Social and emotional development

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Social and emotional development

• An Overview based on Thompson (1993 1999 2000)
• PSY341
• Vertus and Messinger

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Class

• Questions
• Overview
• Final topic questions
• Next time

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Questions

• Describe Greenspan and Shanker's (GS)
  description of the transformation in emotional
  and intellectual growth.
• How do they relate to Erikson's (E) levels?
• Using GS (or E), identify times in your own
  development that correspond to their levels?
  Describe times in the development of someone
  younger than yourself and someone older than
  yourself in terms of Greenspan and Shanker's
  levels.
• If appropriate, use the "developmental
  highlights" video from class to illustrate your
  discussion.

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Neonate
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4 Months
4 months
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8 months
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1 year
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1 year 6 months
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Eriksons Stages
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Erikson (ages and interpretation)
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Example

• Emotional and Social Development in Early
  Childhood (bananas)

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Temperament

• Temperament underlying, biologically based
  (heritable) individual differences in the
  behavioral characteristics of the individual that
  is constant over time and across situations
• Personality-to-be

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Temperament

• Dispositions
• Reactivity and regulation
• More multidimensional and enduring than emotion

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Genes and environment

• Genetic individual differences can be reflected
  in some physiological systems
• reactivity in sympathetic and central nervous
  system
• Individual temperamental characteristics interact
  with the childs environment
• level of stress in home, sensitivity and
  adaptability of social partners, cultural beliefs
  and values
• To influence attachment, sociability, and
  adjustment.

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How or what of behavior

• Rhythmicity of biological functions, approach to
  or withdrawal from new stimuli, adaptability,
  distractibility, activity level, quality of mood,
  persistence or attention span, intensity of
  reaction, and threshold of of responsiveness
  (Thomas, Chess, et al.)
• Activity level, soothability, duration of
  orientation, smiling and laughter (positive
  reactivity), fear, and distress to limitations
  (frustrations) (Rothbart, 1981, 1986 Derryberry,
  1981)
• Activity level, emotionality, and sociability
  (Buss Plomin)

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Temperament and Emotion

• Two perspectives on the same phenomena?
• Similar behavioral measures
• Exciting, emerging literature on their
  correspondence
• But differences as well
• (A final project?)

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Temperament conceived in more emotional terms

• with increasingly sophisticated behavioral and
  autonomic measures
• with attention to genetic basis
• yielding surprising findings
• (1/3 of shy 2 year olds are so no longer at 4
  years)

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Emotion

• Structuralist Theory The physiological (heart
  rate, sweaty palms), subjective (level of
  distraction) , cognitive appraisal ( threats, the
  unexpected), and expressive components (facial
  expressions) that accompany such feelings as
  fear, anger, joy, distress, guilt, happiness.

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Emotion

• Involves expression, understanding, regulation
• Shaped by cultural beliefs
• Behavioral standards
• Person-environment transactions (socialization)
• Empathy emotion contagion
• Display rules vs. ER

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Structuralist views

• Established emotions as respectable, portraying
  them as
• Biologically based
• discrete, coherent constellations of
  phsyiological, subjective, and expressive
  activity (Thompson, 1993, p. 374)
• yield discrete emotions (fear, anger, joy)
• micro-analytic coding because
• Face emotion.

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But emotion is functional

• Functionalist theory Emotion is the persons
  attempt or readiness to establish, maintain, or
  change the relation between the person and the
  environment on on matters of significance to that
  person (Saarni et al., 1998).
• Emotion is associated with goal-attainment,
  social relationships, situational appraisals,
  action tendencies, self-understanding, self
  regulation, etc.

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Functionalist views

• Emotion has to do with goals
• changing and maintaining relationship with the
  environment.
• Emotions come in families defined by these goals
• not by facial expression, or brain activity
• Research focus
• socialization of emotional experience
• acquisition of emotional competence (Saarni),
• secondary emotions such as pride.

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Critique of functionalism

• Overly broad
• Circular reasoning
• How do you measure goals?
• Or final causality
• Multimodal measurement
• Measurement of impact of emotional signal
• Similar to ethology

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Emotion regulation

• Modifying emotions to attain goals
• Sees emotions as
• flexible not stereotypical
• functional not disruptive
• responsive not rigid
• E.g., Impulse control, anger modulation,
  embarrassment, gift receipt.
• Similar to general movement of field in 80-90s
  and to functionalism in particular.

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Critique of emotion regulation

• Inhibition or maintenance/intensification?
• Self or other regulation?
• Whats emotion and whats its regulation?
• Does functionalism wish to unite concepts?
• Is a regulated emotion the same emotion?
• Avoid premature judgements of good emotion
  regulation before we know its normative
  development and how to measure its adequacy

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Structural/Functional synthesis

• Structural insight.
• Discrete or no, emotional processes have an
  internal dynamic
• happiness wanes, frustrated love is not neutral
  sadness loves company
• Functional insight
• Emotions are inherently relational.
• And usually but not always functional
• Methodological synthesis.
• Detailed attention to face and other expressive
  modalities, and their perception by others.

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ATTACHMENT

• The Big Question How do early experiences of
  relationships impact later relationships?
• Infancy to childhood
• Infancy to adulthood
• Infancy to parenthood
• Through behavioral and then internal
  representations of what can be expected from
  relationships

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Internal representations

• New research based on premise that individuals
  construct belief systems and interpret (and
  sometimes construct) reality based on those
  beliefs.

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Self

• Grounded in temperament
• Life choices
• Awareness/representation
• Internal working model
• Provides coherence to experiences
• Ingroup/outgroup distinctions
• Elements of the self
• Self-perceptions
• Memory
• Self-esteem

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What is Self(me)

• Self is comprised of the I-self
• active participant, contributor to experiences
• And the me
• self-evaluations
• and the social self.
• With some things in between
• self-representation,
• autobiograghical personal narrative,

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Infant self

• Early. Through sensorimotor interactions with the
  environment and social interactions, infants
  acquire the capabilities that allow then to
  develop a sense of self
• Middle Infancy Social scope extends to peer
  relationships. Children compare themselves to
  other peers. Evaluation of strengths and
  weaknesses takes place.

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Early Childhood Self

• Infant-caregiver interactions become crucial
  infants self-representation self-evaluations
  based upon parents descriptive physical and
  psychological characteristics

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Adolescence and Beyond

• Development of abstract thinking allows the
  teenager to reconcile conflicting,
  inconsistencies in themselves and others.
  Experimentation in search of the true self is
  undertaken. An identity is formed/formulated.
• The self is continually shaped and developed.
• Personality Different experiences throughout the
  lifespan, negatively or positively go into
  shaping the individuals personality.

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The Big Picture Psychosocial ecology of human
development

• Physical and social circumstances are likely to
  be the among the strongest predictors of
  socioemotional development
• divorce/remarriage, beginning and changing
  schools, economic upturns/downturns -
• Are these direct or indirect effects?
• The emotional impact of the divorce or the
  downturn in standard of living?

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Parenting

• Different parenting styles have different
  outcomes
• Authoritative style thought to be optimal

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Parenting Current view

• What particular features of a parenting style -
  including affective behavior - produces outcomes
  in particular circumstances.
• More flexibility for older adolescents
• Group differences
• More restrictive caregiving is seen as more
  loving and has more positive outcomes among
  African-American teens (Masons work)

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Parenting and emotion

• Try to achieve goals with/for offspring is very
  emotional!
• Discipline strategies are modified by perception
  of childs temperament.
• The actual process is bidirectional
• Mutual expectations impact next interactions so
  that relationships impact relationships

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In Defense of Parenthood Children Are Associated
With More Joy Than Misery   

• S. Katherine Nelson, Kostadin Kushlev, Tammy
  English, Elizabeth W. Dunn, and Sonja Lyubomirsky
• Does having children make people happier?
  Participants were prompted to report their level
  of positive and negative emotions five times a
  day for 7 days. Researchers also collected
  information on participants' level of global
  happiness and depressive symptoms. The
  researchers found that participants with children
  reported higher levels of global well-being,
  fewer depressive symptoms, and more positive
  emotions than did nonparents. Parenthood was more
  consistently linked to increases in well-being in
  men. A follow-up study also found that parents
  reported more positive emotions and a stronger
  sense of meaning in life when taking care of
  their children. These findings run contrary to
  the widely held belief that children are a source
  of reduced wellbeing.

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Policy Implications

• Researchers cant hide in the lab, but they
  should not be overly prescriptive
• They should understand that policy can have
  unintended repercussions for diverse parties
• attachment and daycare
• adoption
• maternal drug use

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References

• Thompson, R. A. (1999). The individual child
  Temperament, emotion, self, and personality. In
  M. H. Bornstein M. E. Lamb (Eds.),
  Developmental psychology An advanced textbook
  (4th ed.) (pp. 377-409). Mahwah, NJ Larence
  Earlbaum.
• Thompson (2001). Development in the first years
  of life. The Future of Children, 11(1), 20-33.