DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONS

1
DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONS

• Theoretical approaches
• behaviourism
• social learning
• cognitive-development
• functionalist

2

• Behaviourism
• Watson three innate emotions
• fear (e.g. as response to loud noises, loss of
  support)
• rage (e.g. as response to restriction of body
  movements)
• love (e.g. as response to touching and caressing)
• Importance of classical conditioning
• Skinner operant conditioning

3

• Social learning
• Modeling of emotions by others in specific
  situations
• Cognitive-developmental
• Discrepancy theory discrepancy from childs
  schema
• Doesnt really deal with emotions, only attention
  and curiosity

4

• Functional
• Emotions are central, adaptive forces for
  everything we do
• Emotions and cognitive processing two-way
  street, they affect each other, not independent
  of each other
• What are the functions of emotions?
• Emotions are vital in interacting with our
• environment
• appraisal of situation, stimuli
• preparing for action

5

• Emotions impact on
• attention and perception
• learning
• memory
• physical and mental health
• self-efficacy
• social behaviour emotional expression

cognitive processing
6

• Emotions and cognitive processing
• positive emotions enhance cognitive processing,
  and cognitive functions that help the infant or
  child understand its environment produce positive
  emotions
• the reverse is true of negative emotions

7

• Emotions and health
• emotional deprivation leads to physical failure
  to thrive, dwarfism
• emotional deprivation causes stress
• stress leads to elevated blood pressure and heart
  rate, which can lead to heart disease
• stress depresses the immune response, leading to
  higher rates of infections and cancer
• stress diverts blood from the digestive system to
  brain and voluntary muscles, causing
  gastrointestinal problems, (e.g. colitis,
  constipation, diarrhea, ulcers, pain)

8

• Emotions and health (Contd)
• children who were emotionally deprived exhibited
  increased incidence of illness, learning and
  behaviour problems, poor concentration, poor
  impulse and anger control
• early intervention can lead to improvements
• children who were abused or rejected in early
  childhood showed, as adults, very elevated levels
  of C-reactive protein and fibrinogen, which are
  associated with cardiovascular disease and heart
  attacks and strokes
• maternal depression in infancy has profound
  effects, early intervention essential

9

• Emotions and self-efficacy
• contributes to the development of sense of
  self-awareness through the pleasure derived from
  some control of their environment (e.g. making a
  mobile move)
• Emotions and social behaviour
• the child must learn how to regulate its emotions
  to adapt to their environment
• the child must learn the cultural rules for
  emotional expression and display

10

• Development of emotional expression
• Newborn
• states of arousal (low, medium or high) pleasant
  or unpleasant (guessing game for caregivers)

11

• Development of emotional expression (Contd)
• Gradually, basic emotions emerge a little more
  clearly
• happiness (pleasure, excitement)
• interest
• surprise
• fear
• anger
• sadness
• disgust not as adults or older children
  understand it, but more a physiological reaction
  to certain stimuli, e.g. the smell of ammonia.
  Initially, no disgust toward dirt, or excretions,
  etc. These are learned later.

12

• Expressions of contentment, happiness,
• delight
• smiling to endogenous and exogenous stimuli
• then social smile (6-10 weeks, smiling at human
  faces)
• laughter (3-4 months)

13

• Fear more evident at 6-12 months. Two specific
• ones
• stranger anxiety not universal, depends on
  temperament, situation and strangers approach
  style
• when children reared by several people, little
  stranger anxiety is shown
• separation anxiety related to onset of
  locomotion, keeps infants near caregiver or
  secure base, counterbalancing exploratory
  curiosity that could be harmful

14

• Self-conscious emotions 18-24 months
• shame
• guilt
• embarrassment
• envy
• pride
• Conditions
• self-awareness and adult instruction. Differences
  between individualistic and collectivistic
  cultures. Internalized by school age.

15

• Emotional self-regulation
• mechanisms to avoid being totally engulfed in and
  controlled by emotions
• early on, emotions are very intense and
  overpowering, caretaker soothes and comforts,
  infant depends on this external regulation
• as brain develops so do child strategies to cope.
  (Also related to temperament)
• gradually, child learns to manage emotions, so
  they dont interfere with childs successful
  interactions with the environment
• ability to turn away, be distracted from
  overwhelming emotions

16

• Emotional self-regulation
• parents establish this process until child can
  take over as brain develops the capacity
• some specialized brain structures develop when
  parents intervene appropriately
• in the second year, language development further
  helps emotional self-regulation
• parental modeling and parental verbal guidance
  important
• mostly negative emotions studied
• early in life very dependent on adult regulation
  (soothing, hugging, explaining, etc.)

17

• Around age 10, two strategies for emotional
• coping
• Problem-centred coping appraisal of situation
  and behavioural decision
• Emotion centred-coping when nothing can be done,
  self-soothing strategies used

18

• Emotional display rules
• Culturally determined ways of expressing
• emotions when, where and how
• large cultural variations
• parents generally reinforce positive emotions
  over negative ones
• by age 3, children capable of masking negative
  emotions with positive ones

19

• Perceiving the emotions of other people
• before infants can decode facial expressions of
  emotion, they detect other cues tone of voice,
  muscle tension when caregiver holds them,
  brusqueness or awkward movements or, in positive
  emotions, relaxed, self-assured movements,
  breathing patterns
• social referencing develops looking at caregiver
  for cues to how to react

20

• Emotional display rules
• Culture dictates how, when and where it is
  appropriate to display emotions. Huge cultural
  variations. Parental selective reinforcement.
• Understanding others emotions
• Empathy detecting and vicariously feeling
  others emotions.

21

• Understanding emotions
• as cognition and language develop, children are
  better able to understand emotions
• very important role of adults, both modelling and
  explaining
• verbalization and acknowledgment of own and
  others emotions important for social
  interactions
• empathy detect and feel with another persons
  emotion. Seems hard-wired, e.g. babies cry or get
  upset when they hear other babies crying. Leads
  to prosocial behaviour (helping others).

22

• Understanding emotions (Contd)
• individual differences in empathy capacity,
  related to emotional self-regulation
• depending on various factors (e.g. temperament,
  upbringing) some children will act in a helpful
  manner when feeling empathy of a negative
  emotion, while others will be overwhelmed
  themselves and not be helpful
• children with good emotional attachment to a
  parent are more empathetic

23

• TEMPERAMENT
• Inborn, stable characteristics of behaviour
• believed to be the foundation of personality
• inborn does not necessarily mean inherited or
  genetically transmitted
• Environmental influences
• prenatal (intrauterine)
• perinatal
• extrauterine
• We dont know if an infants temperament is
  totally
• hereditary, or partly hereditary and partly
• environmental (intrauterine)

24

• TEMPERAMENT (Contd)
• Not impossible to change (environment)
• E.g. placid, regular, easily irritated, adapts
  easily to change
• Measurement methods frequent, long observations
• at home
• in the lab

both have pros and cons
25

• TEMPERAMENT (Contd)
• Iffy measure parents reports (biased, negative
  or positive)
• Newer measure physiological reactions to
  stimuli, can be combined with lab or home
  observations
• Kagan
• Inhibited/uninhibited child
• Physiology vis à vis environmental changes
• Heart rate, blood pressure, pupil dilation,
  peripheral circulation

26

• TEMPERAMENT (Contd)
• Cortisol secretion (stress)
• Mediated by limbic system (amygdala)
• Vagal tone (vagus nerve) controls heart rate.
  High vagal tone stable heart rate correlates
  with friendliness, empathy, prosocial behaviour,
  effective emotional regulation
• EEG in frontal lobes mediates approach/
  avoidance of people. Left cortex positive
  emotions, right cortex negative emotions
• Parental intervention crucial to help child face
  and deal with small stresses in a supportive
  manner
• Persistent inhibition correlates with social
  withdrawal, low self-esteem and loneliness

27

• Thomas and Chess, research on temperament
• Identified the following independent
• characteristics
• activity
• rhythmicity
• distractibility
• approach/withdrawal
• adaptability

28

• Thomas and Chess (Contd)
• attention span, persistence
• intensity of reaction
• threshold to respond
• mood

29

• Three basic types
• easy child (40) generally happy, regular,
  adapts easily
• difficult (10) irregular, negative, intense,
  slow to adapt
• slow-to-warm-up (15) low activity, low key,
  negative moods
• 35 a combination
• Important environmental role
• difficult associated with both anxious
  withdrawal and aggression in childhood
• slow-to-warm-up associated with fearful and
  withdrawn behaviour in childhood

30

• Rothbarts Model
• activity level
• positive affect
• persistence/attention span
• distress to novelty
• distress to frustration
• capacity for self-regulation

31

• Development Of Attachment
• How do we learn to love?
• When do we learn to love?
• Where are affectional relationships rooted?
• Can we develop optimally without a primary,
  loving caretaker?
• How does separation from our main caretaker
  affect us when we are young? (i.e. daily,
  sporadic, long term, total)
• Are these effects reversible?
• Should mothers care for their infants exclusive
  of others?

32

• Development Of Attachment (Contd)
• In pregnancy mother/baby symbiotic system
• Parasitic Only foreign tissue not rejected by
  immune system
• Primates 12 month gestational period
• Humans 9 months, due to brain (head) size
• First three months extrauterine life last three
  months intrauterine life in primates
• Marsupial mothering unique situation for
  primates

33

• Infant misses the womb
• perfect temperature
• snugness
• continuous feeding
• hearing moms heartbeat
• swaying/rocking movements
• moms voice

34

• First three months transitional period
• Attachment has survival value
• mother has to attach to infant to care for it
• Infant characteristics
• cuteness
• helplessness
• reflexes (grasping, sucking, etc.)
• mutual gazing first hour post-partum
• At risk if premature or deformed or ill.

35

• ATTACHMENT
• long lasting emotional-affectional bond
• proximity behaviours
• separation distress
• Early infant-caregiver attachment influences
  later relationships
• It has effects on both behaviour and on
  personality

36

• Study of attachment started with
  institutionalized infants who showed severe
  developmental delays, listlessness,
  unresponsiveness, failure to thrive and even
  death without apparent physical causes.
• Root Cause very limited human contact

37

• Learning Or Behaviourist Model
• Drive-reduction feeding
• Hunger primary drive
• Maternal presence associated with satisfaction of
  hunger
• Love or attachment develops
• Operant conditioning model reciprocal
  responsiveness between parent and child,
  reinforcing

38

• Psychoanalytic approach satisfaction of oral
• needs, oral stage, also centered on feeding
• Harlow set out to prove both wrong
• Experiment with baby monkeys separated from
  mother
• Wire mother with bottle
• Terry cloth mother without bottle
• Contact-comfort
• Test fearful stimulus
• Erikson, Sullivan security basic need trust -
  hope

39

• How is security fostered?
• caretaker attuned to babys signals
• prompt, consistent and appropriate response
• one primary caretaker
• mother-infant pair have a jump-start during
  pregnancy

40

• Mother-infant synchronies
• EEG during sleep
• mothers voice/infants movements
• profound hormonal changes in mother during
  pregnancy
• maternal hormones reach infant via placenta and
  breast milk
• Infant active role through attachment
• behaviours

41

• Other important newborn needs
• Very frequent feeding (3 oz stomach capacity)
• Body contact, carrying
• Co-sleeping
• Stimulation ad lib
• Quick response to expression of needs (usually
  crying, but also restlessness, whimpering,
  agitation)

42

• Infant characteristics that promote attachment
• reflexes rooting, sucking, grasping
• eye contact
• responds to soothing
• smiles
• cute
• responds to voice
• eagerness to nurse, satisfaction shown
• cuddling in

43

• Infant characteristics that prevent attachment
• low birth weight
• irritable
• hard to soothe
• unresponsive
• high pitch cry
• no eye contact
• sluggish, sleepy
• difficult temperament
• This shows the importance of pre and perinatal
• events, such as use of medication and other
• interventions

44

• Risk characteristics of mothers
• stressful situation
• depression
• immaturity
• insecurity
• abused as a child
• unrealistic expectations
• inability to read babys signals

45

• Risk characteristics of mothers
• unwanted pregnancy
• awkward or businesslike handling of baby
• negative or resentful or rejecting
• Maternal risk characteristics are more
• important than infants for future outcomes.
• Importance of early interventions to show
• mothers how to care for difficult infants

46

• Risk characteristics of mothers
• absent father
• stress
• marital stress
• financial problems
• children too close in age
• no support or help, isolation

47

• BOWLBY Ethological Theory of Attachment
• Attachment is an innate system
• Infant develops internal working model (IWM)
• This model is a representation of the attachment
  figure (AF) and the behaviours associated with
  the AF
• The IWM interprets present situation and
  evaluates future action
• Its goal is security

48

• This is evident when scared, tired or sick
  return to the secure base AF
• At 6-9 months infant starts to explore
  environment but returns to base frequently like
  a leash
• Separation anxiety
• Stranger anxiety
• Related to onset of locomotion
• Intended to keep infant safe

49

• Observed behaviour attempts to maintain
  proximity to AF
• Its a homeostatic system external sensory
  system picks up cues from the environment i.e.
  danger, alert
• Sensory system scans for AF

50

• Triggers of security-seeking behaviour
• perceived danger
• non-responsive AF
• Social referencing
• AF reassures
• Secure based phenomenon
• child explores near AF
• IWM is unconscious, lasts a lifetime
• As child matures, behaviours less obvious, only
  when in great danger or stress

51

• Steps in loss of AF
• protest
• despair
• detachments (seems OK)
• withdrawal

52

• Recall
• bonding head-start present at birth
• Klaus and Kennell research
• Critical of hospital post-partum routines
• Mother/infant dyads, matches

53

• Group 1
• 1 hr. skin to skin contact within 2 hrs. after
  birth, 5 extra hrs. next 3 days
• Group 2
• usual routine brief contact post partum, visit
  at 12 hrs., infant brought every 4 hrs. to feed

54

• Observations at 1 month
• more soothing
• more en face more fondling, cuddling
• held baby closer
• At 1 year
• more holding and kissing
• more closeness
• At 2 years
• better verbal communication

55

• Led to rooming in practices in hospital
• K K saw it as a sensitive period
• Humans flexible, can bond later
• Effects not noticeable after a few years
• But better start increases probability of
  continuing good relationship
• Maternal support important, breastfeeding

56

• De Chateau Study (Sweden)
• manipulation 15 min. contact and nursing within
  15 min. of birth
• _at_ 36 hrs. held baby more, particulalry baby boys
• _at_ 3 mo. babies smile more, cry less, more en
  face, more kissing
• _at_ 1 yr. and 3 yrs. many positive outcomes,
  including better language development
• Similar studies in Guatemala, Brazil, Canada,
• better outcomes, including less abuse.

57

• De Chateau Study (Sweden) (Contd)
• At 1 year 26 measures
• held babies closer and more
• touched and caressed more
• more positive talk from mom
• babies rated higher n Gessell scales
• longer breastfeeding for boys
• fewer moms back to work
• later toilet training

58

• De Chateau Study (Sweden) (Contd)
• At 3 years
• less likely to report that time spent with baby
  after birth was not enough
• earlier language development (mom reports)
• more subsequent children

59

• Guatemalan study
• only 45 skin to skin contact right after birth
  same effects at 36 hrs.
• Canadian study (Kontos)
• Two independent variables
• rooming-in (self-selected)
• early contact (vs. routine) (random)
• Strong main effects for both variables at 1 and 3
  
• months
• Early contact and child abuse

60

• Can we measure attachment?
• Mary Ainsworth Strange Situation test
• Series of separations and reunions between mom
  and toddler
• Crucial behaviour how child reacts upon being
  reunited with mom
• Basic classification securely or insecurely
  attached
• Insecurely attached three categories

61

• Recent alternative Q-Sort, parent or observer
  classifies childs behaviour 90 possible
  attachment behaviours
• Behavioural vs. self-report measure

62

• AINSWORTH CLASSIFICATION
• Securely attached
• Child quickly leaves mother and explores. If
  threatened or frightened returns to mom, easily
  consoled. When mom leaves, child may look
  worried, try to follow her, wait by the door,
  etc. or cry. At moms return positive greeting,
  easily soothed. Prefers mom to stranger

63

• AINSWORTH CLASSIFICATION (Contd)
• Insecure avoidant/detached
• Seem indifferent to mom, no change when she
  leaves, avoid or ignore mom upon her return, they
  do not hug her when she picks them up. No
  preference of mom over stranger

64

• AINSWORTH CLASSIFICATION (Contd)
• Insecure resistant/ambivalent
• Little exploration, clingy, wary of stranger.
  Very upset when mom leaves but not reassured when
  she returns. Both seeks and avoids contact, seems
  both glad and angry. Resists comforting from
  stranger, and are not easily soothed by mom.

65

• AINSWORTH CLASSIFICATION (Contd)
• Disorganized-disoriented
• Confusion, apprehension, dazed. Contradictory
  behaviour patterns simultaneously, i.e. going
  toward mom but turning head away, flat emotion
• There are cultural differences in incidence of
  the four types of attachment

66

• Predictive validity of securely attached
• mastery motivation
• longer attention span
• more positive affect
• confident in easy tool use task
• seeks moms help for difficult tasks
• autonomous exploration
• problem solving
• persistence

67

• Predictive validity of securely attached (Contd
• better social skills
• high on positive affect and low on negative
  affect
• empathy
• cooperation
• ego resilient
• high self-esteem

68

• Maternal History of Attachment
• Transgenerational effects
• When AF remembered low in nurturance and
  competence anxious patterns of relating
• Attribution to self more likely to have negative
  effects
• Attribution to maternal personality repetition
  less likely
• Foregiveness

69

• Maternal classification according to her IWM
• (Mary Main)
• Secure/autonomous balanced
• value attachments
• recognize importance of early experiences
• are objective in describing the positive and the
  negative
• understand own parents motivations
• likely to have securely attached kids

70

• Maternal classification according to her IWM
• (Mary Main) (Contd)
• Dismissing or detached
• minimize effects of early experience
• may idealize her parents, even deny negative
  childhood experiences
• emphasize own personal strengths
• likely to have avoidant infants

71

• Maternal classification according to her IWM
• (Mary Main) (Contd)
• Preoccupied or enmeshed
• remember inconsistent parenting
• may remember role-reversal
• still actively struggling with relationship with
  parents
• confused and ambivalent
• likely to have infants who are ambivalent

72

• AFs representation not necessarily accurate
• Maternal representation (IWM) predicts her and
  her babys attachment at one year
• Bad cycle CAN be broken
• modeling
• more information
• different perspective

73

• Consequences Of Separation Due To AF
• Employment
• Some important variables
• age (under one year riskier)
• temperament (difficult temperament riskier)
• gender (boy riskier)
• other AF available
• number of hours at work (20/week upper limit)
• quality of home life

74

• Several studies show that maternal absence
  affects boys more
• Also maternal attitude toward employment, toward
  the sitter and toward herself

75

• Effects of other care
• Daycare centre only about 15
• 85 other arrangements
• Very heterogeneous, hard to study, so most
  studies done in daycare centres

76

• Characteristics of good quality daycare
• responsive caregivers
• contingent responses
• low ratio
• low staff turnover
• staff well trained (ECE)
• good physical facilities
• emphasis on socio-emotional growth
• Most U.S. and Canadian daycare centres not high
• quality. At issue low pay for staff

77

• Maternal Employment and Attachment Classification

F-T Full-time employment HI P-T High part-time
employment (over 20 hrs./week) LO P-T Low
part-time employment (under 20 hrs./week) M-C
Mother care full-time
78

• Attachment to dads
• Very recent research
• 20 min./day average
• more dads involved nowadays
• physical play, unusual games
• can be primary AF
• kids with involved dads have higher IQs
• child can be insecurely attached to mom but
  securely to dad
• paternal warmth and involvement positively
  correlated with cognitive, emotional and social
  competence

79

• Changes in attachment
• Secure can become insecure and v.v.
• E.g. divorce
• mom back to work
• death of AF
• illness
• new sibling
• Children flexible when young
• Attachment is not etched in stone in infancy or
• early childhood, but a good start increases
• chances of positive development