Chapter 10 - Emotional Development

Intimacy

(In Stenberg's theory of love) those feelings that encourage closeness, bondeness, and connectedness in a relationship.

Cognitive developmental theory of emotion

- Cognition and emotion are intimately intertwined. - Piaget made a systematic attempt to relate cognitive and emotional development throughout childhood, arguing that cognitive and emotional development show parallel, complementary courses of development. - Emotion and cognition are complementary domains.

Theories of Emotional Development

- Different psychological approaches to emotions. - Are emotions a cause or consequence of cognitions? - Emotions are learned or inherited? - Emotions are stable or highly changeable across the lifespan? Main theories of emotion: 1) Psychoanalytic theory & genetic field theory 2) Behaviourist theory 3) Cognitive developmental theory 4) Trait theory: Temperament 5) Biological and evolutionary theory 6) Dynamic-systems theory

Emotion - Introduction

- Every aspect of human behavior involves emotion including reading the newspaper, watching a movie or having dinner with a friend. - Emotions affect the quality of our relationships, sleep patterns, political and policy choices, creativity, physical activity, mental health and overall wellbeing. - Emotional, social and cognitive processes are higly interrelated. THREE MAIN FACETS TO EMOTIONS: 1) we can express emotions by crying when distressed 2) we can regulate emotion by ceasing to cry when happy 3) we can recognise emotions by interpreting a friend's tears as a sign of their sadness.

Psychoanalytical theory of emotion

- Freud was one of the first theorists in psychology to provide a detailed account of emotion,and was acutely aware of the pivotal role that emotions play in neurosis. - One affect theory is a theory of anxiety. - Freud could not conceive of emotion without corresponding statement of defence such as repression. - Freud conceived anxiety as a result of the psychological conflict between the id's instinctual desires and the ego's role to repress these desires and keep them unconscious. - Freud believed that repression was always involved in the appearance of symptoms of anxiety (such as loss of appetite, sleep disturbances) and that repression as a defence mechanism was necessary in order to manage these symptoms. - Freud did not treat emotion in an explicitly developmental context.

Spectrum of emotional phenomena

- Idea of an affective spectrum organized in terms of the time course of different kinds of emotional phenomena. - Facial expressions last between 0.4 and 0.5 seconds - Episodes of emotion that people are aware and that others may be aware last a few minutes to a few hours. - Moods last a few days. - Most depressive disorders are defined as lasting two weeks to several years. - Temperament, a trait by definition, extends over most of a lifetime. Emotions are elicited rapidly and can trigger swift action. However once activated some emotions such as sadness can trigger more systematic and enduring thoughts.

Dynamic Integration Theory (DIT)

- Labouvie-Vief, Jain, Diehl, Zhang dynamic integration theory (DIT) (2007) of emotional development builds upon's Piaget's accommodation dynamic by proposing that the developing cognitive system transforms an individual's repertoire and coordination of emotions. - From a developmental perspective, emotional processing shifts from automatic emotion schemas that are positive or negative (assimilation) to new schemas that involve more complex coordination (accommodation). - For example, as children begin to differentiate their emotions from others, qualitatively new complex emotions such as guilt and shame emerge along with the ability to coordinate negative emotions. - This process of emotional differentiation continues through middle adulthood but declines in later adult hood. - Specifically from age 60 onwards, individuals tend to show less complex affective-cognitive complexity as cognitive resources become depleted.

Biological and evolutionary theory of emotion

- One of the leading current approaches to emotional development is the biological/evolutionary account. - Differential emotions theory (DET) - Izard (1990) - Izard has proposed 10 distinct emotional states (eg interest-excitement, enjoyment-joy, disgust-revulsion) has come from examining the facial expressions of emotions. - Two of the leading scholars of facial expressions are Paul Ekman and David Matsumoto. - Ekman distinguishes between the language of emotion which is culturally specific and the facial expressions of emotion which is culturally universal. - According to Ekman words are only representations of emotions, and not emotions themselves. - Ekman links emotions to an evolutionary and personal past where individuals sense that something important is happening to their welfare and a set of physiological changes and emotions occur to deal with that. - Ekman (1994) distinguished between primary emotions (basic) such as fear, sadness, anger, joy, pain and disgust and secondary (Complex) emotions such as hope, jealousy,pride, which are uniquely experienced by humans. - The biological perspective suggests that primary emotions appear early in our developmental life, whereas secondary emotions due to their complexity appear after primary emotions. - Specific to Ekman's evolutionary stance is the neocultural theory of emotion (1972) which emphasizes the genetically encoded and biologically stored facial prototypic recognition program. Research has supported Ekman';s theory - finding some interesting views about emotions. For example, even at low intensity emotions of happiness and surprise are much more easily recognized than two negative emotions of sadness and anger. More muscles are involved to make negative emotions and these require more subtle expressions - ie pursuing the lips in anger versus raising the lip corners in happiness or dropping the jaw in surprise . This means that negative emotions are more complex and ambiguos.

Behaviourist theory of emotion

- Radical behaviourists such as Watson and Morgan (1917) published their results of the emotional repertoires of infants. - Three basic emotions were discriminated: fear, rage and love. - Later Watson saw emotions as habits or conditioned reflexes and proposed that habits could be conditioned by environmental factors. - This view is reflected by Watson and Rayner's (1920) famous study of Little Albert B which demonstrated that emotions were simple, acquired conditioned reflexes and therefore completely controllable by behaviorist psychology.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

- emotions are essential to the human existence - without emotions - ability to feel sad, joy, anger and guilt, people would not really be human at all - emotions are functional in that they influence BOTH actions and thoughts - Izard (2007) has argued that there is wide agreement on 4 premises of emotions: 1) Expressions of emotions serve important communicative functions especially in early development but present at all ages. 2) Emotion experiences influence perception, thought and action. 3) Emotions are central to attachment and temperament. 4) Knowledge of emotions and their functions is essential to understand human development but to also understand the treatment of developmental psychopathology.

Dynamic-systems theory of emotion

- one of the most recent approaches to emotional development is the dynamic-systems approach - at the heart of DS theory is that elements of a complex system interact in a reciprocal fashion, influencing each other simultaneously and recurring over time. - Mascolo, Harkins and Harakal's (2000) approach: - Emotional states and experiences are composed of multiple component systems that emerge through mutual regulation over time. for example, an experience such as anger involves appraisals accompanied by affective responses such fluctuating heart rate, perspiration and experiences of heat and tension; this strengthens our actions to remove conditions or modify conditions triggering these situations. - Component systems are context sensitive; for example imagine a woman who hurries from work home to prepare dinner for guests. In her way home she buys food. Joining the queue she appraises the situation; the slower the progress in the queue the greater the change in her affective rate. Further co-regulation results in appraisal that the shop assistant is working too slowly. In this experience the experience of anger takes various forms including (frustration, annoyance and even outrage) as it evolves over time through mutual regulation of affect, appraisal and action within a given social context. LIMITATION - overwhelming complexity as number of potential important factors rises at an exponential rate - need correlational analysis to understand

Learning objectives

10.1 define emotional development and overlapping constructs such as mood, affect and temperament. 10.2 Evaluate several major theories of emotional development and review supporting research, including the trait approach to temperament and emotional intelligence. 10.3 identify how the different elements of emotion - expression, recognition and regulation - develop across the lifespan. 10.4 Recognise problems in emotional development (depression and suicide). 10.5 Describe the importance and interdependence of the family, peer, and cultural contexts for emotional development. 10.6 Conduct a practical research exercise on the developmental changes in emotional experience.

Temperament

A constitutionally based individual behavioural style and characteristic emotional response that are visible from early childhood.

Consummate/complete love

A love that involves commitment, passion, and intimacy.

Dialectic philosophy

A philosophy of emotions (asian cultures) that sees emotions as opposite valence (happy/sad) as compatible with each other rather than contradictory.

Emotional intelligence

An individual's ability to carry out accurate reasoning about emotions and to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought.

Social smile

Appears at two or three months of age and is a response to an external stimuli usually a caregiver's face.

Reflexive smile

Appears in the first month after birth and does not occur in response to external stimuli but usually during irregular patterns of sleep when the infant is asleep.

Problems in emotional development (depression and suicide)

CONSEQUENCES OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS - emotional development in most people proceeds quite normally. - however 15-20 percent of teenagers and adults experience one or more depressive episodes in their lives. - although major depressive symptoms may appear in childhood, they increase during puberty. - clinical depression is intense feelings of sadness over prolonged periods of time. Depression occurs twice as often in girls as in boys. A difference that is sustained through the lifespan. - a person's genetic make up can induce depression by affecting the chemical balance (neurotransmitters) in the brain. - parents of depressed children have a high incidence of depression themselves. - although there is a genetic aspect it might also be that depressed parents engage in maladaptive parenting. As a result, their child's emotional regulation may be impaired with serious consequences for their cognitive and social skills. - the question of what leads children to experience emotional distress such as depression and anxiety has guided much research over the past ten years. - in particular, early childhood as opposed to middle childhood stands as a particularly vulnerable time with research indicating that children at this time are more vulnerable to maternal distress, family adversities and lack of social support. Research also suggests that depressive symptoms also lead to several disruptions in children's lives such as a negative view of self, stressful life experiences and problematic interpersonal relationships. These emotional distress puts children at risk of further difficulties and a lifetime of problems. - PROBLEMS OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT ARE DISCUSSED IN CHAPTER - DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Empathic self-efficacy

Confidence to involve oneself in the emotional lives of others.

Organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs)

Cooperative behaviours extending beyond and employees job requirements that are necessary for the full and successful functioning of an organization.

3 key elements needed for emotional competence

EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS - One key component of emotional competence is expressiveness. Emotional expression refers to learning when, how and where to display emotions that are appropriate and/or expected. *Emotional expression in infancy and childhood: - Izard believes facial expressions in infants display emotions. For example, biological needs such as hunger and pain are made apparent through the facial expression of distress. Involvement with the social world is signalled by expressions of joy and frustration is demonstrated through anger. - Infants also use smiling and crying to express their emotions. There are two types of smiles: the reflexive and the social smile. The reflexive smile does not respond to external stimuli. It appears in the first month of birth usually after irregular patterns o sleep and not when the infant is an alert state. the social smile occurs in response to external stimuli, typically a caregiver's face, and usually occurs at two or three months of age. - Crying is the most important mechanism newborns have for communicating. For example, the first cry tells the doctor and the mother that the baby's lungs are filled with air. Despite the initial biological need for crying, children learn to mask negative emotions as opposed to positive emotions. This learned ability hardly seems surprising given that as early as three months of age mothers respond less to infants negative emotions. - Culture also plays an important role in kindergarten children expression of emotions of shame, pride and sadness. Japanese children showed less sadness and shame under failure conditions than American children. Under success conditions, Japanese children expressed less pride. - Much of the children's continued learning of emotional expression occurs during the middle childhood years of 8-12. With time, primary school children learn that goals are not always met by expressing the most intense feelings. They often do not express emotions as vividly and directly as they did earlier. They also regulate anger because of the negative experiences they expect. * Emotional expression in teenage years and adulthood: - There are several facial expressions for the FUNDAMENTAL EMOTIONS - sadness, happiness, surprise, anger, disgust and fear. These facial expressions tend to last for a limited time. Most adult facial expressions last from 0.5 to 4 seconds. Facial expressions of less than 0.3 or more than 10 seconds are rare.Emotion expressions outside this range are likely to be false. Biological reason for short term nature of facial expressions is that expressions maintained for minutes would probably result in muscle spams. - Emotions are moderated by a combination of BIOLOGICAL AND SITUATIONAL FACTORS. For example, a person who is hungry and fatigued has a lower threshold for anger than a person who is relaxed and comfortable. - Izard's DIFFERENTIAL EMOTIONS THEORY (1993) predicts that "facial display" of emotions changes over the lifespan. Beginning in childhood and continuing through the lifespan, facial displays of emotion become characterized by fewer, purer, single expression of emotions and by greater/more complex displays of it and by greater mixed and/or complex displays. masking, blending, miniaturizing and fragmenting emotion become typical features of adult expressive behavior. This change is related to increasing COGNITIVE AND SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION. The cognitive, social and emotional domains interact to produce more complex displays of emotional expression in adulthood. *** Emotional expression of LOVE - Sternberg (1998, 2006) - Arguably one of the most complex emotions expressed is love. - Disagreement exists as to the status of love - is it a primary or a secondary/complex emotion. Some argue that love fits as a primary emotion because of its universality whilst others consider love a secondary emotion because of its complexity and enduring nature. maybe love can be divided into the momentary surge of love - a basic emotion with properties of fear and sadness and relational love, a bond that develops between two people that is a complex blend of many other emotions including anxiety and elation. Sternberg's triangular theory of love - Robert Sternberg (1998, 2006) produced one of the most cited theories of adult love. - Triangular theory of love says that love could be understood as having 3 components: intimacy, passion and commitment. - Intimacy involves warm and tender communication. It starts with self-disclosure - letting a partner know something private about oneself. - Passion involves psychological and physiological arousal from the desire for sexual activity and romance largely expression of desires such as self-esteem, nurturance, affiliation, dominance, submission and sexual fulfillment. - Commitment leads partners to decide that they are in love and to maintain that love. - These three components of love produce various types of love. - Romantic love: characterised by intimacy and passion. - Infatuated love: fuelled only by passion. - Empty love: has only commitment present. -Companionate love: has both intimacy and commitment. - Consummate love or complete love: is a combination of all three, passion, intimacy and commitment. According to Sternberg, most relationships will fit between these categories. They begin with passionate love, declines in favor of intimacy and commitment, which forms the basis for companionate love. Also, Sternberg believes that most relationships begin with a commitment of zero and then the level of commitment increases. OPPONENT PROCESS THEORY OF LOVE Solomon (1980) proposes that people can experience a surge in passion almost immediately after meeting another person to whom they are attracted.This passionate arousal increases quickly but also peaks fairly rapidly. At the peak of arousal, negative force begins to work in opposition to the passion and is important for a person's equilibrium because it helps maintain a balanced state of habituation of feelings for the other person. Should the relationship fail after this equilibrium is reached a state of deep depression and extreme discomfort may occur. REGULATION OF EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE Individuals must first be able to experience their emotions before they can learn to regulate their emotions. Regulation of emotional experience refers to how individuals control and direct their behaviors and feelings states while emotional signals are being communicated. Regulation of emotional experience is necessary during many of life's circumstances -when emotions are too distressing, when emotions become overwhelming, when emotions need to be amplified for interpersonal reasons. According to Denham (2002) et all chidlren learn to regulate emotions by: - emotionally: ceasing to feel anxious - cognitively: convincing themselves there is nothing to be anxious about, or re-focusing their attention to less anxiety provoking thoughts - behaviourally: smiling to make themselves feel less anxious. *** Emotional experience as depicted by Denham and colleagues (2002) Figure 10.4 page 371 - Emotional regulation in teenagers - Most research shows that individuals who experience problems with emotional regulation also present with psychological dysfunctions. - According to Bandura (2003) affective self-regulatory efficacy - our perceived capability to manage and regulate our emotional life - mediates psychosocial outcomes. For example, in coping with threats, individuals of high perceived self efficacy perform difficult activities well despite being anxious. - Teenagers with high empathic self-efficacy - the confidence to involve themselves in the emotional lives of others - were more prosocial in their relationships and refrained from delinquent behavior. This is also supported by research that shows that parental socialisation practices that direct attention to the suffering inflicted on others foster the development of empathetic perspective taking and prosocial behavio * Emotional regulation in adulthood - Regulating emotional experience is with people for life. - Adults continue to encounter many instances taht require them to regulate their emotions - high levels of stress due to work difficulties, negative life events such as the loss of a loved one, or a failed relationship. In fact, at all ages emotion regulation is best understood within the social context. - Two contrasting views on emotional regulation over the lifespan. Some research shows that emotional regulation improves with age. Charles (2010) argues that as we grow older we are better at eliminating negative emotions more than younger adults. Due to the realisation that the time left to live is growing shorter (Socioemotional Selectivity Theory) and the experience and knowledge from the years they have lived, older adults organize their social lives to ensure a high degree of satisfaction with their social network, appraise situations in a more positive light. - Other frameworks highlight that emotional regulation may be compromised in situations that demand cognitive resources. As per DET, after 60 years of age individuals show less cognitive-affective complexity as cognitive resources become depleted.Older adults begin to prefer low arousal emotions (calm, peaceful, relaxed) as opposed to high-arousal positive emotions (excited, proud). For older adults, lower arousal emotions are associated with better health. UNDERSTANDING AND RECOGNITION OF EMOTIONS - Final element that lies at the heart of emotional development is understanding and recognizing emotions. This refers to how individuals interpret and encode emotional signals from others. - According to Denham and colleagues (2002) individuals who have well developed understanding and recognition of emotions are able to: 1) accept real, relevant, helpful messages 2) ignore real but irrelevant messages 3) deal with real and relevant but unhelpful messages - Cognitive and emotional domains operate together this are is most marked in the area of understanding other people's emotions. - Recognizing people's emotions can influence people's ability to learn. - There is debate as to whether recognising people's emotions improves or not with age. Increasing with age people can recognise happiness and ability to detect sadness decreases slightly. - Recognition of emotions in others improves with some emotions and decreases with others as we age.

Secondary (complex/blended) emotions

Emotions such as hope and jealousy and pride that are uniquely experienced by humans due to their complex and blended nature, they develop after primary emotions.

Primary (basic) emotions

Emotions such as sadness, anger, joy, pain and disgust that are encountered universally, appear early in our developmental life and can also be observed in animals.

Emotion

Experienced as a feeling that motivates, organizes and guides perception, through thought and action.

Regulation of emotional experience

How individuals direct and control their behavior and feeling states while emotional signals are being communicated.

Understanding and recognizing emotions

How individuals interpret and encode emotional signals from others.

Romantic love

In Stenberg's theory of love, a love that is characterised by intimacy and passion.

Empty love

In Stenberg's theory of love, a love that is fuelled by commitment only and no intimacy or passion.

Infatuated love

In Stenberg's theory of love, a love that is fuelled only by passion.

Commitment

In Stenberg's theory of love, both a short term commitment to love a certain other and a long term desire to maintain that love.

Passion

In Stenberg's theory of love, largely the expression of needs such as self-esteem, nurturance, affiliation, dominance, submission, sexual fulfillment.

Negative reactions

In children's emotional development - reactions offered by parents to their children that include using punitive measures to minimize their child's negative emotion or using distressed reactions themselves; likely to increase children's emotional arousal.

Companionate love

Love has both intimacy and commitment.

Mood

Low intensity, diffuse and relatively enduring affective state without a salient antecedent cause.

Affect-infusion model (AIM)

Porposed by Forgas and highlights how affect impacts on behaviour by influencing both what people think (the content cognition) and how they think (the process cognition).

Neocultural theory of emotion

Postulated by Ekman and acknowledges that veeryone has a genetically stored facial prototypic recognition program.

Basal ganglia

Primitive brain system involved in detecting distaste.

Differential emotions theory (DET)

Proposed by Izard and conceives of emotion as a particular set of neural processes that lead to a specific expression and a corresponding specific feeling.

Opponent process theory

Proposed by Solomon and states that at the peak of a loving relationship, a negative force begins to work in opposition to passion (the positive force). This is important for a person's equilibrium because it helps maintain a balanced state of habituation of feelings for the other person.

Triangular theory of love

Proposed by Stenberg and posits that love can be understood as having three elements: passion, intimacy and commitment. His theory is represented by balanced and unbalanced triangles (ie too much passion and not enough intimacy and commitment).

Supportive reactions

Reactions given by parents to their children that include encouraging expression of emotion, offering comfort and problem focused strategies; may help children to express emotions in a socially acceptable manner.

Affect

Refers to the conscious or self-reported experience of positive or negative qualities of emotion.

Emotional development (1)

Refers to the way in which emotions change or remain stable across the lifespan. If we compare the emotions of infants, children and adults, infants and children differ from adults in 4 ways: 1) Nonverbally, they may display fewer types of emotions than adults. 2) They may experience the same types of emotions but in different ways. 3) The physiological patterns correlated with infants and children's emotional expressions may be different from those of adults. 4) Because infants and children use fewer and simpler verbal emotion concepts than adults, they may use all of these in different and/or fewer situations than adults. Emotional development is composed of periods of rapid change alternating with periods of consolidation and stability.

Amygdala

Region of the brain that receives signals of potential dangers and triggers responses to protect ourselves.

Clinical depression

Severe emotional disturbance that involves extreme feelings of sadness, frustration, and hopelessness about life.

Genetic field theory of emotion

Spitz (1959) emphasized the importance of "object relation" or the affective relationship between the mother and the child for emotional development. Spitz's (1959) was one of the first to report striking milestones of children's emotional development. The first psychic organiser or milestone is the social smile which develops around three months of age. The non-selective social smile emerging at three months of age is considered by Spitz to be the affective indicators of infants beginning to perceive the distinction between "in here" and "out here". The second milestone the fear of strangers develops around 8 months of age. The third milestone of negativism (negative head shaking) develops at 18 months of age. Spitz research on institution based children confirmed that disturbances in object relations would lead to abnormal emotional development. He found for example that the first psychic organiser of a social smile was delayed in children that did not have a consistent caregiver. CRITICISM : - psychoanalytical approach was focus on emotional development in infancy and childhood, providing a narrow view of development across the lifespan. - not all theorists agreed with the focus on unconscious processes as an explanation of emotions.

CONTEXTS FOR EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

THE FAMILY CONTEXT - The family is the primary context in which children learn how emotions are typically experienced, how messages are expressed and various ways of regulating emotions. - according to Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers and robinson (2007), children's emotionality and family influence are bi-directional processes, where children and families mutually influence on another throughout the process of emotional development. 1) Children learn about emotions through observation of their parents who are experienced adults. Children are more likely to model their parent's emotional behavior and learn from their emotional language. 2) Parenting practices and behaviors socialise emotions in children. For example, expressing politeness to the elderly. Parents can also show negative emotions. For example, research has found evidence of depressed mothers having negative effect on the emotional regulation of their children. 3) The emotional climate of the family plays a key role as reflected in the quality of the attachment relationships, styles of parenting, family expressiveness, and the emotional quality of the parent's relationship. Parents are primary attachment figures and a child's attachment security has been found to be related to their skills in emotion identification. As children develop, the importance of the mother-child relationship diminishes but parents still play a major role in times of need. - Parents who provide supportive reactions to their children's emotions - for example, encouraging the expression of emotions, offering comfort and problem-focused strategies - may help children to express emption in a socially appropriate manner. - Parents sometimes provide their children with specific strategies such as "take a deep breath" or "think about something else". - In contrats, parental NEGATIVE REACTIONS to children's emotions, such as punitive measures to minimise children's negative emotions, or using distressed reactions themselves, are likely to increase children's emotional arousal and teach children to avoid, rather than appropriately express emotions such as anger and sadness. Parental negative responses have been associated with increased displays of child anger in observed child-parent reactions. THE PEER CONTEXT - As children grow older, the time spent with family decreases and the time spent with peers increases. - Peer and friendship has a pervasive influence on children's emotional development because of SIMILARITY ISSUES. Peers are in better position to understand the emotional life of age mates than parents, because age-mates argue at the same sociocognitive and moral level while facing many of the same life transitions. For example, research has found that happier,less angry prone preschoolers react more socially to peers' emotions, are better liked by peers, and are rated as friendlier and more cooperative by teachers. Conversely, the expression of relatively strong negative emotions leads to more active social isolation by peers. In turn, children's reduced social interactions reduce opportunities to gain skills needed. - Research has also shown that children who apply more emotion knowledge often succeed in peer interactions. - Because of the tasks of middle childhood, friendships include caring, concern, help, conflict, management, forgiveness and affection. Friends are children's most likely source to sharing emotional experiences and helping each other acquire emotional competencies. In middle childhood, friends have lots of important conversations. Friends react to each other's emotions during conversations. Reactions that comfort (Don't worry about the exam!) and exhort (Stop crying! Everyone is looking!). CULTURE AS A CONTEXT FOR EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT - both universal and cultural differences when it comes to expressions of emotions (Ekman).

Motivational

Tending to mobilise energy, an action tendency.

Emotional resilience

The ability to encounter and address emotionally challenging situations in an adaptive and positive way, resolving the situation and improving capacity to face similar situations in the future.

Self-regulation

The ability to monitor their own behavior and the conditions under which it occurs, and to regulate their actions accordingly.

Emotional experience

The awareness of our emotions, of what it is a person feels.

Emotional expression

The demonstration of emotions; means learning to display emotions when, where and how it is appropriate and expected.

Trait theory of emotion

The trait approach to emotions and emotional development proposes that emotions are relatively stable and do not change regularly across the lifespan. Temperament is the term used to describe stability of emotion visible from childhood. It is closely linked to personality and is thought of as the emotional and biological basis of personality. Thomas and Chess (1977) groundbreaking work on temperament. They identified three types of temperament: difficult, slow to warm up, and easy. - Subsequent research has shown that difficult temperament (social withdrawal, low adaptability, high intensity responses and negative or irritable mood) is related to behavioral problems. - Interestingly, Thomas and chess 91977) three category system only classified 60 percent of children and later research failed to replicate results. - However the most recent research on temperament also focuses on these three categories. - It was both ways. For example, a cheerful sociable child is likely to experience more positive responses from others than a moody and withdrawing one; a highly negative child may elicit more punishment from a parent which in turn may increase the child's risk for aggressive behavior. CLASSIFYING TEMPERAMENT - Negative affectivity/emotionality: Children with this temperament are easily distressed, cry frequently and are inhibited. - Self regulation/effortful control: Children high on effortful control have strategies to regulate their arousal and to soothe themselves. - Positive affect/approach: Children with this approach are uninhibited and approach novel situations and people.

Emotional Development

The way in which emotions change or remain stable across the lifespan.

Emotion understanding

The way in which we understand, predict and explain emotion.

Genetic field theory

Theory of emotional development proposed by Spitz; emphasized the concept of psychic organisers which were viewed as milestones of emotional development.

Dynamic integration theory (DIT)

Theory of emotional development that builds on Piaget's assimilation - accommodation dynamic by proposing that emotional processing shifts from automatic emotion schemas that are positive or negative (assimilation) to ones that involve more complex coordination (accommodation).