Emotional Development

PSYC 2007

Components of emotional development

• emotion production

• emotion recognition

• emotion understanding

• emotion regulation

Discrete emotion perspective

• innate basic emotions

• develop complex emotions through experience, learning + socialisation

Dynamic systems theory

• components influence + change each other over time

  • by self-organisation

• not innate

Dynamic systems theory components

• facial expressions

• physiological expressions

• subject experiences

• instrumental behaviours

Dynamic system theory outcomes

• emotion

• moods

• personality

Smiling at 0-2 months

• smile during REM

Smiling at 2 months

• social smile (see parent)

Smiling at 2-6 months

• more likely to smile, imitate + interactive smile

Smiling at 6-18 months

• referential smile (look at objects)

Smiling across childhood

• becomes situation specific

• increase Duchenne smile (genuine)

Emotion constrast in infants

• sadness / disgust, sadness / anger, anger / disgust, happiness / surprise

• better at within boundary + valence (emotional quality)

Emotional understanding is linked to

• empathy

Two components of empathy

• cognitive

  • (labelling)

• affective

  • (feeling + know its other persons)

Important for development of empathy

• parenting (their qualities) + attachment

• emotion regulation skills

Age that children can recognition emotions on face

• age 5 → good at recognising + naming

• 9 → ceiling effect

Components of test of emotion comprehension

• recognition

• external cause

• desire

• belief

• reminder

• regulation

• hiding

• mixed

• morality

Recognition

• recognise + name

External cause

• understand how external impacts

Desire

• reaction dependent on what what + what get

Belief

• determines emotional reaction

  • (e.g election)

Reminder

• memory + emotion

Regulation

• different behavioural strategies change feelings

Hiding

• discrepancy between expressed + felt emotion

Mixed

• multiple or contradictory emotions

Mortality

• negative feelings from morally reprehensible situation

• positive for praiseworthy

Phase 1 of test of emotion comprehension (age 5)

• recognition, reminder, external cause

• understanding of important public emotion aspects

Phase 2 of test of emotion comprehension (age 7)

• desire, belief, hiding

• understanding mentalistic nature of emotions

Phase 3 of test of emotion comprehension (age 9-11)

• mixed, regulation, mortality

• understanding multiple perspectives + regulation

Follow up phases of emotion comprehension test (2020)

• external

• mental

• reflective

External phase (3-5 yrs)

• recognition

• external cause

• desire

Mental phase (6-8 yrs)

• belief

• reminder

• hiding

Reflective phase (9 yrs +)

• regulation

• mixed

• mortality

Tripartite model of familial impact on emotion regulation

• observation

• parenting practices

• emotional climate

Emotion contagion

• copying others emotions

Emotional regulation process

• situation selection

• situation modification

• attention deployment (situation)

• cognitive change (appraisal)

• response modulation (response)

Situation selection

• know situation unpleasant so can avoid from start

Situation modification

• change by resolving or avoiding conflict

Attention deployment (situation)

• attention actively focused elsewhere

• or distract self by reducing importance

Cognitive change (appraisal)

• reappraisal to change way of thinking

Response modulation (appraisal)

• seek emotional support or suppress emotion

Two emotion regulation strategies

• engagement focus

• disengagement focus