Emotional Development

• Emotion: feeling, or affect, that occurs when a person is in a state or interaction that is important to them

• Especially in nfancy, emotions play a role in:

  • Communication with others

    • Emotions communicate joy, sadness, interest, and fear

  • Behavioral organization

    • Emotions influence social responses and adaptive behaviors as they interact with others

Influences

• Emotions ar einfluenced by biological foundations, cognitive processes, and a person’s experiences

• Social relationships provide the setting for the development of a bigger variety of emotions

  • Toddlers observing how parents interact (arguing/yelling vs laughing/playing) allows them to develop emotional coping skills

Early Emotions

• Primary emotions appear in the first 6 months of infant’s development

  • Suprise, interest, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust

• Self-conscious emotions require self-awareness, especially consciousness and a sense of “me”

  • Jealousy, empathy, embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt

  • Occur for the first time during the second half of the 1st year or within the 2nd year

Emotional expression and Social Relationships

• Ability of infants to communicate allow better interactions with their caregivers and form the beginnings of emotional bonds

• Cries and smiles are 2 emotional expressions that infants display when interacting with parents

Crying

• Crying is the most important mechanisim newborns have for communicating

  • The first cry verifies that baby’s lungs have filled with air

• Babies have at least three types of cries:

Smiling

• Smiling is a key social signal and very important aspect of positive social interactions

  • It is linked with social and intellectual development

• Two types of smiling can be distinguished in infants:

  • Reflective smile - does not occur in response to external stimuli and appears during the first month after birth, usually during sleep

  • Social smile - occurs in response to external stimuli, typically a face in the case of a oyung infant. Begins to occur as early as 2 months of age

Temperament

• Psychiatrists have identified three basic types, or clusters, of temperament:

  • An easy child is generally in a positive mood, quickly established regular routines in infancy, and adapts easily to new experiences

  • A difficult child reacts negatively and cried frequently, engages in irregular daily routines, and is slow to accept change

  • A slow-to warm-up child has a low activity level, is somewhat negative, and displays a low intensity of modd

• In studies, about 35% of children did not fit into any of these three patterns

• Another way of classifying temperament focuses on the difference between a shy, subdued, timid child, and a sociable, extraverted, bold child

Personality Development

• Emotions and temperament form key aspects of personality - the enduring personal characteristics of individuals

• Characteristics that are considered to be central to personality development during infancy:

  • Trust

  • The development of self

  • Independence

Trust

• Erikson proposed that the first year of like is characterized by the trust-versus-mistrust stage of development

  • Infants learn trust when they are cared for in a consistent and warm manner

  • If the infant is not well fed and kept warm, a sense of mistrust is likely to develop

  • If the issue of trust vs mistrust is not resolved in the first year of life, it will arise again at each successive stage of development

The Developing sense of self

• It is difficult to study the development of a sense of self in infants

  • The mirror test (or rogue test) found that most children younger than 1 year old do not recognize themselves in the mirror

• Late in the second year and early into the third year, toddlers show other emerging forms of self-awareness

  • Refer to themselves by making “me/I” statements, declaring things are theirs

Independence

• Erikson stressed that independence is an important issue in the second year of life

• The second stage of development is autonomy vs shame and doubt

  • Autonomy builds as the infant’s mental and motor abilities develop

    • Infants can walk, climb, open and close, drop, push and pull, and hold and let go

    • Potty training is one fo the biggest milestones of this stage

    • Infant feels pride in each task when caregiver is supportive

  • However, if the caregivers are impatient and consistently criticize accidents, shame and doubt develop.

Attachment and its development

• Attachment is a close emotional bond between two people

  • In infants, this lasting psychological connectedness is between a child and their primary caregiver

• There are many theories about infant attachment;

  • Freud - infants become attached to the person that provides oral satisfaction

  • Harlow - contact comfort is preferred over food

  • Erikson - trust arises from physical comfort and sensitive care

Social context

• The 2 main social contexts in which infants explore their emotional and personality development, as well as attachment are:

  • The family

  • Childcare

The Family

• The family can be thought of as a constellation of subsystems - a complex which made up of interrelated, interacting, parts.

  • It is defined in terms if definition, gender, and role.

• Each family member participates in several subsystems.

  • Father-child/ mother-child/ mother-father/ mother-father-child