| Term | Definition |
| Emotional reciprocity | When children smile they expect their parent to smile.
Call/response of emotions of baby's laugh.
To annoy babies, stop showing emotion (blank face) the baby will over come with negative emotions and become very distressed |
| Sympathy | Acknowledgment of someone else's feelings & addressing compassion
Emotion's rely on concept of self |
| Darwin: origin of emotion | Human emotions based on limited sets of basic emotions that are species-universal. Emotions don't have to be learned. Direct link between feelings & facial expressions. Indicate internal feelings: help others predict our behavior. |
| Cross-species comparsion (emotions) | Both apes & babies show same emotions and facial expressions |
| Process of self-regulation | Beginning around 6 months. Children can avert eye gaze to reduce stress. Infants start to self-regulate, self-soothe, repetitive rubbing and stroking of bodies. Self distraction by gazing at neutral/ positive objects. Self-soothing at 1-2 years. Greater c |
| Delay of gratification | Ability to control impulses. Fundamental skill, predicts future social, emotional & academic performance. 10 years later -> kids who waited had better social & academic performance, higher verbal fluency, more attentive and able to adapt. 20 years later - |
| Delay of gratification: individual differences | Why?
genetic inheritance
neural development
teratogen/nutritional differences
prolonged stress
parental sensitivity |
| Stability of temperament over time | Do fussy babies become whiny adults?
Yes (to a degree)
Higher fearful distress in infancy-> more fear in novel situations at age 2.
More social inhibition at 4.5 years
Tendency for negative emotions at age 3?
More negativity at ages 6-8 |
| Mary Ainsworth: Observational Research In Uganda | Recorded infants use of mom as a secure base & how infants acted to separation from mom. Shows quality of attachment.
Results: Child put through series of separations & reunions with caregiver
Younger children gets more upset when child is gone
Older c |
| Jealously Infant Experiment | 5 month old infant watched their mother expressing great affection to either another infant or to an adult.
Results: 50% show distress when affection expressed to other infants. Only 10% show distress when expressed to adults |
| Emotional contagion | Tendency to catch and feel emotions that are similar to and associated with those of others
Empathy & sympathy
Infants: contagious crying in newborns onward
Children: contagious yawning at 4 years correlated with empathy and social awareness |
| Coy smile | Averting their gaze when they were successful in getting or renewing attention from an adult
Elicited by social attention & public performance etc.
Mothers get most smiles, strangers get coy smile
Purpose: "I'm cute don't eat me" or self-regulation ( w |
| Embarrassment in children | Start to feel embarrassment by 15-24 months when made center of attention
Coy smile |
| Guilt and Shame Experiment | Bring rigged doll in, let child play with it. Ask child to watch doll
When adult returns: some showed shame by avoiding the adult & not saying anything. Some showed guilt by telling immediately, not avoiding adult and tried to fix arm |
| What is emotion? | Transient subjective feelings (fear, elation). Physiological correlates ( adrenaline, heart rate, sweating). Thoughts that accompany feelings: how to escape, approach to situation (cognitive aspect). Desire to take action (flight or fight). An emotional e |
| Why do we have emotions? | Motivate action (w/0 emotions we wouldn't act) and need emotion to motivate us to do anything, promote survival, communicate our feelings, negative emotions help you avoid harmful things. Positive emotions help you approach things that are good for you. |
| FACS (facial action coding system) | Each emotion corresponds with a distinct muscle combination. Expressions are presumes to be a window to underlying emotion (e.g fake vs real smile). Baby FACS ( successful with encoding facial expressions like with chimpanzees). Focusing on facial express |
| Cross-cultural studies emotion | Early theory: Facial expression relativism; mimicry explains consistency.
Papa New Guinea: The experimenter asks to point to the face of the person that matches the story expressed. Then asked to show you what the face would look like. Basic emotions/ ex |
| Discrete emotions theory (Izard) | Emotions are innate. There are 6 basic emotions (happy, sad, anger, disgust, surprised, fear)
Each emotion associated with a specific set of bodily/facial reactions
Emotions are distinct, even early in life |
| Undifferentiated Emotions (Sroufe) | Early emotions are not distinct
Environment plays role in changing primitive emotions into more complex forms.
Fear starts as pain reaction-> just general unhappiness gets more specific with age |
| Basic emotions & age when they are identifiable: Self-conscious emotions | Self-conscious emotions: pride, shame, guilt, embarrassment at 1-2 yrs
After 18 months infants no longer oblivious to a mark or "post it"
Embarrassment: 15-24 months kids become embarrassed when they are made center of attention
Need sense of self to d |
| Basic emotions & age when they are identifiable: Negative emotions | Newborns: present but hard to differentiate (pain, fear, sadness, anger)
2 months: expressions from anger & sadness can be distinguished from distress & pain
Easy to differentiate by 12 months |
| Basic emotions & age when they are identifiable: Positive emotions | Smiling: 1st month smiling is happening but limited. babies smile prenatally. Social smiling in response to others. Happiness: 2nd month: smile when babies control event. 7th month: smile more at familiar people. |
| Self-regulation | Complex process of controlling emotions in order to accomplish one's goals. |
| 3 stages of self-regulation | 1. Relying on others
2. Use of cognitive strategies to control negative emotions
3. Being able to select the right regulating strategy |
| Behavioral vs cognitive self-regulating strategies | Younger kids: behavioral strategies, repetitive rubbing, changing focus of attention, cover eyes
Older kids: cognitive strategies, mentally distracting themselves, reframing stress situations into a positive light. |
| Somerville Study | 40 year longitudinal study of 250 boys
Looking for effect of children with poor backgrounds.
2/3 boys on welfare, 1/3 had IQ below 90
Results -> IQ does NOT equal success. Childhood abilities to handle frustration, control emotions, and get along with |
| Marshmallow Task | 1/3 of children ate the marshmallow right away. 1/3 waited 20 mins for the experimenter. Regulation strategies: talking to themselves, singing, sleeping, making up games to play. |
| Temperament NY study | NY Longitudinal Study
Interview parents repeatedly about in depth infant specific behaviors.
3 Major Groups:
Easy babies (40%): didn't easily get upset, easily soothed
Difficult babies (10%): upset easily, hard to calm down
Slow to warm up (15%): at |
| Temperament | Constitutionally based individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity and self-regulation that demonstrate consistency across situations, as well as relative stability over time.
Central to development of social skills
----> acti |
| Goodness of fit | Adjustment depends on how one's temperament fits into their own environment. Parents socialization practices can affect child's temperament & vice versa. Certain babies might not grow up in right environment they need to thrive & the temperament doesn't m |
| Social Referencing | Using the emotions we see in other people
-> Inferring action by emotion
-> Early understanding of behavior
Infants read expressions of care-giver to determine if visual cliff is safe
Mother shows fear -> baby will not cross
Mother smiles -> baby cro |
