Lecture Outline Components of Emotions Theories of Emotional Development Emotional Milestones

1. Lecture Outline • Components of Emotions • Theories of Emotional Development • Emotional Milestones • Identifying Others’ Emotions and Understanding the Causes of Emotion

2. Components of Emotion: • Motivation to act or goals (e.g., approach or avoidance) • Physiological reactions (e.g., heart rate, hormone levels) • Thoughts (cognitions) and feelings

3. Theories of Emotion • Discrete Emotions Theory (Izard) • (Some) emotions are innate • Distinct emotions emerge very early in life • Each emotion corresponds to a particular set of facial/bodily expressions

4. Functionalist Theories • Basic function of emotions is to promote action toward a goal • Ex: Fear • Goal is to avoid physical/psychological harm • Action: withdrawal • Emotions are influenced by the social/cultural environment and are not necessarily distinct early in life

5. Emotional Milestones • Positive emotions • Social smiles: Smiles directed toward people • Typically emerge between 2-3 months

6. Negative emotions • Distress reaction: Present from birth • Occurs in response to multiple stressors (e.g., hunger, pain, etc.) • Disagreement about whether young infants experience distinct negative emotions (e.g., anger, sadness, fear) or if they simply experience distress

7. Fear • Little firm evidence of distinct fear reactions in young infants • At around 6-7 months, fear of strangers often develops • Other fears also present at around 7 months

8. Separation Anxiety • Distress due to separation from primary caregiver(s) • Develops around 8 months and continues until about 13-15 months, then declines

9. Other negative emotions (anger, sadness) • Between 4-8 months, anger expressions become distinct from other negative emotions • Anger and sadness are often elicited by the same situations • Exs: after a painful event; when infants can’t control events in their environment • Anger expressions seem to occur more frequently in infants than sadness expressions

10. Self-conscious emotions • Embarrassment, pride, guilt, shame • Emerge between 15-24 months • Associated with recognition of self (rouge test)

11. Identifying Others’ Emotions • Between 4 and 7 months, infants can discriminate some emotional expressions

12. At about 7 months, infants “match” facial expression of emotion with vocal expression (intermodal perception)

13. Between 8 and 12 months, some infants engage in social referencing • Use parents’ facial or vocal cues to interpret novel or ambiguous situations • Ex: visual cliff

14. By age 3, children can label some facial expressions of emotion • Can distinguish happiness first • Learn to distinguish different negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness) in late preschool/early school years • Learn to identify self-conscious emotions by early to mid-elementary school years

15. Understanding Causes of Emotion • Between 2 and 3, children can identify happy situations • By age 4, can identify sad situations • Fear- and anger-inducing situations are harder, but children get better at identifying them over time

16. Lecture Outline • Emotion Regulation • Definition • Normative Development • Individual Differences in Emotion and Emotion Regulation • Temperament • Temperament Dimensions • Measurement of Temperament • Temperament and Later Adjustment

17. Emotion Regulation

18. Normative Development of ER • Role of Caregivers • Parents help infants and young children regulate negative emotions • Over time, infants and young children gradually become better able to regulate emotions independently

19. Use of cognitive strategies to regulate negative emotions increases with age • Ex: mental distraction; focus on positive aspects of a situation • Use of more effective/appropriate strategies to regulate emotions increases with age

20. Individual Differences in Emotion and ER • Temperament: Biologically based individual differences in emotional characteristics and other behaviors • Show consistency across situations • Relatively stable over time

21. Temperament Dimensions: • Fearful distress/Behavioral Inhibition • Irritable distress • Attention span/persistence • Activity level • Positive affect

22. Measurement of Temperament • Parent report • Structured Observation • Psychophysiological Methods

23. Temperament and Later Adjustment • “Difficult” temperament may include: • High irritable distress or fearful distress • Low attention span/persistence • High activity level • Low positive affect

24. Difficult temperament in infancy/preschool period is correlated with adjustment problems later in life (adolescence, adulthood)

25. Goodness-of-Fit • Degree to which a child’s temperament is compatible with the expectations of the social environment (including the family environment) • Poor goodness-of-fit likely to result in adjustment problems for children