Chapter

10
Presentation Slides

Emotional
Development
 Outline of Chapter

• The Development of Emotions

• Understanding Emotions
• Emotion Regulation
• Temperament

• Excluded:
• The Role of Family in Emotional Development
• Mental Health, Stress, and Internalizing Mental
Disorders
 The Development of Emotions

Emotions:
 Combination of physiological and cognitive responses to
thoughts or experiences
 Have several components:
• Neural responses
• Physiological factors
• Subjective feelings
• Emotional expressions
• Desire to act – escape, approach, change
 Children’s Emotional Reactions

6 Basic
Emotions
Feeling emotion
Self-Conscious
Emotion

Emotional Identify
Reactions
Emotions of
Others
Understanding
Understanding
causes of
Emotion
Emotion
Understanding
Real & False
Emotions
Theories on the Nature and Emergence of Emotion

Differential (or Discrete) Emotions Theory

 Emotions are innate and discrete from one another from very
early in life.
 Each emotion is associated with a specific and distinctive set of
bodily and facial reactions for all cultures, race.
 Emotions have evolved to allow human from infancy to
experience and express set of basic emotions through
adaptation to our surroundings.
 Emotional responses are automatic and not based on cognition.
 From infancy
 Similar emotional facial expression in all cultures
Theories on the Nature and Emergence of Emotion

Functional Perspective
 The basic function of emotions is to promote action toward
achieving a goal (goal-driven)
 Emotions are expressed in order to manage the relationship
between self and the environment
 Emotions are our response to how we subconsciously appraise
the environment and whether factors in the environment are
promoting or hindering our well-being.
 The Emergence of Emotion

• There are 6 basic emotions

1. Happiness
2. Fear
3. Anger
4. Sadness
5. Surprise
6. Disgust
 The Emergence of Emotions
Happiness
• Reflexive smile during early weeks
o During REM
o When stroked gently
• Smile to external stimuli
• Smile to variety of activities
• Social smiles promote care and bonding
• Simile when have control over events
• Cognitive development smile at funny or unexpected events
• Language development  smile at jokes and humour
 The Emergence of Emotions

Fear
• By 4 months show wary of unfamiliar objects and events.
• Separation anxiety (6 or 7 months)
• Stranger anxiety (8 months)
• Know which one comes first not the specific date
• Cognitive development  fear of imaginary creatures
• Fear of real life issues (school age)
• Parents as secure base
 The Emergence of Emotions
Anger
• For infants, anger is blended with sadness
• By 1st birthday, can express anger
• Anger expression is peaked round 18 to 24 months
• Decline from 3 to 6 years due to ability to use language
• Cognitive development understand intentions and motives
• Identity development  express more anger with family
 The Emergence of Emotions

Sadness
• Less frequent than displaying anger or distress during early
infancy
• In young children prolonged and intense sadness due to
separation from parents for a long time.
• It is adaptive like fear

Disgust
• Evolutionary basis
• Also learned for what is considered disgusting
 The Emergence of Emotions
Surprise
• Reaction to a sudden unexpected event.
o Cognitive understanding that something is unusual
• Expressed by 6 months
• Brief transformed to another emotion
• Emotional environment provided by parents, influences infants
expression of surprise to novel events.
o Jack in the box study
 The Self-Conscious Emotions

Emotions that relate to our sense of self and our

consciousness of others’ reactions to us
 Discontinuous growth  emergence of a sense of self
 Appears at 18 to 24 months
 Debate that they may start even earlier
 Example: (Hart, 2010) maternal unresponsiveness jealousy of
infants as young as 6 months old
 The Emergence of Emotions

• Guilt is associated with empathy for others and involves

feeling of remorse and regret about one’s behaviour and
the desire to undo the consequences of that behaviour

• Shame is focused on self, feeling that the child is exposed

and they often feel like hiding.
 
• Cultural variations in expression of self-conscious
emotions:
• Individualistic vs. collectivist cultures
 Children’s Emotional Reactions

6 Basic
Emotions
Feeling emotion
Self-Conscious
Emotion

Emotional Identify
Reactions
Emotions of
Others
Understanding
Understanding
causes of
Emotion
Emotion
Understanding
Real & False
Emotions
 Understanding Emotions

With age, children learn to:

 Understand their emotions
 Identify emotions of others
 decoding facial and vocal expressions
 Know the meanings of emotions and their social functions

 Factors affecting emotional experience

Understanding of emotion affects social behaviour  critical

to the development of social competence. 
 Identifying the Emotions of Others
 At 3 months: distinguishing facial expressions of happiness,
surprise, and anger.

 By 7 months: discriminating fear, sadness and interest

 Associated with different patterns of brain activity

 16- to 18-month-olds: preference of toys associated with

surprise and happy faces and avoidance if associated with
anger or fear.
 Identifying the Emotions of Others

• Social referencing is evident by 12 months (Begins at 8 to 10

months)
 Receiving both vocal and facial cues of emotion more effective
than each alone
 Vocal cues more effective than just visual cues alone
• 2 years old: able to label happiness
• 3 years old: able to label anger, fear and sadness
• Recognizing disgust develops over time.
 Only 1/3 of 12 to 14 can recognize it.
 Early to mid elementary school: labeling self-conscious
emotions of pride, shame and guilt
 Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence: ability to cognitively process

information about emotions and to use that info to guide the
thoughts and behaviours
• Understanding own’s emotions and emotions of others.
 Affective Social Competence
 Emotional Intelligence

• Trait emotional intelligence questionnaire: measures

emotional intelligence.
• Scoring high in Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire:
• Manage one’s emotion
• Less likely to engage in aggressive behaviours
• Higher self-esteem and cognitive intelligence.
 Understanding the Causes and
Dynamics of Emotion
Children rapidly understand emotions that certain situations will
evoke.
 By age 3: Identify situations that make people happy.
 By age 4: Identify situations that make people sad.
 By age 5: Identify situations likely to elicit anger, fear, surprise.
 By age 7: Self-conscious social emotions (pride, guilt, shame,
embarrassment, guilt) emerge.
 With age children understand that memory cues of past event can also
evoke emotions
 Understanding that people can have mixed feelings emerges around age
10 (emotional ambivalence)
 Know not the age but rather the order
 Understanding Real and False Emotions

 By age 3, children realize that emotions people express may not

reflect true feelings.
 By age 5 understanding false emotions improves more.
 This is due to growing understanding of display rules.
 Emotional masks: Reacting happy to unhappy events

Advances in display rules are linked to increases in

cognitive capacities

Advances in display rules are linked to culture and

norms
 Development of Display Rules
 The disappointing gift task
 - Not in the textbook
 Children 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds in a study had to fake emotions
in order to win a prize
 Box with an attractive gift
 Box with an unattractive gift
 Empty box

The children had to trick the experimenter that the unattractive

or empty boxes had an attractive toy
 Emotion Regulation

Emotion Regulation
 A set of conscious and unconscious processes used to
monitor and modulate emotional experiences and
expressions
 Develops gradually over childhood
 Paves the way for success in social interactions and
academic settings
 The Development of Emotion Regulation

 In the first few months, infants can’t fix their distressed,

frustrations, etc.
 Co-regulation

Self-comforting behaviors: Repetitive actions that regulate

arousal by providing a mildly positive physical sensation

Self-distraction: Looking away from an upsetting stimulus in

order to regulate one’s level of arousal
 The Development of Emotion Regulation

 Self regulation improves over time

 Adults expectation
 Improvements in use of language
 Improvement in their attention
 Brain maturation during adolescence
- Connectivity between limbic system and prefrontal cortex

 Use of cognitive strategies and problem solving

The Selection of Appropriate Regulatory Strategies

• Children over time improve their ability to select cognitive

or behavioural strategies appropriate for a particular
situation

• Being able to distinguish between stressor that can and

cannot be controlled
• Problem-centred coping: can change the situation
• Emotion-centred coping: can’t change the situation
 The Relation of Emotion Regulation to
Social Competence and Adjustment

• Children who have the ability to inhibit inappropriate

behaviours, delay gratification, and use cognitive methods of
controlling their emotion and behaviour tend to be well-
adjusted and liked by their peers and by adult

Social Competence
The ability to achieve personal goals in social interactions while
still maintaining positive relationships with others

Watch this vide about delay gratification- Marshmallow experiment

https://www.ted.com/talks/joachim_de_posada_don_t_eat_the_marshmallow?utm_
campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
 Temperament

Temperament
 individual differences in emotion, activity level, attention
and self-regulation that demonstrate consistency across
situations, as well as relative stability over time (Rothbart &
Bates, 1998)
 Present from infancy
 Genetically based
 Influenced by environment
 Thus, large individual differences between emotion
regulation of children
 Temperament

• Thomas and Chess classified infants in three groups:

• Between-person approach to understanding development.

40% 10% 15%

Easy Babies Difficult Babies Slow-to-Warm-up

Adjust easily to new Slow to adjust to Babies
situations, quickly new experiences; Somewhat difficult
establish daily tend to react at first but become
routines such as negatively and easier over time as
sleeping, eating; intensely to events, they had repeated
generally cheerful irregular in their contact with new
mood; easy to calm daily routines and objects, people, and
bodily functions situations
 Measuring Temperament

• New researchers (Mary Rothbart) uses a within-person approach

• Temperament identified by Mary Rothbart:
• Fear
• Distress/anger/frustration
• Attention span
• Activity level
• Smiling and laughter.

• Measures of temperament, rating children along dimensions

• In infancy: Infant Behavior Questionnaire
• In early childhood: Chid Behavior Questionnaire

Rather stable over time

 Measuring Temperament

• Physiological measures of emotional reactions to

laboratory situations:
• Heart-rate variability: how much an individual’s heart rate
normally fluctuates

• Electroencephalographic recordings of frontal lobe activity,

when confronted with novel situations:
- Left activation of frontal lobe of the cortex is associated with
approach behaviour, positive affect, exploration and
sociability
- Right activation is linked to withdrawal, fear and anxiety
 Determinants of Temperament
 Genetic (biological factors
 Teratogens
 Parents’ temperaments:
 Parenting style
 Warm and responsive parenting leads to fewer emotional
problems

 Child’s temperament:
 children’s temperamental characteristics can affect their
parent’s behaviours
 The Role of Temperament in
Social Skills & Maladjustment

 There is a relationship between temperament and social skills.

 Shy or inhibited children  negative outcomes
• Trend continues into adulthood
• Also engage in illegal behaviours

 Goodness of fit
 Family provides the most important context for goodness of
fit
• Supportive parenting vs. hostile intrusive and/or negative parenting
 The Role of Temperament in
Social Skills & Maladjustment
 Differential susceptibility
 Orchids

Temperament Harsh Negative

Negative trait A Environment Outcome

Temperament Positive Positive

Negative trait A Environment Outcome

 Dandelions: children who are less sensitive to their environments and do

well in all but the most high-risk environment
 Chapter

11
Presentation Slides

Attachment to
Others and
Development of Self
 Outline of Chapter

• The Caregiver–Child Attachment Relationship

• Excluded:
• The Self
 The Caregiver-Child Attachment Relationship

Attachment
 Close and enduring emotional bonds to parents or other
primary caregivers.
 Attachments are discussed in regard to the relation
between infants and specific caregivers.
 Attachments can also occur in adulthood.
 The Caregiver-Child Attachment Relationship

Behaviorists
 Mother bond is
classically conditioned
as the mother provides
nourishment to the
child.

Harry Harlow
 Attachment develops
due to the sense of
security provided by the
mother/caregiver.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78043643
 Attachment Theory

Attachment theory- John Bowlby

• Children are biologically predisposed to develop attachments to
caregivers as a means of increasing the chances of their own
survival

Secure base:
• Presence of a trusted caregiver provides an infant or toddler with
a sense of security that makes it possible for the child to explore
the environment
 Attachment Theory

Attachment serves several important purposes:

• Enhances the infant’s chance of survival
• Helps the child feel emotionally secure exploration
• Serves as a form of co-regulation
 Attachment Theory

Phases of attachment development according to Bowlby:

1. Preattachment (birth to 6 weeks)

2. Attachment-in-the-making (6 weeks to 6–8 months)

3. Clear-cut attachment (6–8 months to 1 ½ years)

4. Reciprocal relationships or goal corrected partnership (1

½ to 2 years and older)

A good video on these 4 phases of attachment:

https://youtu.be/sdddBCPc1RI
 Attachment Theory

Internal Working Model of Attachment

• The child’s mental representation of the self
• Of attachment figure(s)
• Relationships in general

 This model guides children’s interactions with caregivers

and other people in infancy and older ages.
 Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Procedure

• Provided empirical support for John Bowlby’s attachment

theory

• Key factors providing insight into the quality of the infant’s

attachment to the caregiver:
1. Extent to which an infant is able to use his or her
primary caregiver as a secure base
2. How the infant reacts to brief separations from, and
reunions with, the caregiver 

• Strange situation
Watch this video: https://youtu.be/m_6rQk7jlrc
 Strange Situation

• Episode 1: a stranger brings child and caregiver to a novel room

that has various novel toys and then leaves.
• Episode 2: child and caregiver are alone in the room.
• Episode 3: stranger comes to the room interact with caregiver
and the child.
• Episode 4: caregiver leaves
• Episode 5: caregiver returns and stranger leaves.
• Episode 6: caregivers leaves too, infant is alone
• Episode 7: strangers enters room
• Episode 8: Caregiver enters the room too.
 What are the patterns of infant attachment?

• Secure attachment (50 to 60% of infants)

• Insecurely attached
• Insecure/avoidant or ambivalent (9% of infants)
• Insecure/resistant or ambivalent (15% of infants)
Disorganized/disoriented (25% of infants)
 Other Measures of Attachment Security
• Attachment Q-Sort
• Characterizes child on a continuum from secure to insecure

• Do you think attachment is stable or does it change?

• Adult Attachment Interview

 Cultural Variations in Attachment Styles

Does Strange Situation work in other cultures?

Some differences exist:
 In some cultures insecurely attached children found to be
insecure/resistant and not insecure/avoidant
 Differences in physical proximity to mothers across various
cultures.
 Sources of Individual Differences in Attachment Styles

1. Parental sensitivity:
• Consistently responsive caregiving when children are
distressed or upset and engaging in coordinated play with the
infant.

• Mothers of insecure/resistant infants tend to be inconsistent

in their early caregiving

• Mothers of insecure/avoidant infants tend to be emotionally

unavailable. May be angry, irritable or impatient

• Infants with disorganized/disoriented attachment styles

sometimes exhibit abusive or frightening behavior.
 Sources of Individual Differences in Attachment Styles

2. Genetic Influences
• Recent research findings indicate that some individual
differences in attachment behaviors may be linked in
complex ways to specific genes.

• Certain genes may result in children being differentially

susceptible to the quality of their rearing environments.
 Attachment and Social-Emotional Development

 Securely attached children:

• Show better social adjustment
• Have better social skills
• Use good/appropriate emotional expression and communication

 Insecure/avoidant children:
• Show inhibitive emotional responsiveness
• Do not seek comfort from other people