Chapter 10: Emotional Development

Question 1

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What emotions do infants show at birth?

Answer 1

• interest (in things and people)
• distress (crying)
• contentment (diaper is changed, full of food, cuddling with them)

Question 2

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What are basic emotions?

Answer 2

discrete emotional expressions of anger, sadness, joy, surprise, and fear

• emerge between 2-7 months
• appear so early in life, therefore they are probably biologically predetermined
• tend to emerge in all infants at the same time
• tend to be interpreted similarly across all cultures

Question 3

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is social smile?

Answer 3

smile in response to seeing familiar people, therefore time has to pass before those familiar people become familiar

• emerges between 2-3 months

Question 4

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is emotion regulation

Answer 4

ability to manage one’s emotions

Question 5

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What are strategies for emotion regulation in infants?

Answer 5

infant is anxious:

• suck vigorously on something (pacifier, blanket, toy, thumb)
• look away from what’s bothering them (trying to detach, but can’t walk away)

Question 6

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What are strategies for emotion regulation in toddlers?

Answer 6

toddler is anxious:

• suck on things
• rub things on their face
• find ways to distract themselves (play with toys, walk away and leave the room)

Question 7

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What parental interactions and techniques help infants learn to manage their emotions?

Answer 7

• cuddling
• patting on the back, stroking their head/back to calm them down
• remove infants from the situation
• selective reinforcement
• model positive emotions by not yelling/screaming/getting angry

Question 8

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is selective reinforcement?

Answer 8

when infant expresses positive emotions, the parent encourages those emotions

Question 9

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What parental interactions and techniques help toddlers learn to manage their emotions?

Answer 9

• talk to them about emotions

- give verbal instructions on how to calm down

Question 10

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What happens if a caregiver does not accurately interpret a child’s emotional displays?

Answer 10

caregiver may misinterpret it as manipulation rather than what the child is actually feeling

results in insensitive reaction that can interfere with infant’s emotional development

Question 11

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What are maladaptive (negative) social contexts?

Answer 11

parental stress, depression, and conflict makes it difficult for child to learn how to manage their emotions

• mothers who are depressed tend to be less responsive to their child, show less affection, use more negative forms of touch, show more negative emotions and behaviours

Question 12

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is the Test of Wills?

Answer 12

something that challenges the parent-child interaction and tests who is stronger emotionally

ie. if the toddler can crawl and walk, you have to stop them from going onto the street, which the child does not like

Question 13

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is the result of a Test of Wills?

Answer 13

development of motor skills that introduces a new set of challenges, because the caregiver has to limit the child’s exploration to keep them safe

Question 14

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is social referencing?

Answer 14

looking to caregivers’ emotional expressions for clues to interpret ambiguous (unclear) events

when child finds themselves in a situation they’ve never been in before, they often look to caregiver to see how they are reacting, to figure out how they should react themselves

Question 15

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is stranger wariness (stranger anxiety)?

Answer 15

fear of unfamiliar people

• emerges at 6 months, peaks at 12 months, decreases in 12-15 months

Question 16

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What does the variation amongst stranger wariness (stranger anxiety) in children depend on?

Answer 16

varies depending on ______ in which they meet a stranger

• temperament
• past experience (met very few unfamiliar people, they are more likely to express stranger wariness)
• situation (loud location, they are more likely to express stranger wariness because they are already overstimulated)

Question 17

Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

What is stranger wariness (stranger anxiety) influenced by?

Answer 17

culture and caregiver’s anxiety

ie. Eastern cultures: babies are more exposed to different people
ie. Western cultures: babies aren’t exposed to new people except parents, sometimes for a few months

Question 18

Emotional Development in Childhood

What happens to emotion regulation skills as a child ages?

Answer 18

emotion regulation skills improve

Question 19

Emotional Development in Childhood

What influences the improvement of emotion regulation skills?

Answer 19

developmental advances and interactions with others

• the more you interact with others, the more likely they’ll understand and identify a variety of emotions, and anticipate the emotions of others

Question 20

Emotional Development in Childhood

What are emotional display rules?

Answer 20

socially desirable responses that children should make in certain situations

• younger children (age 2-5) are not good at following this
• school-aged children are (6-12)

Question 21

Emotional Development in Childhood

What are children learning in regard to emotional display rules?

Answer 21

• children are learning to think before they speak
• children are learning that certain emotions can be intentionally hidden, and in certain situations they should be hidden (don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings)

ie. pretending that you like your grandma’s terrible cooking
ie. pretending that you like the age-inappropriate gift given to you

Question 22

Emotional Development in Childhood

What are contextual risks to emotional development?

Answer 22

• neighbourhood and community violence
  war and terrorism
• war and terrorism

Question 23

Emotional Development in Childhood

What are contextual risks to emotional development linked with?

Answer 23

linked with anxiety and PTSD symptoms

Question 24

Emotional Development in Childhood

How does exposure to community violence present constant threat to a child’s sense of safety?

Answer 24

• children are learning that the world is a dangerous and unpredictable place, and parents are unable to offer them protection
• can affect their natural curiosity and desire to learn by exploring their world, and as a result they become less curious and explore less

Question 25

What is resilience?

Answer 25

ability to achieve despite the presence of risk factors - even though the child is experiencing risk factors, they still have positive outcomes

Question 26

What are risk factors?

Answer 26

individual or contextual disadvantages/challenges that tax one’s coping capacities

Question 27

What are individual risk factors?

Answer 27

- physical, cognitive, or psychosocial challenges or delays | - difficult temperament (children are at risk for child abuse or neglect because they are harder to deal with)

Question 28

What are contextual risk factors?

Answer 28

things that can be changed by someone else ie. divorce, family violence, bullying, sexual abuse, child abuse, low SES, exposure to poverty-stricken and dangerous neighbourhoods (ACEs)

Question 29

What problems emerge in children who experience more risk factors?

Answer 29

the more risk factors a child experiences, the more difficult it is for them to adjust, and the more likely they are to have emotional, psychological, and health problems

Question 30

What are protective factors?

Answer 30

individual or contextual conditions that promote positive outcomes and reduce poor outcomes in the face of risk factors

Question 31

Explain the relationship between protective factors and resilient children.

Answer 31

children who are resilient have protective factors that protect them against the risk factors more protective factors = more resilient

Question 32

What are individual protective factors?

Answer 32

- friendly personality - high levels of self-control - easy temperament - good problem-solving skills (fluid intelligence)

Question 33

What are contextual protective factors?

Answer 33

- any adult who is there to be supportive (ie. parent, coach, teacher, friend’s parent) - after school programs - kids who attend regular religious service - connected to extended family

Question 34

What do contextual protective factors represent?

Answer 34

regular routines and community connections that help the child be resilient

Question 35

What is attachment?

Answer 35

a relatively enduring emotional tie between two people, each striving to maintain their closeness and acting to ensure the relationship continues over time

Question 36

What are Bowlby’s Four Stages of Attachment Formation?

Answer 36

(1) Indiscriminate Social Responsiveness (birth to 2 months) - babies learn to associate caregivers with the relief of distress - they will respond to any caregiver who reacts to their signals (2) Discriminating Sociability (2 to 6-7 months) - prefer certain familiar people over others (usually parents, or any regular caregiver) - most likely to react more positively with the caregivers they know and are familiar with (3) Attachments (7-24 months) - specific attachments to one or more caregivers (4) Reciprocal Relationships (24-30 months and onward to adulthood) - both individuals engage in taking turns in initiating interactions within the attachment relationship - make conscious efforts to interact with the other person because they are important to you

Question 37

What is a secure base?

Answer 37

a foundation for an infant to return to when frightened - infant knows that they can go into the world and explore, but if they get scared, they can go back and their attachment figure is there

Question 38

What is separation protest (separation anxiety)?

Answer 38

reaction to separations from attachment figure characterized by fear, distress, crying, and whining - increases at 8-15 months, then decreases appears across many cultures

Question 39

What experiment tests separation protest (separation anxiety)?

Answer 39

tested in Ainsworth’s Strange Situation experiment

Question 40

How is separation protest (separation anxiety) different to stranger wariness?

Answer 40

the child will exhibit separation protest even in the presence of a familiar figure who is not a caregiver

Question 41

What is the internal working model?

Answer 41

set of expectations about one’s worthiness of love, the availability of attachment figures during times of distress, and how one will be treated

Question 42

When does the internal working model develop? How does it develop the model?

Answer 42

in infancy as the attachment is forming how that attachment forms tells the infant if they are worthy of love - has everything to do with the availability of the attachment figure during times of distress, and how the infant is treated - when the infant is in distress and the attachment figure is not available, that sends the message that they are not worthy of love

Question 43

How does the internal working model affect adulthood?

Answer 43

- affects how worthy of love you think you are in adulthood | - challenging to form intimate love relationship

Question 44

What is security of attachment?

Answer 44

extent to which the infant feels she can count on parent(s) to be there to meet her needs - 65% of infants are securely attached, 35% insecurely attached

Question 45

What does the security of attachment depend on?

Answer 45

attachment completely depends on the caregiver’s response—ability to consistently and sensitively respond to a child’s signals and needs is the most important determinant of infant attachment

Question 46

What is a secure attachment?

Answer 46

caregiver will be there for the infant when needed

Question 47

What is an insecure attachment?

Answer 47

caregiver will not be there for the infant when needed

Question 48

What are the positive developmental outcomes linked with secure attachments in childhood?

Answer 48

- more positive interactions with others - greater social competence (when they interact with others, those interactions are positive, and others perceive them as having good social skills) - better able to read others’ emotions - more positive self-concept

Question 49

What are the positive developmental outcomes linked with secure attachments in adolescence?

Answer 49

- still very socially competent - better at making and keeping friends - have greater emotion regulation skills - exhibit less delinquent behaviour

Question 50

What are the developmental outcomes linked with secure attachments in adulthood?

Answer 50

- desire closeness because it makes them feel good - easily comforted by their partners because they were easily comforted by their parents as an infant - much more likely to form secure attachment with their own infant

Question 51

What are the developmental outcomes linked with insecure attachments in adulthood?

Answer 51

- feel anxious and avoidant in relationships - have fear of abandonment - feel unworthy of love - become possessive and jealous - not very trusting