g., caregivers who model only facial expressions of positive emotions or restraint of emotion; Figure 7.1: Development of the social smile in German and Nso infants At 6 weeks, frequency of social smiling among Nso and German infants was similar. Among Nso infants, who experienced far fewer face-to-face imitative exchanges with their mothers, social smiling lagged behind that of German infants, whose smiling rose sharply with age. (Based on Wörmann et al., 2014.) Emotional Development Emotional development is supported by gains in mental representation, language, and self- concept Preschoolers make strides in emotional competence: – Emotional understanding – Self-conscious emotions and empathy – Emotional self-regulation Emotional competence is – strongly influenced by parenting – vital for peer relationships and mental health REGULATING EMOTIONS  Emotional Self-Regulation Strategies used to adjust emotional states to a comfortable level of intensity to accomplish goals Requires voluntary, effortful management of emotions – Requires the use of executive functions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9twzo8V6 TQA Regulation of emotions begins in infancy – e.g., infants will look away when they – Part 5: Regulating Emotions encounter something frightening or confusing; infants will also move closer to a parent for protection and comfort – In the second year, growth in mental representation and language leads to new ways of regulating emotions Caregivers contribute to a child’s style of self-regulation and provide lessons in socially approved ways of expressing feelings As children get older, they regulate their own emotions (often using mental strategies) and rely less on others Some children regulate their emotions better than others, and those who do not, tend to have problems interacting with Emotional Self-Regulation Language contributes to preschoolers’ improved ability to manage the experience and expression of emotion Examples of strategies for emotional self-regulation: – Restricting sensory input – Talking to themselves – Changing their goals – Repairing a relationship Temperament and parent–child interaction affect development of effective emotion regulation – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H14NNUYwVc – Promoting Emotion Regulation Emotional Self-Regulation By age 10, most children shift adaptively between two strategies: Problem-centered coping: appraising the situation as changeable, identifying the difficulty and deciding what to do about it. If problem-solving does not work, they can engage in: Emotion-centered coping: private and aimed at controlling distress when little can be done about an outcome. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpNH2Mdkpok – Bluey Episode When emotional self-regulation develops well, school-age children acquire emotional self- efficacy: a feeling of being in control of their emotional experience ANY QUESTIONS?