Development of emotions

• Emotions

  Subjective reactions to the environment

  • Transient states
  • Baby isn’t always afraid
  • Correspond to distinct internal feelings
  • “I’m scared now!”
  • Correspond to cognitive processes
  • “Yikes!”
  • Correspond to physiological processes • Increased heart rate
• Genetic-maturational view

  • Hypothesis: Emotions are the product of biological factors •
  • Evidence:
  • Individual differences in temperament
  • Twin studies: Emotional expression of identical twins more similar than fraternal twins (e.g., how early they start smiling, how much they smile)
• Learning theory

  • Hypothesis: Child’s particular fears depends on what they have learned
  • Evidence
  • Different emotions have different ages of onset, frequencies, intensities in different children
  • These vary based on the nature of the rearing environment
  • Parents can encourage and discourage certain emotions through either rewarding or punishing their expression (operant conditioning)
• Functionalist Approach

  • Hypothesis:
  • Emotions help us to achieve our goals
  • Emotions will influence the baby’s actions • Emotions will likely also influence the caregiver’s actions
  • Communication = signaling information to others

  
• Primary emotions

  
• Emergence of emotions

  Why do emotions emerge in the order that they do?

  • Ontogeny mirrors phylogeny
  • Infant emotional responding is ordered similarly to the order of evolution of these emotions
  • Complex emotions emerge later

  
• Emergence of Emotions

  
• Complex emotions

  Guilt

  • Leads us to try to reduce guilt
  • Somewhat culturally specific

  Embarrassment

  • Can be induced in children as young as 2
  • Emergence of this emotion is related to self-understanding

  Machiavellian emotions

  • Manipulative emotions – expressed, but not felt
• Recognising Others’ Emotions

  Response to emotions emerges early

  • 4-month-olds track emotions
  • 5-month-olds are sensitive to the emotions of speakers of their non-native language
  • 7-month-olds track emotion in speech intonation

  Negativity bias

  • Infants have greater responses to negative emotions
• Emotional feedback loops

  Emotional contagion:

  • Experiencing an emotion can cause the experiencer to feel that emotion
  • Emerges by 6 months
  • Could be a form of emotional imitation
  • Could arise as a result of mirror neurons
• Emotional Regulation

  • Influencing (and moderating) emotions

  Situation modification

  • Change the situation → emotion changes

  Attentional deployment

  • Change the thoughts → emotion changes

  Response modification

  • Change the response → emotion changes
  • – (mediation?)
• Temperament and Personality

  Temperament

  • Tendency toward particular emotional and behavioral responses to specific situations or contexts
  • Used to describe infants

  Personality

  • Temperament + creativity + intelligence + other factors
  • Used to describe older children and adults
• Trait Approaches to Temperament

  Emphasis on biological factors

  • What is the heritability of behavior patterns?

  Three main categories:

  • Emotionality
  • Activity level
  • Sociability
• Early Studies of Temperament

  New York Longitudinal Study

  • Interviews with mothers about infants’ activities and routine

  Developed a scale of nine dimensions

  • Activity level, approach/withdrawal, adaptability, mood, responsiveness, reactivity, distractibility, rhythmicity, attention span/persistence
  • Classified babies as ‘easy’ (40%), ‘difficult’ (10%), ‘slow to warm up’ (15%), and ‘average’ (35%)
  • These classifications had some predictive power
• Temperament Predicting Personality

  Influenced by ‘goodness of fit’ between child and environment

  
• Family influences on emotional development

  • Parents’ patterns of emotional expression serve as models for child’s emotional expressiveness
  • Parents’ and siblings’ specific reactions to children’s emotions encourage or discourage certain patterns of emotional responsiveness
  • Parents can act as emotional coaches by talking about emotions, and exploring their child’s understanding of their own and others’ emotional responses
  • Not just parents, but also siblings and peers