Emotional Development, Temperament, and Attachment

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Emotional Development, Temperament, and Attachment

• Chapter 11

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Emotional Development

• Theories
• Watson
• Fear
• Rage
• Love
• Learned through classical conditioning
• 1960s, operant conditioning
• Social learning theory

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Emotional Development

• Darwin Universal facial expressions
• Evidence for Darwins theory
• Cross-cultural similarity
• Identifying facial expressions
• Used Fore, a preliterate society in New Guinea

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Emotional Development

• Innate or learned??
• Some researchers believe that all of the basic
  emotions (those that can be directly inferred
  from facial expressions) are present in the first
  few weeks of life
• At birth, babies show interest, distress,
  disgust, and contentment
• Between 2-7 months, anger, sadness, joy,
  surprise, and fear develop
• May be biologically programmed

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Emotional Development

• Hiatt, Campos, Emde
• Examined happiness, surprise, and fear in 10-12
  month olds
• Presented with 6 situations
• 2 intended to produce happiness
• 2 intended to produce surprise
• 2 intended to produce fear

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Emotional Development

• Hiatt, Campos, Emde (cont)
• Do two situations designed to produce the same
  emotional state elicit similar facial
  expressions?
• Are these patterns different from other
  situations?
• Are there other signs that the infant is
  experiencing the intended emotion?

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Emotional Development

• Sternberg, Campos, Emde
• Provoked anger in 7-month-olds by frustrating
  them
• Infants displayed anger expressions brows joined
  together with vertical line between them, eyelids
  narrowed, mouth squared

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Emotional Development

• Ganchrow looked at newborns in the first day of
  life at their first feeding
• Newborns fed sweet or bitter liquids
• Elicited different expressions
• Appears that infants can demonstrate different
  facial expressions and appear to experience these
  emotions as well
• Can they also recognize emotions?

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Emotional Development

• Caron, Caron, Myers visual discrimination
• Showed 4-7 m/o a sequence of pictures
• 4 different women, each expressing the same
  emotion (happiness or surprise)
• Infants habituate to pictures

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Emotional Development

• Walker-Andrews matching faces voices
• Presented 5 and 7 m/o with 2 films side by side
• One showed a person making an angry expression,
  the other a happy expression
• Lower part of face was hidden
• Soundtrack was presented

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Emotional Development

• Does all of this support Darwins claim that
  infants have the innate ability to recognize the
  meaning of emotional facial expressions?

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Emotional Development

• Haviland Lelwica
• Mothers sat facing 10 week old babies
• Mother displayed 3 emotions happiness, sadness,
  anger
• Facial expressions tone of voice

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Emotional Development

• Social Referencing
• Infants use adults reactions to events as guides
  to how they should react to the same event
• Happens in uncertain situations

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Emotional Development

• Social Referencing (cont)
• Klinnert
• Mother and 12-18 month old infant, mother seated
  in corner
• Mother previously trained to demonstrate
  happiness, fear, neutral expression
• Mother had wireless earplug
• 3 toys presented, one at a time
• Green remote control dinosaur, head of incredible
  hulk, remote control spider

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Emotional Development

• Social Referencing Klinnert (cont)
• Approached mother more quickly after fear, stayed
  near her and touched her more
• Approached toy more when mother smiled
• In between for neutral

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Emotional Development

• Campos Klinnert
• Placed infants on visual cliff with medium drop
  off
• Mother on one side of cliff, baby on other

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Emotional Development

• Darwins theory, revisited
• At least some facial expressions seem to be
  universal
• Still not certain if expressions are innate, but
  appear early in infancy
• Not sure if ability to recognize expressions is
  innate, but is present during infancy

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Emotional Development

• Basic emotions
• Interest, distress, disgust, contentment, anger,
  sadness, joy, surprise, fear
• Complex/secondary emotions
• Depend on social experience understanding
  social rules and standards
• Shame, guilt, pride, embarrassment, envy

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Emotional Development

• Complex/secondary emotions (cont)
• Require social experience
• Parental approval/disapproval defines standards
• Culture defines standards
• Appear at end of second year, as children develop
  a sense of self

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Emotional Development

• Complex/secondary emotions (cont)
• Alessandri Lewis (1996)
• 4-5 y/o children engaged with puzzles and
  maternal reactions were monitored
• Kelley, Brownell, Campbell (2000)
• Maternal evaluative feedback rated during
  challenging task when toddlers were 2 years old
• Self-evaluative affect (pride shame) rated
  during achievement tasks when toddlers were 3
  years old

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Emotional Development

• Children more likely to show shame if parents
  belittle them (e.g., You are so bad for breaking
  that toy.)
• Children more likely to experience guilt if
  parents criticize inappropriate behavior but
  provide explanations for why it was wrong, how it
  affected others, and what can be done as
  reparation.

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Regulating Emotions

• Ability develops slowly
• Young infants
• End of second year
• 18-24 months

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Regulating Emotions

• Toddlers have difficulty regulating fear
• Adults can foster emotional regulation through
  distraction and understanding
• Exposure to negative emotions, regardless of at
  whom they are directed, relates to higher
  negative emotionality and lower ability to
  regulate

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Emotional Understanding

• lt3 difficulty identifying and labeling emotional
  expressions
• 4-5 able to identify happiness, anger, sadness
  from body movements can also understand that
  current emotional state may be based on previous
  experiences
• Emotional understanding continues to improve

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Emotional Understanding

• 8 some situations elicit different emotions in
  different people
• 6-9 can experience two emotions simultaneously

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Attachment

• A strong, enduring emotional tie to a specific
  other person
• Seen in desire to seek out and be near the other
  person
• Usually mother or primary caretaker
• Doesnt have to be biological mother
• Can have multiple attachments

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Theories of Attachment

• Psychoanalytic theory
• Secondary drive/learning theory
• Counterevidence Harry Harlow
• Newborn monkeys separated from mothers
• Raised with artificial surrogates (dummies)

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Theories of Attachment

• Bowlbys Ethological Theory
• Emphasizes evolutionary roots and biological
  functions of behavior
• Three behaviors indicative of attachment
• Stranger anxiety
• Separation protest
• Secure base behavior

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Individual Differences in Attachment

• Develop expectations about social relationships
  through social interactions during first two
  years
• Develop internal working model
• Of self and others
• May affect later social relationships

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Assessing Attachment

• Strange Situation (Mary Ainsworth)
• Rationale
• Attachment has survival value
• Attachment behaviors should be triggered in times
  of stress

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Episodes 2-8 last for 3 minutes each, although
separation episodes may be truncated and reunion
episodes may be expanded for babies who become
extremely upset
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Types of Attachment

• Secure (65 of U.S. babies)
• Avoidant (insecure 20 of U.S. babies)
• Ambivalent/resistant (insecure 10-15 of U.S.
  babies)
• Disorganized (insecure 5-10 of U.S. babies)

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Assessing Attachment

• Attachment Q-sort (AQS)
• Sort descriptors into categories ranging from
  most like to least like the child at home
• Seems to correlate well with Strange Situation
  classifications
• Adult Attachment Inventory in adults
• Relates to current relationships
• Relates to parenting
• http//www.yourpersonality.net/affect/
• http//www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq
  .pl

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Consistency of Attachment

• Sroufe Waters classified 50 infants at 12
  months and again at 18 months
• 48 classified same
• Less stable families ? more change (although most
  still classified the same)

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Quality of Caregiving

• Sensitivity-insensitivity
• Acceptance-rejection
• Cooperation-interference
• Accessibiilty-ignoring
• Secure ? high on all four dimensions
• Avoidant ? rejecting and insensitive
• Resistant ? rejecting and either interfering or
  ignoring
• Disorganized ? abuse/neglect

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Fathers

• Young et al. (1995) found that perceived paternal
  love and caring was predictive of childrens life
  satisfaction with a national sample of 640 12- to
  16-year-olds living in two-parent families
• Father-child conflict, but not mother-child
  conflict, was positively associated with
  adolescent depression (Cole McPherson, 1993)

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Fathers (cont)

• Forehand and Nousianen (1993) found that when
  mothers were high in acceptance, the acceptance
  of fathers made an enormous difference
• low father acceptance scores were associated with
  children with poorer cognitive competence
• high father acceptance scores were associated
  with children with significantly better cognitive
  competence
• infants still seem to prefer mother in times of
  stress, but fathers are important

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Consequences of Attachment

• Problem-solving
• Secure attachment ? enthusiasm, followed
  directions, seldom cried or became angry, asked
  for help when needed
• Insecure attachment ? ignored directions, easily
  frustrated, gave up quickly, seldom asked for
  help, even when needed

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Consequences of Attachment

• Social Adjustment
• Secure attachment ? social leaders initiated
  activities, showed empathy, curiosity
• Insecure attachment ? socially withdrawn, less
  curiosity
• Follow up at 11-12 and 15-16 years
• Secure attachment ? displayed better social
  skills, had better peer relations, and were more
  likely to have close friends

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Consequences of Attachment

• Information Processing
• Belsky, Spritz, Crnic (1996) gave 3 y/o a
  puppet show
• children saw positive (e.g., a birthday party)
  and negative (e.g., spilling juice) events

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Cross-Cultural Studies

• Northern Germany (Grossman)
• A B C
• N. Germany 49 33 12
• U.S. 26 57 17

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Cross-Cultural Studies

• Japan (Miyake et al.)
• A B C
• N. Germany 49 33 12
• U.S. 26 57 17
• Japan 0 72 28

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Daycare and Attachment

• NICHD study of early childcare
• No relation between childcare (e.g., age of
  entry, hours per week, type of facility) and
  attachment above and beyond effects of
  mother-child relationship
• Combined effects worse than those of low maternal
  sensitivity and responsiveness alone

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Challenges

• Nativist
• Innate temperament influences personality and
  social behavior
• Later experience
• Early experience doesnt necessarily have
  irreversible, lasting effects

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Temperament

• Persons style of behavior and pattern of
  emotional reactions
• Fearful distress
• Irritable distress
• Positive affect
• Activity level
• Attention span/persistence
• Rhythmicity

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Temperament

• Hereditary and Environmental Influences on
  Temperament
• Hereditary Influences
• Environmental Influences

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Temperament

• Hereditary and Environmental Influences on
  Temperament
• Cultural Influences
• Stability of Temperament
• Activity level, irritability, sociability,
  fearfulness
• Behavioral inhibition

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Temperamental Profiles

• Thomas Chess
• Easy (40) even tempered, positive, open to new
  experiences
• Difficult (10) active, irritable, irregular in
  habits
• Slow-to-warm-up (15) inactive, moody, respond
  to novelty mildly negatively

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Temperament and Later Adjustment

• Spirited at 2-3 years ? 70 have behavior
  problems at age 5-6
• Slow to warm up ? 50 had problems with social
  interaction at age 8-10
• Goodness-of-fit

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Temperament and Attachment

• Doesnt explain correlation between attachment
  and maternal behavior
• Kochanska
• Caregiving ? secure vs. insecure attachment
• Temperament ? avoidant vs. resistant/ambivalent
  insecure attachment

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Temperament and Attachment

• Direct
• temperament ? attachment
• Indirect

Temperament
Temperament
Parental Behavior
Attachment Classification
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Temperament and Attachment

• Ainsworth/Sroufe

Early Parental Behavior
Early Attachment
Childs Later Behavior
Infant Behavior
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Temperament and Attachment

• Lamb

Later Parental Behavior
Early Parental Behavior
Later Attachment
Early Attachment
Infant Behavior
Childs Later Behavior
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Temperament and Attachment
Early Parental Behavior
Early Temperament
Early Attachment
Later Parental Behavior
Later Temperament
Later Behavior