A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development 6e

1. A Topical Approach toLife-Span Development 6e Chapter Ten: Emotional Development John W. Santrock

2. Exploring Emotion • What are emotions? • Feeling or affect in a state or interaction characterized by • Behavior that reflects pleasure or displeasure • Conscious feelings: specific, intense • Physiological arousal

3. Exploring Emotion • What are emotions? • Biological roots…but shaped by culture and relationships • Facial expressions of basic emotions • Biological nature; same across cultures • When, where, and how to express emotions are not culturally universal

4. Exploring Emotion • Regulation of emotion • A key dimension of development • Effectively managing arousal to adapt and reach a goal • Involves state of alertness or activation • States (e.g. anger) can be too high for effective functioning

5. Exploring Emotion • Regulation of emotion • External sources regulate in infancy, childhood • Shift to internal, self-initiated regulation with increasing age • Better at managing situations • Selects more effective ways of coping • Wide variations in children’s abilities; adolescents have difficulty managing emotions

6. Exploring Emotion • Regulation of emotion • Parents’ roles in helping children • Emotion-coaching approach • Monitor child’s emotions • Negative emotion is a coaching opportunity • Emotion-dismissing approach • Deny, ignore negative emotions • Linked to poor emotional regulation in child

7. Emotional Competence Skills • Has awareness of own emotional state • Detecting others’ emotions • Using the vocabulary of emotional terms in socially and culturally appropriate terms • Having empathic, sympathetic sensitivity to others • Recognizing inner emotions do not reflect outer ones • Adaptively coping with negatives; self-regulatory • Aware of emotions’ major impact on relationships • Seeing oneself as feeling the way one wants to feel

8. Development of Emotion • Infancy • Primary emotions • Present in humans and animals • Humans: appears in first six months of life: surprise, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust • Self-conscious emotions • Self-awareness; emerges at 18 mos. or earlier • Empathy, jealousy, and embarrassment

9. Development of Emotion • Emotional expression and social relationships • Infants: Two types • Crying – Most important for communication • Basic cry: Rhythmic pattern • Anger cry: Variation of basic cry • Pain cry: Long, sudden initial loud cry • Smiling: has powerful impact on caregivers • Reflexive smile: Innate origins • Social smile: Response to external stimuli

10. Development of Emotion • Emotional expression and social relationships • Fear: First appears about 6 mos.; peaks at 18 mos. • Stranger anxiety: Fear and wariness of strangers; intense between 9 and 12 mos. • Affected by social context, stranger’s characteristics • Individual variations • Separation protest— Crying when caregiver leaves; peaks about 15 months of age

11. Figure 10.4 - Separation Protest in Four Cultures

12. Development of Emotion • Emotional regulation and coping • Infants use self-soothing strategies for coping • Controversy: how caregivers should respond • By age 2: language allows defining of emotions • Contexts influence emotional regulation

13. Development of Emotion • Early childhood • Young children experience many emotions • Self-conscious emotions • Pride, shame, embarrassment, and guilt • First appear about age 18 months • Ability to reflect on emotions increases with age

14. Development of Emotion • Early childhood • Ages 2 to 4: increased number of ways and terms to describe emotions • Learn about causes, consequences of feelings • Ages 4 to 5: increased ability to reflect on emotions • Middle and late childhood • Marked improvement in understanding, managing emotions

15. Developmental Changes In Emotions During Middle and Late Childhood

16. Development of Emotion • Coping with stress • Older children have more coping alternatives and use more cognitive coping strategies • Intentional shifting of thoughts • By age 10, most use cognitive strategies • Unsupportive families, traumatic events may lessen abilities

17. Development of Emotion • Middle and late childhood • Recommendations for helping children cope • Reassure children of safety and security • Allow retelling and discussion of events • Encourage discussion of feelings • Help children make sense of events

18. Development of Emotion • Adolescence • Time of emotional turmoil (“storm and stress”) but not constantly • Emotional changes instantly occur with little provocation • Girls more vulnerable to depression • Adolescent moodiness is normal • Hormonal changes and environmental experiences involved in changing emotions

19. Figure 10.5 - Self-Reported Extremes of Emotions by Adolescents and Their Parents

20. Development of Emotion • Adulthood and aging • Adapt more effectively when emotionally intelligent • Developmental changes in emotion continue through adult years • Older adults have more positive emotions, report better control of emotions • Feelings mellow; fewer highs and lows • Positive connections with friends and family

21. Figure 10.6 - Changes in Positive & Negative Emotion Across the Adult Years

22. Development of Emotion • Adulthood and aging • Socioemotional Selectivity Theory • Older adults become more selective about their social networks • Emotional satisfaction is highly valued, positive emotional experiences maximized • More frequent association with neighbors • More motivated to achieve; gain knowledge

23. Figure 10.7 - Model of Socio-emotional Selectivity

24. Temperament • Temperament • Tendencies reflecting behavioral style and characteristic way of responding • Describing and classifying temperament • Chess and Thomas: three basic types • Easy child — generally positive mood • Difficult child — negative reactions, cries often • Slow-to-warm — low intensity mood and activity levels; somewhat negative

25. Temperament • Temperament - behavioral characteristics established at birth • Easy • Difficult • Slow to warm up • Chess & Thomas

26. Developmental Connections

27. Temperament • Developmental contexts • Gender may be important factor that influences fate of temperament • Many aspects of child’s environment encourage or discourage persistence of temperament characteristics • Goodness of Fit • Match between child’s temperament and environmental demands

28. Temperament • Goodness of fit and parenting • Some temperament characteristics pose more challenges than others • Management strategies that worked for one child may not work for next one • Be sensitive to individual characteristics of child • Structure environment to be as good a fit as possible • Avoid labeling as “difficult child”

29. Attachment and Love • Attachment • Close emotional bond between two people • Social orientation in infants • Face-to-face play: infant-caregiver interactions • Still-face paradigm: shows infants react differently to people than objects • Ages 1 to 2: more locomotion, social play with peers, independence, goal-directed motivation

30. Attachment and Love • Social referencing • Child reads emotional cues in others, reacts • By second year of age: much better at this • Social sophistication and insight reflected in infant’s perceptions of others • Advanced social cognitive skills are expected to influence attachment awareness

31. Attachment and Love • Theories of attachment • Freud: infants attach to person or object providing oral satisfaction • Harlow’s study proved otherwise • Erikson: first year of life is critical time for attachment development • Sense of trust or mistrust sets later expectations • Physical comfort plays a role in development

32. Attachment and Love • Individual differences in attachment • Ainsworth and the “strange situation” • Measure of infant attachment to caregiver • Requires infant to move through a series of introductions, separations, and reunions • Securely attached or insecure • Criticisms: • May not reflect real world behavior • Culturally-biased to Western children

33. Ainsworth’s Attachment Categories

34. Figure 10.11 - Cross-Cultural Comparison of Attachment

35. Caregiving Styles and Attachment

36. Attachment and Love • Adolescence • Secure attachment to both parents positively related to peer and friendship relations • Types of attachment to parents • Dismissing/avoidant: caregiver rejection • Preoccupied/ambivalent: inconsistent parenting • Unresolved/disorganized: high fear due to traumatic experiences

37. Attachment and Love • Adulthood and attachment • Adults count on romantic partners to be a secure base to which they can return and obtain comfort, security in stressful times • Childhood attachment patterns can impact here • Influences choices and behaviors • Secure, avoidant, anxious attachments • Other factors like communication can impact

38. Attachment and Love • Adulthood and romantic love • Also called passionate love or eros • Strong components of sexuality and infatuation • Complex intermingling of emotions • Often predominates early part of love relationship • Affectionate love or companionate love • Have deep, caring affection for person

39. Attachment and Love • Adulthood • Sternberg’s triangular theory of love • Stresses three main components/dimensions • Passion: physical, sexual attraction • Intimacy: warmth, closeness, and sharing • Commitment: intent to remain together • Varying combinations create qualitatively different types of love • Consummate love = all 3

40. Figure 10.15 - Sternberg’s Triangle of Love

41. The End