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Understanding Emotional Development in Infants

The document discusses emotional development in infants, highlighting the progression of emotions from basic to complex, including the differentiation of positive and negative emotions. It covers the role of parental influence, cultural differences, and the importance of emotional regulation and recognition in early childhood. Additionally, it addresses temperament and the concept of 'goodness of fit' between a child's temperament and parenting styles.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
9 views33 pages

Understanding Emotional Development in Infants

The document discusses emotional development in infants, highlighting the progression of emotions from basic to complex, including the differentiation of positive and negative emotions. It covers the role of parental influence, cultural differences, and the importance of emotional regulation and recognition in early childhood. Additionally, it addresses temperament and the concept of 'goodness of fit' between a child's temperament and parenting styles.
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Emotional Development

• Emotions are not just subjective feelings


• They include a motivation to behavior-either a
desire to approach or withdraw, or a desire to
change a person or situation
• Physical changes-heart and breathing rate, skin
conductance, stress hormones
• How we interpret emotion-cognitions
• Desire to take action

1
* dealing with pos theg emotions
· babies will turn away
fromsomethingif themonths)
are

2
Theories of Early Emotions
• Izard’s cross-cultural
research-differential or
discrete emotions & present in all cultures

– Present from birth


– Physiological
Loading…
• More likely only
distress, pleasure and
wariness in first couple
months
• Functionalist approach-
evolved emotions as
not present at birth

adaptation to motivate 3 Cus to approach ,


withdraw ,
change a situation
Positive Emotions
• Early smiles reflexive
• Social smile starts around 2 me when i
months farting
-

finish brain +
behaviour
• Two months smile at make
something
controlling environment appear/change Smth

• At 7 months, more likely to


smile at familiar people strangerstowards
-
wariness

• In second year, like making


jokes and making people laugh

4
not a lot of
difference


"traditional"

- Villages of

Loading…
adults taking
turns to raise
children
Corphanage)

5
Negative Emotions
*infants are not good
at differentiated cries

• Parents interpret emotion but parents interpret these


cries as best as possible

• Not well-differentiated in first few months


maybe 4 or 6

• Disagreement as to when differentiated by by affected


parents
treatment

• Affected by physical factors eX :


walking into

• Infants don’t always demonstrate a mood


Dad room
and get startled so cry

congruent to situation-different interpretation


• Doesn’t matter as long as mom knows L
something is wrong
• Well organized by about 6 months
differentiated
fearful sangryIsad hungry

6
Fear -

common
problem

• Fear most adaptive or functional -

fight flight
, ,
freeze flaun ?
,

• Early on kids afraid of loud noises, novel things, and knew things

sudden movements
D *

• Temperament of child and familiarity of situation


* things
some kids love new

• Stranger wariness -

most common fears

Visual Cliff Dog Noises JITB


fear increases from
,
,

8mo-2 years than


before or after

7
X

stuck in highchair can crawl away

Badaptive cut they could


get
away from mom

Develop fear of strangers around 7 months &


lasts until about 2 years of age 8
Separation Anxiety
• Separation anxiety begins
about 8 months
• Peaks around 13 months
- around when Canadian moms go back to work

• Dependent on culture and


a while back I was

how raised involved w/ a Greek


man

• Less fear when child


leaves -

kid walks out of room

9
· all cultures see peak at

13 months

10
Anger and Sadness
• By the second year, differentiating
emotions is a lot easier A LOT

• Kids display anger when they’re frustrated-


when they’re removed, restrained, left, or
Loading…
put down in many situations angry crya

• Higher level of cognition they understand their


intentions and that it is
own

being disrupted
• Sadness instead not a good sign-sign of
neglect and abuse learning not
learned
to differentiate emotions
helplessness aboundaries are
what
too strict
,

don't get they want

Anger ,
fear Sadness
, , Happiness
11
Self-Conscious/Complex Emotions
• Start to come in in second
year-differentiation of self
from other 18 months Rouge test
-

(mirror-self test)
· require you to think about what others think about you Monkeys
L

• Include embarrassment,
pride, guilt, and shame
(not really)

• Have to be aware of self


and aware of other’s
perceptions of self
• 18-24 months-become
embarrassed at being
center of attention
12
· less need for higher cognition

• Pride apparent pretty early


– Great pride in first steps realize there


everyone
are
can
things
do

– When older, more pride in difficult tasks


• Guilt-over what done to others
okay-behavior-focused ,
makes kids want to

• Shame-more self-related
do better

not okay about the person makes kids that they bad makes them withdraw
generalize
-

, are

• Guilt okay, shame not so good


,

• Cultural differences-other cultures more


embarrassed than proud of individual
accomplishment-why would this be?
* more about collectivist approach
share goals , ideas ,
rewards

13
people feel more

pride - difficult task

High

High Guilt

Low
Pride

No
Guilt
or

14
Understanding Emotions
·
forming categories

• Habituate to different emotions at 3 months


• By 18 months, reach for toys paired with
researcher

happiness j -d j

&
>
-

always pick
this one

• Social referencing around 12 months


• Children who grow up in abusive homes
better at recognizing anger
because they
see it more often

• COVID didn't seem to affect


wearing masks to decipher emotions
because they saw parents/
siblings

15
Emotion Recognition

meana

O making fun of other person (I told you so

16
HAPPY shocked or
Upset
Laughing

Disgust Anger Fear

17
• Recognizing basic emotions present in
infancy
• Social referencing-comes in around 1 year
• Preschoolers identify causes of basic
Why
emotions would someone
happy
be

• Why happy recognized first? people smile at

babies all the time


no matter what the baby is doing

• Middle childhood-multiple emotions and anger + sadness

memories cause emotions-


think about dead dog the same

• Around age 10 understand mixed emotions

18
* recognition of this does not happen until T or 8 ylo
19
Emotional Display Rules
is it good or bad to
how much ?
express and
• Norms for expression in our cultures
• Very different in different cultures some are

expressive
very reserved
very
&
some are

• Even babies behave differently


• Parents encourage positive emotions
by imitating them and not imitating
negative negative-bad
• Kids learn over school years peer pressure
-

bullying for getting upset

20
↑ ↓

↑ ↓

↑ ↓

↑ ↓
not very
T -
different

22
Regulation of Emotion
key aspect of psychopathology

• Very important aspect of emotional


development new things/experiences
to do

• Have to do to achieve goals


• Have to learn to regulate feelings,
physiological processes (arousal),
thoughts, and behaviors
right emotions in right
contexts

• Very long, very slow process into the 20s

21
Early Regulation try to keep them away from
overstimulating things

• In early infancy, parents control


exposure, soothe, and distract
• By 6 months kids able to
distract themselves somewhat
• By 12 months consistently able
to distract themselves-related
to motor development -

can walk away

• Rely less on parents over time but do need them early to help with

• Cognitive strategies
regulations and
without it they will
i don't doesn't matter
have ER problems
Reframing -
even care
,

anymore

23
/terrible twos

*
girls are taught to

regulate better
*
"boys will be boys"

24
Cheat Sheet

6
months

18-24

25
26
Parental Socialization
• Model level of emotionality from parents in
their life
all aspects of

• More modeled, better understanding


8 % experience PPD

• Maternal depression--> child depression


• Individualistic vs. Collectivist differences
less expressive generally
you're not angry X

• Never deny your children's emotions always acknowledge


and work with them

• Emotion coaching important


causes of emotions
mixed emotions

27
Still Face paradigm
• [Link]
v=FaiXi8KyzOQ
·
baby recognizes when mom has still face and
tries everything to get back to normal reaction
makes baby v stressed/upset
explains PPD effects on baby

28
Temperament
have not had

• Large individual differences- innate many experiences


• Thomas & Chess proposed babies differ in
– Activity level Chill vs .
hyper

– Rhythmicity (sleeping eating


Settle into routine ,



Loading…
Distractibility upset
Approach/withdrawal
toydistracted w/

crawl towards Smith new

– Adaptability somewhat flexible in routine

– Attention span
– Intensity of reaction long/intense how is it

– Threshold of responsiveness
– Quality of mood
29
Temperament (cont.)
routine r upset X distracted

• Thomas & Chess classifications: Easy


(40%), Difficult (10%) & Slow-to-Warm-Up
routine X upset V distract X
things
very wary to anything new normal were ok

(15%). What about the other 35%?


,

• Rothbart: said there were too


many variables

– Fearful distress/inhibition
– Irritable distress
– Attention span no
categorization
– Activity level
– Positive affect

30
examples↓

31
Is Temperament Stable Over Time?

• Studies find conflicting results-about 30%


• Early in childhood more stability but
decreases across childhood-why? environment
changes temperament being exposed bullied ,

• Kids at extremes more likely to retainstay to new peers

similar to

• More stability for emotions than activity childhood


• [Link]
v=fAmyt5gRd3k&ab_channel=RobinSuitt
for
* different temperaments lead to different levels of motivation /reaching
something they
different temperaments have different new stimuli ex diff
:
&
.

masks can't get

32
Goodness of Fit
between parent and child

• How temperament fits with environment


• Parents recognize temperament while still
encouraging more adaptive functioning expose them to things that might upset them

• Difficult temperaments okay with sensitive


parenting
• Parents have to fit their parenting styles to the
individual child
• The quality of the relationship between parent &
child more effect than temperament good
relationship = temperament will
change

• Orchids vs. dandelions-differential susceptibility


specific type of can thrive with any
to environment
parenting needed type of parenting

33

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