Emotional Development Flashcards
Critically evaluate how parental behaviour can shape whether a child feels guilt or shame
Intro: what are guilt and shame? - complex emotions - Camras et al., 1992 - until 2 can only understand simple emotions - then should develop sense of self - Lewis, 1989 - beyond this thought that different factors can shape feelings of shame and guilt
Main Body:
- importance of parental influence - Mills, 2003 (study = longitudinal, only used girls)
- further support - Alessandri and Lewis, 1996 - found gender difference - perhaps genetic predisposition that influences feelings of shame
- implications for how we encourage parents to react with children - Muris et al., 2013 - anxiety related to shame - need more awareness for how to stimulate positive emotional development - esp. when mistakes made - guilt more positive emotion - Stuewig et al., 2015
Conclusion: parents have major influence, perhaps more than they think, so need more awareness to increase positive emotional development
Critically evaluate the factors which are important in supporting children’s emotional self-regulation abilities
Intro: from early in life infants display basic emotions - Izard et al., 1995 - complex emotions from 2 onward - Lewis, 1989 - self-regulation develops in children from approx. 6 months - involves strategies for managing emotions, adjusting emotional arousal to appropriate level of intensity (i.e. rocking)
Main Body:
1) parental self-regulation in first few months - children cannot regulate emotions - parents soothe - support - Weaver, 2004 (extrapolation) - Frankel, 2012 - overprotection (Barros et al., 2015)
2) biological nature - girls appear better earlier in life at self-regulation so perhaps slightly biological - Rutter et al., 1989
3) interaction - environmental influence triggers biological predisposition - without environmental trigger may lead to maladjustment - perhaps bring in Caspi, 2002 - levels of MAOA affected expression of aggressive conduct - perhaps environment triggers disposition to certain emotional tendencies
4) technology may now be playing a role - needs further investigation - parents have limited time so use technology to soothe
Conclusion: main factors influencing are parents
Guilt
Shame
(definitions)
shame: powerful, related to evaluative embarrassment but more complex - action interpreted in relation to: SRGs, global evaluation of self (reflects negatively on them not situation)
guilt: alternative to shame, action interpreted in relation to: SRGs, specific action/behaviour causing failure (attribute to mistake not the self) - seen as more positive
Camras et al., 1992
babies are able to communicate variety of feelings through their facial expressions
each expression becomes more recognisable as a specific emotion with age
Lewis, 1989
self-evaluative emotions (guilt and shame) require self-recognition and understanding/knowledge of standards, rules and goals (SRGs)
Mills, 2003
girls only, longitudinal
looked at authoritarian parental traits and dispositional traits
increased shame when both parents had authoritarian traits - harsh parenting
shame at 3 related to shame at 5 - trait continues
shame more related to nurture and parental influences
guilt occurred if parent explained why behaviour was wrong - how it affected others, how to change it
Alessandri and Lewis, 1996
children completed task with parents
if received negative comments = increased in shame
if received positive comments = reduced shame
found gender differences - girls more likely to feel shame
experience of shame seen as socially/culturally shaped emotion
Muris et al., 2013
increased levels of shame in 8-13 year-old children related to anxiety symptoms
shame motivates defensive and avoidance behaviours
negative parenting behaviour may contribute to children’s proneness to shame
Stuewig et al., 2015
guilt prone children had fewer sexual partners, reduced alcohol intake, less illegal drug use and less delinquency
suggests that facilitates more positive emotional development
Weaver, 2004
baby rats have gene for resistance to stress
turned on through normal maternal grooming
without this gene they do not have normal emotional functioning
suggests that parental influence can trigger emotional development
issue of extrapolation
Frankel, 2012
parental comfort in early years of life helps children develop own abilities in self-regulation of emotion
parents model emotion regulation strategies
parents help children to process and express emotions
this helps internal abilities develop properly
Rutter et al., 1989
looked at 111 Romanian infants placed in orphanages
they were given little parental support or close contact with adult figures
they still developed some self-regulation strategies - rocking, thumb sucking
but had later maladjustment if not adopted in 6 months of life
parental influence helps healthy emotional development
Critically evaluate how emotional competence is related to social competence
Intro: thought to be linked - displays of emotion send signals (social and communicative) - define emotional and social (Zsolnai, 2002) competence
Main Body:
- Saarni, 2010 - they are mutually influential
- emergence of social referencing aged 7-10 months - helps development of emotional regulation - Klinnert et al., 1986
- parental influence - notable predictors of both EC and SC - past development (parent influence) shapes child’s emotions which link to later competence - Gotlib and Goodman, 1999; McDowell and Parke, 2005; Blandon et al., 2010
- language influence - language impairments cause impairment in emotional regulation abilities which can affect interactions with others - Vallotton and Ayoud, 2011
Conclusion: they are related through multiple factors due to intricate linking with ability to reverse direction of influence (Saarni, 2010)
Emotional competence
Ability to express of release inner feelings 3 parts: - emotional expressivity - emotional knowledge - emotional regulation
Social competence
Ability to achieve personal goals in social interactions while continuing to maintain positive relationships with others
Zsolnai, 2002 - social competence is an ever-changing system
