Child Psychology 560 Emotional Development 2 03 04 2014 Problems for Studying This Topic What are babies experiencing What do their facial expressions mean What other capacities have to be in place for an emotion to emerge Nature or Nurture Goals Developmental Patterns of emotions Secondary emotions shame pride guilt Emotion Regulation Developmental Patterns Emotion Expression o Expression Faces Darwin the young and the old of widely different races both with man and animals express the same state of mind by the same movements The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals Facial Expression Paul Ekman Universal Innate Nativist Theory o Even very different cultures identify emotions in the same way Adults agree on happiness sadness anger and disgust even if no word o Are Emotions Innate Evidence for Expression 1 month old infants express disgust and interest Feeding Orienting Videos of infant emotions Carroll Izard Raters agreed on o Raters disagreed on o Interest Joy Surprise Sadness Anger Disgust Contempt Blind versus Sighted Athletes Victory Defeat Pride Shame Took pictures when they were defeated or won and compared the pictures their bodies did the same thing with blind vs sighted o Positive Emotions Smiling Newborns Smile in REM sleep burst in brainstem activity 2nd week Smile when awake not correlated with environment 3 8 weeks Smile due to environment not really social 2 5 3 months Social Smiles reciprocally related to others Start getting feedback reaffirm how they are feeling Important in forming attachment and bonds 7 months Smiles also to familiar faces Nature vs Nurture Blind children smile Nature May not shift to social smiles o Premature infants smile late o o Need to be reciprocal nurture But at the appropriate gestational age nature Laughter 3 4 month old laugh when happy 1 year old laugh at the unexpected 2 year old enjoy making others laugh Negative Emotions Distress Generalized distress appears very quickly undifferentiated don t know if it is sad or angry By 2 months adults can differentiate anger and sadness from distress and pain in some contexts By age 2 Adults can easily differentiate anger from other negative emotions Separation Anxiety Feelings of distress that infants and toddlers experience when they are separated or expect to be separated from individuals to whom they are attached An important type of fear and distress that tends to increase from 813 or 15 months and then begins to decline By about 5 months infants can start comparing faces mom s is different than dad s After 8 and past 12 but starts to go down separation anxiety Across Cultures Innate behavior that all humans tend to have Stranger Anxiety Emerges around 6 7 months first evidence of fear Intensifies and lasts until about 2 years old Variable across individuals and contexts 1st evidence of fear Other fears e g fear of loud noises are also evident around 7 months and tend to decline after 12 months Why does this start Better recall memory new vs old events Have to understand that this person is new Better categorization trustable vs not Greater needs Increased ability to signal needs prefer responders What else Control Predictability Noisy Monkey 12 13 month olds Control press button less distress No control random more distress Fixed interval of noise random and fixed interval no control Predictability less distress Random more distress Minimizing Stranger Anxiety Most anxiety when mother is not present least when mother holds child Let child leave the parent Tell child what is going to happen Time to get to know stranger Secure attachment style Experience regularly cared for by others Parent responds favorably to stranger Emotion Recognition o Emotion Recognition in Others Empathetic crying babies distressed when others are Visual discrimination categorization Facial Expressions 6 weeks some signs 7 months well developed Social Referencing o Present at birth 12 months Understanding Emotions Empathetic Crying 18 72 hours post natal newborns exposed to another infant s crying displayed distress reactions Martin Clark 1982 Sagi Hoffman 1976 Another infants cry greater distress than Silence white noise synthetic cry sounds non human cry sounds own cry o Infant distress to another infant s cry not a response to aversive noise May be a very early precursor to empathetic responding Empathetic Responding and Behavior 10 12 months no response to others distress 14 20 months increased capability of a variety of helping behaviors such as o Verbal comfort and advice Sharing Distracting the person in distress 3 years of age capable of a variety of empathy related behaviors such as expressing verbal and facial concern Interest in another s distress Responses to simulated distress of a stranger and of their parent at home and in the laboratory between the ages of 14 and 36 months Emotion Recognition Discrimination perceive that one thing is different than another 4 7 month old dishabituate Categorization Ignore natural variation in one category and still treat two slightly different members in a category as the same Inter modal matching by 7 months faces and soundtracks Show emotional facial expressions and pairing it with emotions Prefer to look at congruent match ups happy face with a happy voice versus happy face with angry voice Discrimination By 6 weeks or so Habituate babies to a smiling face reduced looking Present smiling and fearful faces o Baby will look longer at fearful face after being habituated to smiling they notice a difference and their ability to see detail develops overtime Categorization By 5 months Good visual acuity Integrate features into wholes Categorize other things such as animals Babies can be habituated to many smiling faces and look at the fearful face in the test o Social Referencing The seeking of another s reaction to a situation to guide own behavior Appears as early as 6 months Is not initially intentional Considered the basis of observational learning Visual cliff platform baby can crawl on with plexi glass over a pit o o Referencing caretakers emotions is vital for learning of basic adaptive behaviors Kids who cannot do this are at risk Understanding Emotions Labeling Emotional Expression 2 year olds Happiness 3 4 year olds Anger Sadness Pre K Fear Surprise Disgust Grade School Pride Shame Guilt Labeling Emotions Language Labeling Emotions and identification of antecedents and consequences develops around age 2 Bretherton et al 1985 Emerging ability to Match a