Emotional Development
Emotional intelligence: EQ
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Definition: abilities that are
key to competent social functioning
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Components:
§ Motivate oneself
§ Persistence when frustrated
§ Impulse control
§ Delay gratification
§ Identify one’s own feelings
§ Identify other’s feelings
§ Regulate mood
§ Regulate emotions
§ Empathy
EQ is a better
predictor
Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory
John Watson:
Early emotions: fear (loss of support)
rage (restriction) love
(touch)
These learned
through Classical Conditioning (White rabbit)
• 1960s: Operant C changes emotions: smiling
altered by reward
SLT – modeling
other’s emotions associates feelings with situations
But: what about spontaneous responses?
Functionalist Approach
Emotions central for human activity:
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crucial for cognitive, social, physical health.
Emotions impact cognitive processing:
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infants learn things from emotional parental
response (AC outlet, stairs.)
Emotions determine social behavior:
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crying, smiling interest affect in caregivers who regulate
infants with their emotions.
Support for this view?
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By 3 months, infant/parent
interaction follows cued frame
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When mother’s face emotionless,
babies try to evoke smile, then become upset (frown, cry, turn away).
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By 12 months, infants follow
emotional cues to evaluate events – the approach of a stranger.
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Physical Health: rats to
monkeys; breaking mother/baby relationship depresses immune system.
Development of the Expression
of Emotions
Same old nature-nurture question….
Newborns: adult-like facial expressions to tastes and smells.
Mothers report that neonates show:
Surprise, anger, fear, interest, happiness,
distress, disgust.
By 6 months, emotions well developed: Thus a good way to test infants’
responses for cognition.
Most research examines the basic emotions: Happiness, anger,
sadness, fear
Happiness
Babies smiling:
• Newborns smile in sleep, to touch, and mother’s voice.
• 1 month: smile to interesting sight: dynamic, eye-catching.
• 6-10 weeks: human face evokes social smile, followed by cooing – this parallels visual development.
• 3-4 months: laughter appears: reflects faster IP
• 6 months: smile/laugh selectively – familiar people: a social signal.
Anger and Sadness
Newborns respond with distress to pain, changes in temperature,
hunger, too much or too little stimulation.
In 1st two months, hints of anger before crying – increases with age.
Also display anger when: stimulation removed
caregiver leaves
arms restrained
Why? Cognitive development.
Start to understand their control over others.
With age, identify agent of restraint or blocked goal.
Thus, anger intense to caregivers (they expect warmth).
Sadness
Caused by pain, separation, removal of object.
• Less frequent than anger: common when infant caregiver interaction is disrupted.
• Depressed mothers: children 2-5 times more likely to have problems.
Fear
Rare in infancy – adaptive – babies can’t defend themselves.
• Rises
after 6 months: hesitation before playing with new toy.
Most common is stranger anxiety (Ainsworth) – 7 months
Temperament and Development
Temperament: stable
individual differences in quality and intensity of emotion reaction.
New York Longitudinal Study (141 children followed from infancy to adulthood.
Infants were rated
on 9 personality dimensions:
Activity level
Rhythmicity
Approach/withdrawal
Adaptability
Emotional reactivity
Responsiveness to stimuli
Mood (positive or negative)
Distractibility
Attention span
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Easy |
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Difficult |
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Slow-to-warm up |
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35% fit no category:
a mixture of these.
Difficult pattern
is most studied: 70%
developed behavior problems by school age (only 18% of easy children did).
Slow-to-warm-up: few problems in early years, but some later
in school when need to respond actively/quickly
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More recently temperament has
been identified using dimensions that focus on positive and negative emotions
and regulation abilities (Rothbart):
Role of Temperament in Social Skills and Adjustment
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Differences
in anger/irritability, positive emotion, and ability to regulate
emotions
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Children
who are negative, impulsive, and unregulated have poor
peer relations and get in trouble with the law. They are difficult.
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Behaviorally
inhibited children are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and
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“Goodness of fit”: compatibility between temperament and the demands and expectations of
the social environment.
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Parents
can modulate children’s temperament by their influences on the
environment.
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If
parents are supportive and consistent with difficult children, negative
behaviors may moderate. If parents are
harsh and punitive, undesirable behaviors can worsen.
Acquiring Emotional Display Rules
These rules specify when, where, and how it is appropriate to express emotions in their culture.
Older children: parents encourage anger/aggression in self-defense but not other times (e.g., when child takes their toy).
• Takes time for child to modify emotional display: cannot pose expression they don’t feel until 3.
• More likely to suppress anger with adults than peers.
Understanding & Responding to the Emotions of Others
Social Referencing
When you refer to another person’s emotional reaction to appraise an uncertain situation.
Caregivers’ emotional expression determines 1-year-olds wariness of stranger, new toys, or visual cliff.
• In unfamiliar room, infants stay in “eyeshot” of caregiver:
if she turns away they leave toys to relocate visual field.
Emotional Understanding in Childhood
Develops rapidly during preschool years – language helps.
• By 4-5, children judge correctly many emotions: but emphasize external factors over internal ones.
E.g., believe people show anger when wronged, but older children associate it with intent to do harm.
• Preschoolers know that someone who is angry will hit someone or grab toy, and happy child will share.
• Preschoolers deny one can feel two emotions at once (similarly, cannot combine height & width).
• 5-7 years rely on facial cues, but by 8 can take into account situational factors (happy smile, broken bicycle)
Why changes? Cognitive development + social experiences.
Emotional Development
in Childhood
• The causes of emotions change throughout childhood, as children’s cognitive and emotional development progresses.
– Causes of anger, for instance, change as children better understand others’ intentions and motives.
• In preschool and early school years, children become less intense and less negative emotionally.
• Emotional intensity increases in adolescence.
• Depression is more common in adolescence than in childhood.
Development of Empathy
Empathy is ability to understand feelings of others and respond with complementary emotions.
A complex interaction of cognition and affect: need to detect emotions and take another’s perspective.
An important motivator of prosocial, or altruistic behavior.
Roots in early development: Newborns cry in response to another baby.
But, true empathy requires knowledge of self as distinct.
• 1 year: infants no longer cry in reaction to another’s distress.
Instead, try to relieve other’s unhappiness:
• 21 months: give hug, try to distract mother faking sadness.
With age advances in perspective taking allow empathic response to general life states, not just immediate distress.
• Abused toddlers less likely to show concern for other’s distress:
responded with fear, anger, physical attacks.