Emotional Development

1
Emotional Development

• At birth, partial and full-face expressions of
  interest, smiling and disgust are observed.
• Endogenous Smiles

2
Carroll Izard

• Emotions develop in orderly fashion
• 4-6 weeks social/exogenous smiles
• 3-4 months anger, sadness, surprise
• 5-7 months fear
• 6-8 months shame, shyness, self-awareness
• 24 months contempt, guilt

3
Joseph Campos

• All basic emotions are in place at birth
  prewired
• Just because they are not observed does not mean
  child is not experiencing them.

4
Emotional Stability

• Amount of sadness during brief separation from
  mother predicts sadness 6 months later
• Amount of anger during inoculation at 2-7 months
  predicts amount of anger at 19 months
• Izard and colleagues

5
TEMPERAMENT

• Behavioral style or primary pattern of reacting
  to environment
• Hereditary component
• Includes sociability, emotionality, activity
  level (Buss Plomin)

6
Thomas and Chess (1956)

• New York Longitudinal Study followed 141 people
  from infancy to adulthood
• Nine temperament dimensions
• Activity level
• Rhythmicity
• Approach/withdrawal
• Distractability
• Adaptability
• Threshold of Mood
• Intensity of Reaction
• Mood
• Attention span/persistence

7
Three Significant Constellations

• Easy Child (40 of sample) - smiles easily,
  adapts to change, quickly develops regular
  patterns of eating and sleeping
• Difficult Child (10) - easily frustrated, slow
  to adapt, withdraws from novelty, shows irregular
  patterns
• Slow-To-Warm-Up Child (15) - mildly negative
  initial responses gradually change to positive,
  reactions less intense than Difficult Child
• Remaining 35 in sample didnt fall into
  categories

8
Goodness of Fit

• Outcome determined largely by goodness of fit
  between temperament and environment
• Consistent individual differences in temperament
  evident from earliest months
• Children react differently to environments
  depending on own temperaments
• Recognizing different temperaments and providing
  a good fit is important for all who interact with
  children

9
Jerome Kagan (1989)

• Behavioral Inhibition tendency to be extremely
  shy and restrained in response to unfamiliar
  people and situations.

10
Stability of Temperament

• Active fetus more likely to be an active infant
• Relatively stable through infancy and preschool
  years

11
Other Aspects of Emotional Development

• Social Referencing looking to another individual
  for emotional cues in interpreting a
  strange/ambiguous event.
• Complex emotions