chapter 6: emotions + temperament

Question 1

what book did Darwin write in 1872

Answer 1

the expression of emotions in man and animals

Question 2

what did Darwin argue regarding emotions

Answer 2

biological aspects of emotions - our emotions are subject to natural selection - in animals too

Question 3

emotions research after Darwin

Answer 3

facial coding system - divided the face into action units (AU) and categorized emotions based on them – different kinds of emotions move different kinds of muscles

Question 4

ethology

Answer 4

approach which emphasizes the evolutionary origins of many behaviours that are important for survival

Question 5

four questions of ethology

Answer 5

o Mechanism (causation) – how does this behaviour occur in an individual?
How does the brain of the bird work?
o Ontogeny (development) – how does this behaviour arise in an individual?
Do birds raised in isolation also show this behaviour?
o Adaptive value (function) – Why is this behaviour adaptive for the species?
Does bird song have importance for mating behaviour?
o Phylogeny (evolution) – how does this behaviour arise in the species

Question 6

how’s Erikson similar and different from Freud

Answer 6

o Similar to Freud: developmental stages in which a conflict needs to be resolved
o Different from Freud: social conflicts rather than sexual/internal ones

Question 7

Erickson’s stages

Answer 7

o Trust vs mistrust – infancy (0-18 months) – feeding/comfort – Is my world safe?
o Autonomy vs shame and doubt – early childhood (2-3) – toilet training/dressing – Can I do things by myself or need I always rely on others
o Initiative vs guilt – preschool (3-5) – exploration/play – Am I good or bad?
o Industry vs inferiority – school age (6-11) – school/activities – How good can I be?
o Identity vs role confusion – adolescence (12-18) – social relationships/identity – Who am I and where am I going?
o Intimacy vs isolation – young adult (19-40) – intimate relationships – Am I loved and wanted?
o Generativity vs stagnation – middle adulthood (40 to 65) – work and parenthood – Will I provide something of real value?
o Ego identity vs despair – maturity (65+) – reflection of life – Have I lived a full life?

Question 8

Bowlby’s attachment styles

Answer 8

o Secure – healthy communication style, able to ask for help when needed, can self-regulate emotions
o Anxious – clinginess, fear of abandonment, needs constant reassurance
o Avoidant – difficulty expressing emotions, tends to be emotionally withdrawn from others, unwilling to ask for help
o Disorganized – incorporates characteristics of anxious and avoidant styles, fear of rejection but difficulty with intimacy, low self-worth

Question 9

who’s the founder of the evolutionary theory of socialization

Answer 9

Belsky

Question 10

two types of Belsky’s models

Answer 10

o Type 1 – trouble at home
 Childrearing: harsh, rejecting, insensitive, inconsistent
 Insecure attachment, mistrustful internal working model, opportunistic interpersonal orientation
 Early maturation and puberty -> earlier sexual activity, short term unstable pair bonds, limited parent investment – because there is a lower life expectancy
o Type 2 – no trouble at home
 Childrearing: sensitive, supportive, responsive, positively affectionate
 Secure attachment, trusting internal working model
 Later maturation and puberty -> later sexual activity, long-term enduring pair bonds, greater parental investment

Question 11

three areas of children’s emotional development

Answer 11

o Recognising different facial emotional expressions and conveying their own emotions
o Understanding of emotions – when do they realise that certain situations are likely to elicit particular emotional responses?
- The ability to empathise with others
o Regulating their own emotions

Question 12

basic Ekman’s emotions

Answer 12

happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust

Question 13

how did Ekman research emotions

Answer 13

Fore people from New Guinea - had to choose a photo of the facial expression that matched the emotional context + same for people in the US (difficult between surprise and fear)

Question 14

what are the basic and complex emotions

Answer 14

Basic – happiness, interest, surprise, disgust, sadness, distress, anger, fear
Complex – pride, shyness, jealousy, guilt, shame, embarrassment

Question 15

why are complex emotions in young children controversial

Answer 15

such emotions require sophisticated cognitive understanding (recognizing that one’s behaviour may have fallen short of expected standards)

Question 16

social referencing

Answer 16

infants and young children look at their caregivers for advice when faced with a difficult or uncertain situation and seek social cues to guide their actions

Question 17

visual cliff experiment

Answer 17

Mothers coaxed their 12-month-old infants close to the deep side before posing a happy or fearful expression
None of the infants crossed over to the deep side if mother seemed fearful, but when she looked happy ¾ of infants crossed to the deep side

Question 18

habituation-dishabituation to assess infants’ discrimination of facial expressions

Answer 18

o Infants at 3 months could distinguish between photos of people smiling and frowning
o Infants 4-7 months could distinguish between expressions of happiness and surprise
o Neonates could discriminate between happy, sad, and surprised expression posed by a live model
o Doesn’t necessarily mean that they can understand the meaning in the expressions

Question 19

when can children use emotion words to explain and comment on their own and other people’s current behavior + predictions

Answer 19

28 months

Question 20

alternative explanation for children talking about emotions

Answer 20

use a script that later gets replaced by true understanding

Question 21

skills in the emotion understanding task

Answer 21

o Can label facial expressions depicting happiness, anger, sadness, and fear
o Understand that these core emotions are triggered by certain situations
o Can predict a person’s emotional responses in a non-egocentric manner

Question 22

puppet emotions task

Answer 22

children (2-3) heard about a puppet who voiced emotions opposite to infants about particular situations - they had to choose a face that would match its feelings - performed above chance but with variation

Question 23

brocoli vs cracker

Answer 23

children at 18 months - gave the experimenter food they prefer even when infants don’t

Question 24

milk Coca Cola experiment

Answer 24

story: character replaced milk with Coca Cola - how would they react when they first saw the container and what when they opened it?
children at 4 - can pass the regular false belief task, but did badly on this one, only at 6 can pass

Question 25

test of emotional comprehension results

Answer 25

o Up to age 5 – children are typically able to understand the public aspects of emotions – how situations trigger or reactivate emotions and how emotions are outwardly expressed
o By age 7 – children can understand the mentalistic nature of emotions – they are related to knowledge and beliefs, but the emotion one expresses might not be the emotion one feels
o Between 9 and 11 – children realise that one can feel two emotions in response to the same event, that cognitive strategies can be used to regulate emotions and that morals and moral transgressions relate to emotional responses

Question 26

emotions for Quechua Indian children

Answer 26

delay in emotional understanding up to 11, but no major differences in the order of stages

Question 27

what is children’s emotional understanding positively correlated with

Answer 27

theory of mind tasks - understanding others’ beliefs

Question 28

mind-mindedness

Answer 28

caregivers who are able to read their infant’s signals appropriately, a good predictor of attachment security

Question 29

callous-unemotional traits

Answer 29

general poverty of affect, showing a lack of remorse and a disregard for accepted values
no deficits in performance on theory of mind, only able to “talk the talk” of emotions

Question 30

what’s the main idea for the constructivist perspective of emotion

Answer 30

emotional development is shaped by nurture and is active

Question 31

proof for the constructivist perspective of emotion

Answer 31

when used unconstrained methods in research, less agreement

Question 32

emotional regulation

Answer 32

adjusting one’s emotional state to a suitable level of intensity – this prevents emotional overload and allows one to function in a consistent manner

Question 33

when do children start regulating their emotions

Answer 33

2nd year of life, but less able to deceive someone of their pleasant feelings

Question 34

MRO research

Answer 34

mutually responsive orientation - when it’s high children’s behavior doesn’t predict conscience but when it’s low it does

Question 35

what can the marshmallow test predict

Answer 35

later success in life, even forty years later

Question 36

alternative explanation for the marshmallow test

Answer 36

reliability of the situation - If before the experiment, the researcher proved to be trustworthy (promised something and then delivered) – much longer waiting time in children

Question 37

temperament

Answer 37

individual differences in reactivity and regulation in affect, activity and attention

Question 38

what are the big 5 dimensions of personality

Answer 38

openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism

Question 39

6 clusters of temperament

Answer 39

• Cluster 1 – unregulated
  o High activity, low inhibition, under-controlled
  o Difficult to deal with at home or in classroom
  o Benefit from: consistent positive interactions, gentle discipline
  o Low on conscientiousness, high on extraversion
• Cluster 2 – regulated
  o Low activity, anger and approach + high inhibition and attention focus
  o Well behaved, over-controlled, reserved
  o Benefit from: encouragement to try new things
  o High on conscientiousness, low on extraversion
• Cluster 3 – high reactivity
  o High on anger, approach, fear and shyness + low activity, inhibition and attention focus
  o Experience life intensively, easily overwhelmed
  o Benefit from: consistent positive interactions
  o High on neuroticism
• Cluster 4 – bold
  o High activity and approach, low fear and shyness
  o Easily excitable, jump into tasks, confident, natural curiosity
  o Benefit from: organized and structured activities
  o High on extraversion, openness to experience
• Cluster 5 – average
  o Average, easygoing, but maybe also unmotivated, uninterested
  o Fly under the radar, may need extra attention to not disengage
• Cluster 6: well-adjusted
  o Average on all temperament traits, high on inhibition and attention focus
  o Easygoing, get along well at school and home
  o High on conscientiousness, rest average

Question 40

how many children have the high reactivity temperament and how many show signs of serious social anxiety

Answer 40

20% and 1/3

Question 41

what are children who’re highly reactive also more likely to have

Answer 41

a sympathetically more reactive cardiovascular system, asymmetry of cortical activation in EEG favoring a more active right frontal area, more power in the EEG in the higher frequency range, a narrower facial skeleton

Question 42

two main subsections of temperament

Answer 42

Reactivity – responses to internal and external environment and Self regulation – goal-directed regulation of reactive, behavioural, attentive and affective processes – automatic and involuntary

Question 43

how high is the heritability of temperament

Answer 43

0.5 to 0.8

Question 44

what does temperament shape

Answer 44

o Children interpret and respond to their environment differently
o Children evaluate themselves relative to others differently
o Children select and structure their environments differently
o Children need different parental discipline styles
o Children elicit different responses from their parents

Question 45

bidirectional/transactional models

Answer 45

child development is an outcome of relations between child characteristics and the environment

Question 46

differential susceptibility hypothesis + difference from the diathesis-stress model

Answer 46

temperament increases children’s responsiveness to parenting practices associated with both the positive and negative outcomes
o Differs from the diathesis-stress model – presumes that a child may be more vulnerable to poor parenting due to its temperament, but doesn’t make predictions about the child’s reaction to positive parenting

Question 47

vantage sensitivity model + differences

Answer 47

general proclivity of a child to benefit from the well-being and competence-promoting features of parenting
o Differs from the diathesis-stress framework focus on the positive consequences of not succumbing to an adverse experience
o From differential susceptibility – predicts that some children may shine when raised in a warm, loving environment but remain relatively unaffected by negative parenting

Question 48

three characteristics of evidence-based parenting interventions

Answer 48

incorporate information abt temperament and its influence on child behaviour and adjustment
Open acknowledgement that parents of children with high emotionality, impulsivity, low effortful control need extra support – avoid “parent blame”
New approach – specifically tailoring strategies for children with certain temperamental traits or profiles

Question 49

what’s a major problem with intervention

Answer 49

high drop out rates - 60%

Question 50

classification of temperament

Answer 50

o Difficult temperament – intense negative mood, high withdrawal in response to new situations, slow adaption to change and irregular biological functioning – 71% experiencing behavioural problems
o Easy – regular biological functioning, readily adapt to change, show positive approach behaviours in new situations, display mild or moderate levels of positive affects
o Slow to warm up – initial withdrawal from new people or situations, slow to adapt to change, low activity levels

Question 51

how many traits did factor analysis find

Answer 51

4 instead of 9: activity, attention, irritability, social inhibition

Question 52

goodness of fit

Answer 52

match between a child’s temperamental characteristics and the expectations, demands and opportunities of their environment

Question 53

behavioral inhibition + cause

Answer 53

temperamental style characterized by heightened motor and emotional reactivity to novelty, timid, wary and avoidant of unfamiliar situations
50-80% accounted for by genes - hyperexcitible amygdala
social reticence, not engaging with peers, lack of assertiveness, anxiety, loneliness

Question 54

cool little kids

Answer 54

o Six session parent-focused intervention which includes psycho-education, parent management skills, cognitive restructuring, graded exposure, relapse prevention
 Parents apply strategies of cognitive restructuring and graded exposure to their own anxieties to gain insight into their child’s experience of the strategies
- avoidance of parent blaming, acknowledgment of different temperaments

Question 55

difference between cool little kids and INSIGHT

Answer 55

not temperament based, designed for anxious children + INSIGHT is universal

Question 56

results for cool little kids

Answer 56

rates of anxiety reduced, 11 years later - met criteria for fewer internalizing disorders, lower self-reported life interference (fewer for boys)

Question 57

3 Rs of child management in INSIGHTS

Answer 57

 Recognising children’s unique qualities as expressions of their temperament
 Reframing perceptions to help parents understand that every child’s temperament has strengths and weaknesses
 Responses from parents and teachers can positively influence child’s behaviour

Question 58

two strategies of INSIGHTS

Answer 58

o Gaining compliance
 Positive parenting – warmth, affection, praise, attention, goal setting, monitoring
 Parental discipline – non-physical including time outs, loss of privileges and experiencing natural consequences
o Fostering self-regulation/giving control
 Scaffolding – structuring or simplifying the environment in relation to child’s temperament – the challenge can also be removed if it’s too much – children learn to enhance their self-regulation
 Stretching – when child succeeds, stretch the situation gently

Question 59

puppets for INSIGHTS

Answer 59

Coretta the Cautious (high withdrawal and negative reactivity), Hilary the Hard Worker (high task persistence, low activity, negative reactivity levels), Gregory the Grumpy (high negative reactivity and activity levels, low task persistence), Freddy the Friendly (high approach, low reactivity)

Question 60

incredible years program

Answer 60

o Prevention and treatment programme for conduct disorder and other difficulties
o Teaching participants new skills (problem solving using role play, goal setting and home activities)

Question 61

two types of conduct problems

Answer 61

Emotionally-dysregulated (hot tempered) vs callous-unemotional (CU) traits

Question 62

tuning to kids program

Answer 62

o Parenting-based approach to managing anxiety in young children
o Parents learn a new approach to managing their children, using attachment-based play, praise and reward for confident behaviours, planned ignoring for unwanted behaviours + parents are thought cognitive strategies
o Intervention group – 7 times more likely to be anxiety-free at the end of the treatment – lasts for 12 months

Question 63

timid to tiger program

Answer 63

o Parenting-based approach to managing anxiety in young children
o Parents learn a new approach to managing their children, using attachment-based play, praise and reward for confident behaviours, planned ignoring for unwanted behaviours + parents are thought cognitive strategies
o Intervention group – 7 times more likely to be anxiety-free at the end of the treatment – lasts for 12 months