Emotional Development

Emotional Development Exploring Emotions Development of Emotion Temperament Attachment and Love

Exploring Emotions What Are Emotions? • Feeling or affect in a state or interaction characterized by • Behavioral expression • Conscious experience • Physiological arousal • Positive and negative expressions

Exploring Emotions What Are Emotions? • Facial expressions of basic emotions • Biological nature; same across cultures • When, where, and how to express emotions are not culturally universal • Biological roots…but shaped by culture and relationships

Exploring Emotions A Functionalist View of Emotion • Individuals’ attempts to adapt to specific contextual demands • Relational • Linked with an individual’s goals • Nature of goal can affect experience

Development of Emotion Emotional Regulation • Effectively managing arousal to adapt and reach a goal • Involves state of alertness or activation • States can be too high for effective functioning

Exploring Emotions Developing Emotional Regulation As one ages or matures: • Regulation shifts from external sources to internal resources • Cognitive strategies for regulation and ability to shift focus increase • Ability to effectively cope with stress increases • Develop greater capacity to modulate emotional arousal • More adept with age at selecting and managing situations, relationships

Being aware of own emotional states and those of others Using appropriate emotional vocabulary Having empathic and sympathetic sensitivity to others’ experiences Seeing self as feeling like one wants to feel Understanding inner emotional states and outer expressions may not correspond Adaptively coping with negative emotions Being aware that emotional expression plays major role in relationships Exploring Emotions Emotional Competence Skills

Development of Emotion Development of Emotion • Early emotions • Present in humans and other animals • Appear in first six months of life • Surprise, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust • Self-conscious emotions • Appear in first 18 months to 2 years • Acquire and use society’s standards and rules • Empathy, jealousy, and embarrassment

Development of Emotion Infant Crying • Basic cry • Rhythmic pattern usually consisting of cry, briefer silence, shorter inspiratory whistle, and brief rest • Anger cry • Similar to basic cry, linked to exasperation or rage, with more excess air forced through vocal chords • Pain cry • Sudden appearance of loud crying, no preliminary moaning; stimulated by high-intensity stimulus

Development of Emotion Infant Smiling • Reflexive smile • Does not occur in response to external stimuli • Occurs during first month after birth, usually during sleep • Social smile • Response to external stimulus • Occurs about 2 or 3 months of age • Typically in response to a face

Development of Emotion Fear • First appears about 6 mos.; peaks at 18 mos. • Stranger anxiety— infant’s fear and wariness of strangers; intense between 9 and 12 mos. • Affected by social context, stranger’s characteristics • Individual variations • Separation protest— crying when caregiver leaves; peaks about 15 months of age

Development of Emotion Separation Protest in Four Cultures

Development of Emotion Emotional Regulation and Coping • Infants use self-soothing strategies for coping • Controversy over how caregivers should respond • ‘swaddling’ technique • Later in infancy, attention is redirected or infant uses distraction to cope • By age 2, toddlers use language • Contexts influence emotional regulation

Development of Emotion Early Childhood • Young children experience many emotions • Self-Conscious Emotions • Pride, shame, embarrassment, and guilt • First appear about age 18 months • Ability to reflect on emotions increases with age

Increased emotional understanding Increased tendency to take fuller account of events leading to emotional reactions Develops capacity for genuine empathy Marked improvements in ability to suppress or conceal negative emotional reactions Use of self-initiated strategies for redirecting feelings Development of Emotion Developmental Changes In Emotions During Middle and Late Childhood

Coping with Stress • Coping is more effective as children age • Older children have more coping strategies • By age 10, most use cognitive strategies

Coping with Stress • Recommendations • Reassure children of safety and security • Allow retelling and discussion of events • Encourage discussion of feelings • Help children make sense of events

Development of Emotion Adolescence • Time of emotional turmoil but not constantly • Emotional changes instantly occur with little provocation • Girls more vulnerable to depression • Adolescent moodiness is normal • Hormonal changes and environmental experiences involved in changing emotions

Development of Emotion Self-Reported Extremes of Emotions by Adolescents and their Parents

Development of Emotion Adulthood • Adapt more effectively when emotionally intelligent • Developmental changes in emotion continue through adult years • Older adults have more positive emotions, report better control of emotions

Development of Emotion Changes in Positive & Negative Emotion Across the Adult Years

Development of Emotion Socioemotional Selectivity Theory • Older adults become more selective about their social networks • Place a high value on emotional satisfaction and maximize positive emotional experiences • Spend more time with familiar individuals providing rewarding relationships • Seek more emotion-related goals than knowledge-related goals

Development of Emotion Model of Socio-emotional Selectivity

Temperament Temperament • Individual’s behavioral style and characteristic way of emotional response • Closely linked to personality • Rothbart and Bates’ Classification • Extraversion urgency • Negative affectivity • Effortful control (self-regulation)

Temperament Chess and Thomas’ Classification • Three basic types or clusters • Easy child: positive mood; quickly establishes routines; adapts easily to new experiences • Difficult child: reacts negatively; cries frequently; has irregular routines; slow to accept new experiences • Slow-to-warm-up child: low activity level; somewhat negative; shows low adaptability; displays low-intensity mood

Temperament Kagan’s Behavioral Inhibition • Differences between children • Shy, subdued, and timid • Sociable, extraverted, bold • Inhibition shows considerable stability from infancy through early childhood

Temperament Biological Foundations and Experience • Physiological characteristics are associated with different temperaments • Heredity is aspect of temperament’s biological foundations • Attributes become more stable over time as self-perceptions, behavioral preferences, and social experiences form personality

Temperament Developmental Connections

Temperament Developmental Contexts • Gender may be important factor that influences fate of temperament • Many aspects of child’s environment encourage or discourage persistence of temperament characteristics • Goodness of Fit • Match between child’s temperament and environmental demands

Temperament Parenting and Child’s Temperament • Some temperament characteristics pose more challenges than others • Management strategies that worked for one child may not work for next one • Be sensitive to individual characteristics of child • Structure the child’s environment to provide as good a fit as possible with child’s temperament • Avoid labeling as “difficult child”

Attachment and Love Theories of Attachment • Attachment— close emotional bond between two people • Social orientation and understanding • Face-to-face play for infants and caregivers • Locomotion enables infant independence • Goal-directed behaviors indicate intentions • Social referencing for reading emotional cues

Attachment and Love Theories of Attachment • Freud— infants attach to person or object providing oral satisfaction • Harlow’s study proved otherwise • Erikson— first year of life is key time for attachment development • Sense of trust or mistrust sets later expectations

Attachment and Love Theories of Attachment • Bowlby— stresses importance of attachment in first year and responsiveness of caregiver • Four phases of attachment in first 2 years • Phase 1: birth to 2 months • Phase 2: 2 to 7 months of age • Phase 3: 7 to 24 months of age • Phase 4: 24 months and older

Attachment and Love Individual Differences and the Strange Situation • Ainsworth’s measure of infant attachment to caregiver • Requires infant to move through a series of introductions, separations, and reunions • Some infants have more positive attachments than others

Attachment and Love Attachment Categories Caregiver is secure base to explore environment from Securely attached Shows insecurity by avoiding the caregiver Insecure avoidant Clings to caregiver, then resists by fighting against the closeness Insecure resistant Shows insecurity by being disorganized, disoriented Insecure disorganized

Attachment and Love The Significance of Attachment • Secure attachment in first year is important foundation for psychological development • Some developmentalists believe too much emphasis on attachment bond in infancy • Ignores the diversity of socializing agents and contexts that exists in an infant’s world • Ignores that infants are highly resilient and adaptive

Attachment and Love Caregiving Styles and Attachment Classification

Attachment and Love Cross-Cultural Comparison of Attachment

Attachment and Love Mothers and Fathers as Caregivers • Maternal interactions usually center on child-care activities • Feeding • Changing diapers • Bathing • Paternal interactions more likely to include play, engage in rough-and-tumble acts

Attachment and Love Child Care • Many parents worry about child’s care • About 2 million children currently receive formal, licensed child care • More than 5 million children in kindergarten • Types of child care vary extensively in U.S.

Attachment and Love Variations in Child Care • Five types of parental leave from work • Maternity leave • Paternity leave • Parental leave • Child-rearing leave • Family leave • Sweden has most extensive leave policies

Attachment and Love Variations in Child Care • Factors influencing effects of child care • Age of child • Type of child care • Quality of program • Mother’s employment in first year may have negative effect • Types vary by ethnicity and social class

Attachment and Love Variations in Child Care • National longitudinal study results • Patterns of use: infants placed sooner • Quality of care: lower for low-income families • Amount of child care: extensive time lessened attachment sensitivity to mother, more behavioral issues • Family and parenting influences are important

Attachment and Love Variations in Child Care • Child care strategies for parents • Quality of parenting is key to child’s development • Make decisions that enhance being good parents • Monitor child’s development • Take time to find the best child care • Child care may harm some children more than others

Attachment and Love Adolescence • Attachment to parents • Secure attachment to both parents positively related to peer and friendship relations • Dismissing/avoidant attachment: de-emphasize importance due to caregiver rejection • Preoccupied/ambivalent attachment: insecure adolescent due to inconsistent parenting • Unresolved/disorganized attachment: insecure adolescent, high fear due to traumatic experiences

Attachment and Love Dating and Romantic Relationships • Types of dating and developmental changes • Dating scripts • Cognitive models that guide dating interactions • Males are proactive, females are reactive • Males seek physical attraction, females seek interpersonal qualities • Dating involvement linked to later adjustment • Sociocultural contexts influences dating

Age of Onset of Romantic Activity

Attachment and Love Attachment in Adulthood • Adults count on romantic partners to be a secure base to which they can return and obtain comfort, security in stressful times • Attachment-related anxiety • Attachment-related avoidance • Infant attachment style often reflected in adult partnership

Attachment and Love Romantic Love • Also called passionate love or eros • Complex intermingling of emotions • Strong components of sexuality and infatuation • Often predominates early part of a love relationship • Affectionate love or companionate love • Have deep, caring affection for person

Attachment and Love Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Love • Theory that love includes three types • Passion: physical, sexual attraction • Intimacy: warmth, closeness, and sharing • Commitment: intent to remain together

Emotional Development