CHAPTER 10

EMOTIONAL
DEVELOPMENT,
TEMPERAMENT,
& ATTACHMENT
Bonding - the strong affectionate ties that parents
may feel toward their infant; some theorists believe
that the strongest bonding occurs shortly after
birth, during a sensitive period.

Attachment - a close, reciprocal, emotional

relationship between two persons, characterized
by mutual affection and a desire to maintain
proximity. Attachment differs from bonding in that
attachment occurs between an older infant, who is
capable of forming an emotional relationship, and
another person; bonding is a one-way relationship
that the parent feels toward the child.
DO BABIES HAVE
FEELINGS?
 EMOTIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
DISPLAYING EMOTIONS: The Development and Control of Emotional Expressions

Carroll Izard and his colleagues have studied infants’ emotional expressions by
videotaping babies’ responses to such events

These studies reveal that different adult raters observing the same expressions
reliably see the same emotion in a baby’s face

Most researchers agree that babies communicate a variety of feelings through

their facial expressions and that each expression becomes a more
recognizable sign of a specific emotion with age (Camras et al., 1992; Izard et
al., 1995)
SEQUENCING OF DISCRETE EMOTIONS
Basic Emotions
the set of emotions present at
birth or emerging early in the
1st year that some theorists
believe to be biologically
programmed.

Complex Emotions
self-conscious or self-evaluative emotions that emerge in
the 2nd year and depend, in part, on cognitive
development.
SOCIALIZATION OF EMOTIONS AND
EMOTIONAL SELF-REGULATION
The emotions that are considered socially acceptable may be quite
different in one culture than in another.

Emotional Display Rules - culturally defined rules specifying which

emotions should or should not be expressed under which circumstances.

Regulating Emotions Complying with these emotional lessons, babies

must devise strategies for emotional self-regulation—in other words
controlling their emotions.

Emotional Self-regulation - strategies for managing emotions or adjusting

emotional arousal to an appropriate level of intensity.

Acquiring Emotional Display Rules - An ability to regulate emotions is

only the first skill that children must acquire to comply with a culture’s
emotional display rules.
Acquiring Emotional Display Rules - An ability to regulate emotions is
only the first skill that children must acquire to comply with a culture’s
emotional display rules. Indeed, these prescriptions often dictate that
we not only suppress whatever unacceptable emotions we are
experiencing, but also replace them (outwardly, at least) with whatever
feeling the display rule calls for in that situation (for example, acting
happy rather than sad on receiving a disappointing gift).
RECOGNIZING AND
INTERPRETING
EMOTIONS
SOCIAL REFERENCING
Infants’ ability to recognize and interpret particular
emotional expressions becomes more obvious
between 7 and 10 months (Soken & Pick, 1999)—the
point at which they begin to monitor parents’
emotional reactions to uncertain situations and to use
this information to regulate their own behavior
(Feinman, 1992). This social referencing becomes more
common with age (Walden & Baxter, 1989) and soon
extends to people other than parents (Flom & Bahrick,
2007; Repacholi, 1998).

The use of others’ emotional expressions to infer the

meaning of otherwise ambiguous situations.
 LATER MILESTONES IN
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING
These children also display some ability to integrate contrasting facial,
behavioral, and situational cues to infer what emotions these cues
reveal, like those they might witness in a fearful but eager child waiting
in line for a roller-coaster ride (Hoffner & Badzinski, 1989).Notice that
these latter advances in emotional understanding emerge at about the
same age that children can integrate more than one piece of information
(for example, height and width of a column of liquid) in Piagetian
conservation tasks, and they may depend, in part, on the same
underlying cognitive developments.
 EMOTIONS
AND EARLY
SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
What role do emotions play in early social
development? Clearly, a baby’s displays of emotion
serve a communicative function that is likely to affect
the behavior of caregivers.

Early suggestions of a smile or expressions of interest

may convince caregivers that their baby is willing and
even eager to strike up a social relationship with
them.

Later expressions of fear or sadness may indicate that

the infant is insecure or feeling blue and needs some
attention or comforting.
 EMOTIONAL
COMPETENCE
It has three components: competent emotional expressivity, which
involves frequent expression of more positive emotions and
relatively infrequent displays of negative ones; competent emotional
knowledge, which involves the ability to correctly identify other
people’s feelings and the factors responsible for those emotions; and
competent emotional regulation, or the ability to adjust one’s
experience and expression of emotional arousal to an appropriate
level of intensity to successfully achieve one’s goals (Denham et al.,
2003).

 SOCIAL
COMPETENCE
The ability to achieve personal goals in social interactions while
continuing to maintain positive relationships with others.

TEMPARAMENT &
DEVELOPMENT
TEMPARAMENT
A person’s characteristic modes of responding emotionally
and behaviorally to environmental events, including such
attributes as activity level, irritability, fearfulness, and
sociability

According to Mary Rothbart and John Bates (1998),

temperament is constitutionally based on individual
differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity
and self-regulation, which many believe to be the
emotional and behavioral building blocks of the adult
personality.
6 Dimensions of Infant Temperament:

Fearful distress: wariness, distress, and withdrawal in new

situations or in response to novel stimuli
Irritable distress: fussiness, crying, and showing distress
when desires are frustrated (sometimes called
frustration/anger)
Positive affect: frequency of smiling, laughing, willingness
to approach others and to cooperate with them (called
sociability by some researchers)
Activity level: the amount of gross motor activity (for
example, kicking, crawling)
Attention span/persistence: length of time the child
orients to and focuses on objects or events of interest
Rhythmicity: regularity/predictability of bodily functions
such as eating, sleeping, and bowel functioning

 HEREDITARY &
ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES
ON TEMPERAMENT
it seems that many important components
temperament are genetically influenced.
Heridetary Influences
Behavioral geneticists have looked for
hereditary influences by comparing the
temperamental similarities of pairs of
identical and fraternal twins. By the
middle of the 1st year, identical twins are
already more similar than fraternal twins
on most temperamental attributes,
including activity level, demands for
of attention, irritability, and sociability
(Braungart et al., 1992; Emde et al., 1992)
Home Environmental Influences
Research implies that the home environments that siblings share most clearly influence
such positive aspects of temperament as smiling/sociability and soothability.

Negatively toned temperamental attributes are shaped more by nonshared environmental

influences—those aspects of environment that siblings do not share and that conspire to
make them temperamentally dissimilar

Cultural Influences
Culture also affects certain aspects of temperament such as shyness
STABILITY OF TEMPERAMENT
Longitudinal research indicates that several components of temperament—
activity level, irritability, sociability, and fearfulness—are moderately stable
through infancy, childhood, and sometimes even into the early adult years
Behavioral inhibition - a temperamental attribute reflecting one’s
tendency to withdraw from unfamiliar people or situations.

Indeed, environmental factors can even contribute to the stability of

inhibition, for it appears that children are likely to remain highly inhibited
over time if their caregivers
Are protective and allow them little autonomy
Are not very accurate at appraising their feelings or are insensitive to
them and inclined to make side remarks about their wariness (DONT BE
SUCH A BABY!)
ATTACHMENT &
DEVELOPMENT
Although babies can communicate many of their
feelings right from the start, their social lives
change rather dramatically as they become
emotionally attached to their caregivers.

According to Bowlby (1969), people who are

securely attached take pleasure in their
interactions and feel comforted by their partner’s
presence in times of stress or uncertainty
 ATTACHMENT AS RECIPROCAL
RELATIONSHIPS

Establishment of Interactional Synchrony - One important contributor

to the growth of attachments is the synchronized routines that
caregivers and infants often establish over the first few months of a
baby’s life (Stern, 1977; Tronick, 1989).
Synchronized Routines - generally harmonious interactions between
two persons in which participants adjust their behavior in response
to the partner’s feelings and behaviors.
HOW DO INFANTS
BECOME
ATTACHED?
THE GROWTH OF PRIMARY
ATTACHMENTS
Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964)
Studied the development of emotional attachments by following a group of Scottish
infants from early infancy to 18 months of age.
How the infant responded when separated from close companions in seven
situations
The persons to whom the infant’s separation responses were directed.
Schaffer and Emerson found that infants pass through the following phases as they
develop close ties with their caregivers.
Asocial phase (birth to about 6 weeks) – Approximately the first 6 weeks of life, infants
respond in an equally favorable way to interesting social and nonsocial stimuli.
Phase of indiscriminate attachments (about 6 weeks to 6 or 7 months) - infants prefer
social to nonsocial stimulation and are likely to protest whenever any adult puts them
down or leaves them alone.
Phase of specific attachment (about 7 to 9 months) - infants are attached to
one close companion (usually the mother). Become wary of strangers and have
established their first genuine attachments.
Secure base – Was emphasized by Mary Ainsworth (1979), the use of a
caregiver as a base from which to explore the environment and to which to
return for emotional support.
Phase of multiple attachments (about 9 to 18 months) - The period when
infants are forming attachments to companions other than their primary
attachment object.
 EARLY THEORIES OF
ATTACHMENT
Psychoanalytic Theory: I love you Because You Feed Me.
According to Freud, young infants are “oral” creatures who derive
satisfaction from sucking and mouthing objects and should be attracted
to any person who provides oral pleasure.

Learning Theory: I love you Because you Reward Me.

Feeding was thought to be particularly important for two reasons
It elicits positive responses from a contented Infant
It provides an infant with many comforts
Secondary reinforcer - an initially neutral stimulus that acquires
reinforcement value by its repeated association with other reinforcing
stimuli
 EARLY THEORIES OF
ATTACHMENT
how important is feeding? Harry Harlow and Robert Zimmerman
reported the results of a study designed to compare the importance of
feeding versus tactile stimulation for the development of attachments in
infant monkeys.

Cognitive Developmental Theory: To love you, I must know you will always
be there
Attachments first Emerge at age 7 to 9 months—precisely the time when
infants Are entering Piaget’s fourth sensorimotor substage, the point at
Which they first begin to search for and find objects that they’ve Seen
someone hide from them
 EARLY THEORIES OF
ATTACHMENT
Contemporary Theories of Attachment: The Ethological Theory
John Bowlby (1969, 1980), originally a psychoanalyst, believed that many
of these built-in behaviors are specifically designed to promote
attachments between infants and their caregivers.
Origins of the Ethological Viewpoint

Imprinting - An innate or instinctual form of learning in which the young of

certain species will follow and become attached to moving objects.
Konrad Lorenz also noted that imprinting
(1) is automatic
(2) occurs only within a narrowly delimited critical period
(3) is irreversible
 EARLY THEORIES OF
ATTACHMENT
Preadapted characteristic - An attribute that is a product of Evolution and
serves some function that increases the chances of survival for the
individual and the species.
Attachment to Humans

Lorenz suggested that kewpie doll appearance makes the infant appear
cute or lovable. Where Thomas Alley agrees, adults judged line drawings of
infant faces to be adorable.

Kewpie doll effect - The notion that infant-like facial features are perceived
as cute and lovable and elicit favorable responses from others
 ATTACHMENT
RELATED FEARS
Stranger anxiety - A wary or fretful reaction that infants and
toddlers often display when approached by an unfamiliar person

Separation anxiety - A wary or fretful reaction that infants and

toddlers often display when separated from the person(s) to
whom they are attached

 WHY DO INFANTS FEAR

STRANGERS AND
SEPARATIONS?
The Ethological Viewpoint - associated with danger throughout
human evolutionary history that a fear or avoidance response has
become “biologically programmed.”

The Cognitive Developmental Viewpoint - Jerome Kagan (1972,

1976) suggests that 6- to 10-month-olds have developed stable
schemes for (1) the faces of familiar companions and (2) the fact
that absent companions do return.

 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN
ATTACHMENT QUALITY
Strange Situation - consists of a series of eight episodes that attempt to simulate
(1) naturalistic caregiver–infant interactions in the presence of toys
(2) brief separations from the caregiver and encounters with strangers
(3) reunion episodes

Characterize the infant’s attachment to the caregiver in one of four ways:

Secure attachment - An infant-caregiver bond in which the child welcomes contact
with a close companion and uses this person as a secure base from which to explore
the environment.
Securely attached – infants actively explores while alone with the mother and may be
visibly upset by separations.
 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN
ATTACHMENT QUALITY
Avoidant attachment – characterized by little separation protest and a tendency of the
child to avoid or ignore the caregiver.
Disorganized/disoriented attachment - characterized by the infant’s dazed
appearance on the reunion or a tendency to first seek and then abruptly avoid the
caregiver

Attachment Q-set (AQS) - An alternative method of assessing attachment security that is

based on observations of the child’s attachment-related behaviors at home; can be used
with infants, toddlers, and preschool children.

 CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN
ATTACHMENT CLASSIFICATIONS
The meaning and the long-range outcomes of “secure”
attachments May vary from culture to culture and reflect
important cultural values.

Amae - A Japanese concept that refers to an infant’s feeling

of total dependence on his or her mother and the
presumption of the mother’s love and indulgence.
FATHERS AS CAREGIVERS
Research on fathers as caregivers suggests
they become emotionally attached to
infants,
they can be playmates or caretakers, and
they contribute to the child’s positive social
development.
 Quality of Caregiving
FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE
ATTACHMENT SECURITY Caregiving hypothesis - Ainsworth’s notion that the type of attachment
that an infant develops with a particular caregiver depends primarily on
the kind of caregiving he or she has received from that person
Temperament hypothesis - Kagan's view that the strange situation
measures individual differences in infants' temperaments rather than the
quality of their attachments.
 ATTACHMENT & LATER
DEVELOPMENT
Long-Term Correlates of Secure and Insecure Attachments
Attachments as working models of self and others
Internal working models - Cognitive representations of self, others, and relationships that
infants construct from their interactions with caregivers
Proposed by John Bowlby (1980,1988) and Inge Bretherton (1985, 1990).
Sensitive, responsive caregiving is associated with the development of secure
attachments.
Inconsistent, neglectful, over-intrusive, and abusive caregiving predict insecure
attachments.
Environmental factors such as poverty and a stormy marital relationship also contribute to
insecure attachments.
Infant characteristics and temperamental attributes may also influence attachment
quality by affecting the character of caregiver–infant interactions.
Parents’ working models correspond closely with those of their children and
contribute to the attachments infants form.

Children’s working models can change: a secure attachment history is no guarantee

of positive adjustment later in life, nor are insecure attachments a certain indication of
poor life outcomes.