Child Development: Emotions, Attachment, and Moral Reasoning

What are the components of emotions?

Social smiles, social referencing, self-soothing, and temperament.

What was the main finding of Rene Spitz's research on institutional care?

The lack of love hypothesis, which suggests that emotional neglect can severely affect development.

What does Bowlby's Attachment Theory propose?

It outlines the stages of attachment and how attachment changes over time.

What is the Strange Situation experiment?

A procedure developed by Mary Ainsworth to observe attachment relationships between a caregiver and a child.

What are the different attachment styles identified in children?

Secure, anxious-ambivalent, anxious-avoidant, and disorganized attachment styles.

What factors affect attachment in infants?

Parent and infant characteristics, including responsiveness and temperament.

What is Theory of Mind?

The ability to understand that others have thoughts, beliefs, and desires that are different from one's own.

What are the components of goal-directed behavior?

Perception, beliefs, desires, and emotions.

What is the significance of false belief tasks?

They assess a child's understanding that others can hold beliefs that are incorrect.

What is Heinz's Dilemma?

A moral dilemma used to illustrate Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

What are Kohlberg's stages of moral development?

Pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional levels of moral reasoning.

What is the difference between intentions and outcomes in moral reasoning?

Intentions refer to the motivations behind actions, while outcomes refer to the actual results of those actions.

What are the three C's in children's media?

Child, content, and context.

What do pediatricians recommend regarding media usage for children?

Guidelines on age-appropriate media exposure and the importance of parental involvement.

What are the four classic parenting styles?

Authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved.

What are modern parenting styles?

Helicopter, tiger, RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers), and free-range parenting.

What are the consequences of different parenting styles?

They can significantly impact children's emotional and social development.

Social referencing

Looking at a caregiver's reaction to decide how to feel or act.

Empathy

Feeling or understanding another person's emotions; basic forms start in infancy and improve with age.

Social smiles

Babies start smiling in response to people around 6-8 weeks.

Self-soothing

Behaviors like thumb sucking or looking away to calm themselves.

Temperament

A baby's inborn style of reacting (easy, difficult, slow-to-warm-up).

Role of attachment

Harlow: Babies chose soft (cloth) mother over wire mother → comfort matters more than food for attachment.

Attachment changing over time

Early attachment affects later relationships, but can change with new experiences (better caregivers, stress, etc.).

People First View

Understanding that people, not objects, have thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

Beliefs vs. desires

Desires: What someone wants. Beliefs: What someone thinks is true. Kids first understand desires, then later understand beliefs.

Intentionality

Knowing that actions are done on purpose — babies expect people to act with goals.

Social cognition

Understanding others' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Why children have trouble with lying

Young kids struggle because lying requires understanding others' beliefs, inhibiting the truth, and planning what to say.

Preference for helping

Even babies show a preference for helpers over hinderers (helpful characters).

Development of fairness and generosity

Toddlers understand sharing, but true fairness develops around 4-6 years.

Babies learning from media

Babies learn much less from screens than from real people (video deficit effect).

Media usage data

Toddlers: ~1 hour/day of screen time. Preschoolers: 2+ hours/day.

Joint attention with media

When caregiver AND child look at/talk about the media together → improves learning.

Digital books

Can help learning if simple, but too many animations/interactive buttons distract.

Educational media

Preschoolers can learn letters, numbers, problem-solving from high-quality shows (like Sesame Street).

Aggression and media use

Watching violent media is linked to more aggressive thoughts and behaviors.

Two dimensions of parenting

Sensitivity/Warmth: How supportive and responsive a parent is. Demandingness/Control: How much structure, rules, and expectations they set.

Children's safety across time

Kids today are much safer (less crime, better car seats, safer products), but parents feel more anxious.

Gershoff reading: Discipline and spanking

Spanking is linked to more aggression, more behavior problems, and worse mental health. It does not improve long-term behavior.

Four classic parenting styles

Authoritative: High warmth + high control → best outcomes. Authoritarian: Low warmth + high control → obedient but less happy. Permissive: High warmth + low control → impulsive, less self-control. Uninvolved: Low warmth + low control → worst outcomes.

timeline of emotional development

Timeline of emotional development

0–6 months: Basic emotions (joy, fear, anger).

6–12 months: Stranger anxiety, social referencing.

1–2 years: Self-conscious emotions (shame, pride).

2–3 years: Better emotion regulation, empathy begins.