Emotions as Interactive Developmental Processes Flashcards
Rutter
Rutter – distinguishes privation and deprivation
Deprivation occurs when a child has an attachment and loses the attachment figure.
Privation occurs when the child has never had a close relationship with anyone.
Effects of privation are more severe and long-lasting than deprivation.
Are the effects of early deprivation reversible?
continuity of experience is the norm
Romanian Orphans (Rutter, 1998)
Those 6-years-olds adopted prior to 6 months impacts of privation overcome.
Tend to go with strangers too easily.
11-year-olds adopted after 6 months have not caught up peers in terms of intellectual and social behaviour.
Attachment and Temperament
Temperament: What is important is the match or ‘goodness of fit’ between a child’s temperament and caregiver behaviours toward the child.
Attachment: what is important is the carer’s ability and readiness to perceive infant signals, interpret them correctly and react promptly and adequately in a consistent way.
Emotion processes in development
Emotion as an Innate Feature of Human Behaviour
Darwin (The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals):
Emotion is an innate system with an evolutionary adaptive function.
Innate part of human biological programming.
Produced and recognised universally.
Research on universals of emotion
Universal association between particular facial expressions and reported emotions.
True for basic emotions: Happiness; Fear, Sadness; Surprise; Anger & Disgust.
Adaptive function of emotional expression
Emotions in infancy and early childhood.
Emotional expression attracts the attention of the caregiver.
Emotions motivate helping behaviour and social interchange.
Emotions engage infants with objects in the environment.
Research on emotions in human development
Responsiveness to emotional expression.
E.g., Still-face methodology – Muir & Lee, 2003
Most infants have repeated experiences of coordinated sequences of emotional exchange with parent.
Parent keeps still face ……
Securely attached infants will attempt to re-engage parent using emotional expressions.
Mumme & Fernald (2003)
Method
Method
Participants: 32 full-term, healthy 12-month-olds
Procedure: Mixed design – emotional valence (positive or negative) as between-subjects factor; and trial (neutral baseline, emotion test) and object (target, distractor) as repeated factors.
1st trial – neutral-emotion scenario (baseline)
2nd trial – emotion test trial (either positive or negative)
Four novel objects: spiral letter holder; blue bumpy ball with nodules; Y-shaped object made from green & yellow hose adapter; plastic valve made from white tube, red wing-nut & blue knob.
Experimenter directed neutral, positive (happy) or negative (fearful) emotions at one of two stimulus objects. Target object and target side counterbalanced.
20-sec video & 30-sec play period (infant could touch the objects).
Mumme & Fernald (2003)
Hypotheses
Research Question: What is the effect of emotions on children of 12 months.
3 research hypotheses
Generalization hypothesis;
Referential specificity hypothesis;
Emotional contagion hypothesis.
Mumme & Fernald (2003)
generalisation hypothesis
predicted that emotional signals would influence infants’ overall tendency to play with the two stimulus objects, thus resulting in more play with both the target and distracter objects following a positive signal compared with a neutral signal, and resulting in less play with both objects following a negative signal.
Mumme & Fernald (2003)
Referential Specificity hypothesis
predicted that emotional signals would influence infants’ tendency to play with the stimulus objects selectively, resulting in more or less play with the target object depending on the valence of the signal.
Mumme & Fernald (2003)
Emotional Contagion Hypothesis
predicted that infants would respond to positive signals with more positive affect overall and to negative signals with more negative affect overall.
Mumme & Fernald (2003)
Conclusion
Conclusions from Study 1: “12 month-old infants were able to make use of attentional and emotional cues provided in the televised emotional reaction of a stranger” (p.230).
Socialisation of Emotional Expression
The cultural context influences the way in which emotions are expressed.
Children learn culturally appropriate emotional display rules.
