Emotional Development

Question 1

What are the 2 main dimensions of emotion?

Answer 1

Valence: how positive of negative an expression is

Arousal/intensity: intense versions of emotions at centre of diagram with less intense versions towards outer circles of diagram

Question 2

Define affect, emotion, and mood

Answer 2

Affect: generic label used for both emotions and moods

Emotion: a feeling that motivates, organises, and guides perception, thought, and action
* Not looking at functional components but looks at what emotions help us to do

Mood: a low-intensity, diffuse, and relatively enduring affective state without a salient antecedent cause and therefore little cognitive content

Question 3

What is the timing/length of emnotional phenomena according to Oatley & Jenkin’s model?

Answer 3

Emotional expressions: secs-mins

Episodes of emotion: mins -days

Moods: hours-weeks

Emotional disorders: weeks-years

Temperament: years-lifetime

Question 4

List the 6 theoretical perspectives surrounding emotional development

Answer 4

Psychoanalytical
* Freud
* Spitz

Behaviourist
* Watson

Cognitive developmental
* Piaget
* Dynamic Integration Theory

Temperament and Trait
* Eisenberg

Biological & Evolutionary
* Izard
* Nesse
* Ekman

Dynamic Systems Theory

Question 5

Describe the 2 psychoanalytical theoretical approaches to emotional development.

Answer 5

Freud
* emotions caused by unconscious processes
* E.g. conflict between id and ego
* Primary focus: negative emotions associated with neurosis
* Are all emotions neurotic
* Literature largely focused on negative emotions rather than neutral/positive

Spitz
* Importance of object relation
* Genetic field theory: emphasised the concept of psychic organisers which were viewed as milestones of emotional development

Question 6

Describe the behaviourist perspective of emotional development.

Answer 6

Watson
* emotions = habits formed by attaching basic emotions to different objects by conditioning
* Little Albert
* Are all emotions due to experiences we have had? (issue of behaviourist approach)

Question 7

Describe the 2 cognitive developmental perspectives of emotional development.

Answer 7

Piaget
* cognition and emotion develop in parallel, complementary
* Cognition provides structure, emotion energy
* Stage-wise development of expression and experience of emotion

Dynamic Integration Theory
* cognitive development provides basis for emotional development
* Automatic emotion schemas: assimilate feelings into existing basic emotional categories (e.g. happy, sad)
* Complex schemas: accommodate feelings to develop more elaborate schemas (e.g. shame, guilt)

Question 8

Define temperament and describe Eisenberg’s temperament and trait theory of emotional development.

Answer 8

Temperament
* constitutionally-based differences in behavioural styles and characteristic emotional responses that are visible from early childhood
* Biologically based tendency to react to environmental events in consistent ways
* Biological and emotional foundation of personality

Eisenberg
3 temperament classifications
* Negative affectivity/emotionality: easily distressed, cry often, inhibited = become socially withdrawn
* Self-regulation/effortful control: possess strategies to regulate their arousal and soothe themselves
* Positive affect/approach: uninhibited and approach novel situations and people = socially competent

Influence
* These tendencies put children on developmental pathways (likely not deterministic)
* Why? They categorise children’s first social experiences
* Highlights importance of parenting style to emotional development
* E.g. if child has negative affect parents might take authoritarian approach or neglectful/withdrawn if have same temperament
* E.g. positive affect may lead to authoritative approach and development of secure attachment

Question 9

Describe the 3 biological and evolutionary theories of emotional development.

Answer 9

Izard’s Differential Emotions Theory (DET)
* Emotion is a particular set of neural processes that lead to a specific expression and a corresponding specific feeling

Nesse (1990)
* emotions are specialised states shaped by natural selection increasing fitness in specific situations
* Disgust -> food rejection -> abstracted to other domains

Ekman (1994)
* Language of emotion -> culturally specific
* Facial expression of emotion -> universal (only 7 primary emotions)
* Primary emotions: universal and also observed in animals (fear, sadness, anger, joy, pain, and disgust) -> unlearnt (e.g. blind athletes)
* Secondary emotions: unique to humans, complex interactions of primary emotions that can be culturally constructed (hope, jealousy, pride, schadenfreude (joy in somebody else’s pain), shame) -> subject to learning

Question 10

How have Ekman’s findings influenced our understanding of emotional development?

Answer 10

Primary emotions
* Classic images used for happy, sad, angry, afraid, surprised, disgusted
* Accuracy highest for happy and lowest for disgusted

Primary emotion - cross-cultural work
* Primary emotions recognised across cultures
* Secondary emotion recognition accuracy reduces significantly across cultures
* Culturally constructed concepts -> importance of language acquisition and advanced socio-cognitive abilities to development of secondary emotions

Neocultural theory of emotion: everyone has a genetically encoded and biologically stored facial prototypic recognition program

SUMMARY: minimal universality across primary emotion recognition

Question 11

Describe the dynamic systems theory in regards to emotional development.

Answer 11

Assumptions of this theory re emotion
* States/experiences comprised of multi-component systems and emerge due to repeated activation of the whole system over time and with particular social contexts
* Systems are context sensitive

Aims for integrated approach to understanding emotion and its development

Limitation: overwhelming complexity, difficult to test

Question 12

What is the importance of emotional expression for emotional development?

Answer 12

learning when, where and how to display emotions that are appropriate and/or expected
* e.g. home vs work/school settings variance in emotional expression both expectations and comfort to express them

Question 13

How does smiling develop in infants?

Answer 13

• Reflexive smile (1 month): does not occur in response to external stimuli
• Social smile (2-3 months): in response to pleasing stimuli (e.g. parents)

Question 14

Why is crying important in infant emotional expression and how does it develop in infants?

Answer 14

• Most important mechanism for communicating (distress, hunger)
• Soon learn to regulate negative emotional expressions (3MO)
• Why? Caregivers respond less contingently to negative than positive emotions

Question 15

What does the evidence show regarding emotional expression development?

Answer 15

Underwood (1992): elongated developmental profile
* Rules for emotional expression still being acquired in middle childhood (8-12YO)
* Begin to regulate anger because of negative consequences

Denham et al (2002)
* Emotional expression becomes person and context specific

Question 16

How does parental influence differ according to gender for emotional expression development?

Answer 16

Girls = expression of negative emotions more acceptable

Boys = encouraged to be moderate

Question 17

Describe Sternberg’s triangular theory of love and the components of love associated with this theory.

Answer 17

Love can be understood as having 3 components: intimacy, passion, commitment

Different kinds of love: romantic love, empty love, infatuated love, companionate love, consummate love, complete love
* Vary in what components of love they include and to what degree

Variances result in balanced or unbalanced love triangles

Question 18

How does emotional expression vary across cultures?

Answer 18

Lewis (2010): Japanese, African-American, and Caucasian American 5YO
* Sticker-animal matching task: facial expressions recorded
* American children express more pride and shame than Japanese students

Schimmack (2002): correlation between expression of positive and negative emotions
* Individualistic: negative correlation between expression of positive and negative emotions
* Collectivistic: no correlation
* Westerners tend to see happy and sad as opposite categories
* Easterners adopt a dialectic philosophy -> happy and sad are compatible rather than contradictory (possible to experience happiness and sadness to the same degree rather than happiness or sadness)

Question 19

How does emotional understanding and recognition develop across childhood?

Answer 19

3MO
* preferential looking tasks show ability to discriminate primary emotions (facial expressions)
* Look longer at happy face
* Is this understanding? Smiling has large contrast effect on features so maybe learning about contrast not actually happy emotion itself

7-12MO
* behaviour suggests ability to interpret emotions
* Preference for positive expressions
* Social referencing: monitor parent’s emotional reactions in uncertain situations, use this to regulate own emotions, and to decide how to react e.g. visual cliff experiment

1-3YO
* social referencing develops further
* Check signals from unfamiliar adults before taking action
* Begin talking about emotions

3-6YO
* offer explanations for why playmates happy, sad, angry but tend to focus more on external context than internal needs/desires aspect of situation
* Can recognise and name expressions of most basic emotions, and identify common triggers
* Egocentric response to other’s emotional needs with a solution appropriate for themselves

6-12YO
* greater awareness of internal needs, desires, moods of the other, result of ongoing cognitive development: (ability to de-centre; shift attention)
* Recognise that people can feel more than one emotion at the same time
* Understand similar events elicit different emotions in different people

Question 20

How are the impacts of socialisation practices and experience shown in Pollak & Sinha’s study of abused children and their recognition of angry faces compared to control?

Answer 20

• Found abused children much more likely to be accurate in determining angry face when only partially resolved than control children
• Also less accurate in determining happy faces than control children
• Emotional recognition guided by perceptual sensitivity to frequent environmental stimuli
• Increases access to cognitive representations of those emotions
• An adaptive, powerful learning ability

Question 21

How did Dawel’s study on expression authenticity using twin images influence our understanding of development surrounding expression authenticity ability?

Answer 21

Findings
* Children most accurate for happy expressions - almost good as adults
* Sadness: adults performing above chance and children performing at chance
* Fear: both adults and children performing below chance (children better than adults)

Why?
* Theorised that might be evolutionary benefit to just respond to all fear expressions generally due to potential risk associated with expression
* Theorised that happy and sad are more important as social emotions as need to determine whether someone is manipulating you/needs help etc.
* Ability to determine whether sad expression is genuine shows no development across individual age groups

Question 22

How do emotional problems emerge across development?

Answer 22

take root earlier in childhood

early childhood years (<8YO) show vulnerability to
* maternal stress
* family adversities
* lack of social support

Question 23

How prevalent are anxiety and depression in Australian children across development?

Answer 23

Depression
* prevalence more than doubles from 11-15YO to 16-17YOs

Anxiety
* most common mental health condition in Australia
* worry is normal cognitive process for children leading to difficulty diagnosing anxiety disorders at this age

Question 24

What is anxiety? How can anxiety be adaptive?

Answer 24

• A mood state
• characterised by strong negative emotion and bodily symptoms of tension in which a child apprehensively anticipates future danger or misfortune
• doesn’t necessarily mean physical danger, can also be emotional danger e.g. rejection

Fears and anxiety come in many forms and are often adaptive
* Ensures a child is physically and psychologically ready for dangerous stimuli in their environment and keeps a child safe
* However too much can be maladaptive

Question 25

What are anxiety disorders and what needs to be considered in the diagnosis of them?

Answer 25

What Persistent, excessive worry or fears that typically interfere with the ability to carry out daily tasks or take pleasure in everyday life Consideration Consider age and developmental level, and cultural context

Question 26

Explain Pomerantz & Rudolf's emotional distress feedback loop

Answer 26

Emotional distress = increased uncertainty, decreased social attributions and self-esteem = negative change in competence estimation = more emotional distress

Question 27

What are the risk factors for anxiety disorders according to nature, interactionist and nurture theories?

Answer 27

Nature * Temperament e.g. behavioural inhibition * Genetic factors e.g. parental anxiety, twin studies * Gender: Girls more vulnerable than boys Interactionist * Parental/parenting factors * Anxious attachment styles * Parental anxiety and depression * Overprotective and controlling parenting styles Nurture * Environmental factors * Unsafe environment * Socioeconomic status * Adverse experiences * Traumatic event e.g. SA * Poor peer relationships, bullying * Parental loss

Question 28

Explain anxiety, fear, and panic and how they interact.

Answer 28

Panic * Unexpected activation of flight-fight response in the absence of any obvious threat or danger. Cognitive assessments of physical symptoms are dire = "I'm dying" * These experiences can trigger further fear, apprehension, anxiety and panic Fear * Present-oriented emotional reaction to current danger, strong urge to escape or act now, activation sympathetic nervous system (flight-fight response) * Specific and immediate emotional reaction to a specific and well-defined class of stimuli or situation Anxiety * Future oriented emotion, apprehension and lack of control over potentially threatening future events * Anxiety is an enduring, vague feeling of unease and stress

Question 29

List a common fear during development for each of the following age groups. 0-12MO, 1-2YO, 3-4YO, 5-6YO, 7-8YO, 9-12YO, adolescence

Answer 29

0-12MO * loss physical support * loud noises 1-2YO * separation from parent * strangers 3-4YO * separation from parent * dark 5-6YO * separation from parent * bodily injuries 7-8YO * supernatural beings * dark 9-12YO * school performance * bodily injury Adolescence * personal relations and appearance * school * political issues

Question 30

What is considered normal fear and how can this be determined?

Answer 30

Consider function, duration and impact * Fear of strangers = protective in young children vs prohibitive for later relationships * If a fear has little impact on the child's daily life or lasts only a few weeks = typical development * Fear or toileting beyond toilet training (development of encopresis, enuresis)

Question 31

Explain how the information processing approach aims to explain anxiety and fear.

Answer 31

Anxious individuals display biases in specific cognitive processes * Attentional = show a preference to attend to threatening stimuli over nonthreatening stimuli in their environment * Interpretation = more likely to interpret a neutral or ambiguous stimulus as being threatening * Memory = more easily recall threatening events from memory

Question 32

What are the similiarities and differences between fear and anxiety?

Answer 32

Often co-occur/overlap but are independent Similarities: * Both produce a stress response * Physiological = fight/flight * Both have been regarded as emotional states, evoked in particular contexts Differences: Developmentally normative and duration of stress * Fear is typically transient * Anxiety disorders: excessive/persistent beyond developmental norms Temporal nature of threat and nature of the stimulus * Anxiety: future/imagined/anticipatory/pre-stimulus * Fear: present/reactive/post-stimulus * Fear is the emotional response to real or perceived imminent threat, anxiety is anticipation of future threat Subtle differences in physiological, cognitive and behavioural consequences * Fear: surges of autonomic arousal necessary for fight or flight, thoughts of immediate danger, and escape behaviours * Anxiety: muscle tension, vigilance in preparation for future danger, and cautious or avoidant behaviours

Question 33

Describe clinical level anxiety and fear and how it is diagnosed.

Answer 33

* Diagnosis: typically involve overestimation of danger in feared or avoided situations * Trained clinicians determine if symptoms are excessive or out of proportion and consider cultural and contextual factors in this decision * Clinical diagnoses: recurrent and persistent, intensity is unreasonable given the objective danger or threat; that it tends to paralyse individuals and impacts psychosocial or physiological functioning

Question 34

What is emotional regulation and how does it change across development?

Answer 34

**What** How people control and direct their behaviour and feelings while emotional signals are being communicated **Change** Argued that emotional experience and emotional expression follow 2 different developmental paths across the lifespan Infancy and childhood * Skill improves with age and experience * Begins with parents caring for distressed infants (learning self-regulation of emotions from this) * Several methods of regulation learnt (emotional, cognitive, behavioural) Adolescence Bandura: affective self-regulatory efficacy * Perceived capability to manage and regulate our emotional life Bandura: empathic self-efficacy * confidence to involve oneself in the emotional lives of others Adulthood 2 main theories of improved emotional regulation in adults * Experience leads to better control of emotions and different outlook on life * As cognitive resources deplete in older age people prefer lower arousal emotions (which is tied to better health)

Question 35

How does the family context influence emotional development?

Answer 35

Primary context for children Bi-directional influence between children and family emotional development (3 key ways) * Children learn about emotions through observations of their parents who are experienced adults * Parenting practices and behaviours socialise emotion in children * Emotional climate of the family plays a key role Supporting reactions by parents to children may support socially appropriate expression of emotion Negative reactions likely to teach avoidance not appropriate expression

Question 36

Describe the future directions for psychology's study of emotion-related phenomena.

Answer 36

Consistent terminology for emotion-related phenomena Improving measurement of emotions (most self-reported measures) Hypothesis driven longitudinal research Interactionist model

Question 37

Describe how the interactionist model could be applied to emotional development.

Answer 37

Social and emotional competency at both peer/friendship and family processes bi-directionally interact w/ nature of relationships built Nature of relationships bi-directionally interacts w/ emotional competency Emotional competency bi-directionally interacts with both cultural factors and individual factors