A Topical Approach to LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT

1. A Topical Approach toLIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT 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. Separation Protest in Four Cultures Fig. 10.4

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

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. Changes in Positive & Negative Emotion Across the Adult Years Fig. 10.6

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. Model of Socio-emotional Selectivity Fig. 10.7

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 • Describing and classifying temperament • Kagan’s behavioral inhibition • Inhibition to unfamiliar • Shy/avoidance, subdued, timid child • Extremely uninhibited • Extraverted, social, bold child • Inhibition shows considerable stability from infancy through early childhood

26. Temperament • Describing and classifying temperament • Rothbart and Bates’ Classification • Extraversion/surgency • Positive anticipation, impulsivity • Negative affectivity • Easily distressed, fear and frustration often • Effortful control (self-regulation) • Attentional focusing, more cognition used

27. Temperament • Biological Foundations and Experience • Physiological characteristics are associated with different temperaments • Heredity is aspect of temperament’s biological foundations (twin and adoption studies) • Attributes become more stable over time as self-perceptions, behavioral preferences, and social experiences form personality

28. Developmental Connections

29. 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

30. 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”

31. 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

32. 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

33. 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

34. Attachment and Love • Theories of attachment • Bowlby: stresses importance of attachment in first year and responsiveness of caregiver • Develops in series of phases • Phase 1: birth to 2 months • Phase 2: 2 to 7 months of age • Phase 3: 7 to 24 months of age • Phase 4: 24 months and older

35. 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

36. Ainsworth’s Attachment Categories

37. Cross-Cultural Comparison of Attachment Fig. 10.11

38. Attachment and Love • Interpreting differences in attachment • Secure attachment important in first year; provides foundation for healthy development • Some developmentalists believe too much emphasis on attachment bond in infancy • Ignores the diversity of socializing agents and contexts that exists in an infant’s world • Ignores highly resilient and adaptive infants

39. Caregiving Styles and Attachment

40. Attachment and Love • Mothers and fathers as caregivers • Dramatic increase in stay-at-home fathers • Many have career-focused wives • Fathers have ability to nurture, be as sensitive and responsive as mothers • Maternal interactions: mostly child-care centered • Paternal interactions: more likely to include play, engage in rough-and-tumble acts

41. Attachment and Love • Child care • Most U.S. children have multiple caregivers • Parental concerns: reduced emotional attachment to parents, harm to cognitive development, improper socialization • About 2 million children currently receive formal, licensed child care • Types of child care vary extensively in United States

42. Attachment and Love • Parental leave • Far more extensive in other countries than United States • Europe led the way: paid fourteen-week maternity leave • Most countries: restrictions as to minimal employment period before leave taken • In the United States: twelve weeks unpaid leave to care for newborns

43. Attachment and Love • Parental leave • In most European countries: • Working parents get 70% or more of wages and paid leave averages 16 weeks • Gender-equality family leave policies in Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) • Sweden: most liberal of all — 18 month leave with benefits for full and part-time workers

44. Attachment and Love • Five types of parental leave from work • Maternity leave: before and after birth • Paternity leave: more important if second child born • Parental leave: allows either parent • Child-rearing leave: supplements maternity leave but typically paid at much lower level • Family leave: covers reasons other than birth • United States does not have paid leave policy

45. Attachment and Love • Variations in child care • Many factors affect child care: • Age of child • Type of child care • Quality of program — this makes a difference • Number of hours per week the child is in care • High quality may not erase negative effects • SES or families with few resources

46. Attachment and Love • Variations in child care • Ongoing national study in U.S. (NICHD) • Patterns of use: infants being placed sooner • Quality of care: lower for low-income families • Amount of child care: extensive time lessened attachment sensitivity to mother, more behavioral issues • Family and parenting influences are important

47. Attachment and Love • Variations in child care • Child care strategies for parents • Quality of parenting is key to child development • Make decisions that enhance good parenting • Monitor child’s development • Take time to find the best child care

48. 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

49. Attachment and Love • Adolescence • Dating and romantic relationships • Spend lots of time dating or thinking about it • Form of recreation • Source of status or achievement • A way to learn about close relationships • Function for mate selection

50. Attachment and Love • Adolescence • Dating and romantic relationships • Younger adolescents getting involved • Comfort in numbers; youth “hang out” in groups • More time in mixed-gender peer groups • Dating involvement linked to later adjustment • Sociocultural contexts influences dating and role expectations