Developmental Psychology Study Guide 3

3/30/16

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENTAL

Emotional Development
- What is an emotion?
o Internal/subjective feeling
o Physiological change: hormones (ex: cortisol)
o Behavioral expression: facial, gestures, voice, posture
- Darwin
o “The expression of the emotions I man and animals” (1872)
o it’s innate, and therefore is present in infants
- Measuring “Basic Emotions”
o Universal; expressed in a similar way across cultures
o 6 Basic Emotions
 Happy – cheeks up, eyes squint, smile
 Scared – cautious
 Disgusted – snarl, lips pursed
 Sad – crying, frown, eyes turned down
 Anger
 Surprise
- Emerging Emotions
o Positive
 Social Smiles – 2 months
 Newborn will look like they are smiling but it is more related to
their bodily state than their emotion
 At 2 months of age where they are also beginning to “coo” and
their first language like sounds emerge
 Relationship between social-emotional (social smiles) and
cognitive (language); they like the reciprocity of the social
interactions
 Smile more at people
 Smile more when they are controlling events
 Laughter – 4 months
 Chuckles
 Responding to their own body
o If you tickle their belly
 Laughter – 1 year
 Responding to an external event
o Video of infant laughing hysterically at parent ripping
paper over and over
 Will start to clown around and do things to make other people
laugh
o Negative
 “Undifferentiated” Distress

, When infants start to cry, they have different cries if they are fussy
or hungry or tired, etc. but also undifferentiated and not as
complex and specific sometimes
 Anger – 4-6 months
 If you take a toy away from them, not just crying, but facial
expression of anger (will try to reach for the toy)
 Has to do with goal directed behavior (not just crying because
hungry, but angry because trying to get the toy back; anger is when
you blocking a goal from them)
 Fear – 6 months
 “Stranger anxiety” at around 6, 7, 8 months, peaks at 1 year and
then goes away a bit (anxious and fearful around unfamiliar
people)
o When memory begins to really develop and mature
o Has a biological advantage (safety); will turn to parents,
most trusted social partners
o Social Referencing: baby will look at how parent or
caregiver for their reaction to see how safe it is
 Could pass a 3 month old around to strangers
without them having an issue
 If you pass an 8 months old around, they would be
crying and anxious
o It’s a social-emotional expression but it’s also cognitive
because it’s about memory and familiarity (when at 6-8
months infant has mental representations or memory for
caregiver; has an understanding of what is known and
trusted); also about motor development because started to
move and locomoting (when can move away from the
secure base of the caregiver, develops stranger anxiety to
make sure is safe)
- Complex Emotions
o Self-Conscious – 2 years (self-aware emotions)
 Embarrassment
 Pride
 Guilt – focused on external behavior and consequences of actions (feeling
guilty about something I have done, made to think about the consequences
of my actions, may or should have an understanding of how to make
amends for those actions, requiring me to empathize)
 Shame – focused on internalized feeling of myself
 Parenting difference of shame vs. guilt
 “Look what you’ve done, you’ve taken your sisters toy away and
now she’s crying. How would you feel if someone took your toy
away”  focused on behavior and consequence
 “You are such a bad boy. You always do that. Why do you do that?
You should really feel bad about yourself  making them
internalize the event unto themselves

,  It is good to make children feel guilty; children should feel guilt as
a reinforcement when they misbehave
 It is not good to make children feel shameful; they then feel stupid,
awful, mean, evil, not good enough
 These all have to do with social interactions and in order to have these,
they have to be aware of others’ perceptions and expectations of them
(which comes with age)
 *Comment in class: Problematic for Piaget because he says that
kids in preoperational stage have egocentrism and can’t see what
other people see (but he never really talked about social or
emotional development)
 These also require the kids to have a sense of self
o Cultural Differences
 These complex emotions are expressed and seen across all cultures
 The cultural different lie in the social and environmental situations which
may elicit these emotions
 i. e. when these complex emotions are expressed but not if they are
expressed
- Recognizing Others’ Emotions
o From a basic evolutionary standpoint, very important to recognize fear in a group
setting so you know when to leave the situation; good to recognize joy or
madness, etc.
o 4 – 6 months can differentiate others’ emotions
 habituate to one expression and then show interest when new expression
or emotion shown
 will also begin to mimic emotions on caregivers face (sensitive to social
expressions)
o 1 year – “using” others’ emotions
 Social referencing: Experiments: looks to see what the parent feels about
the situation in new experience and based on their expression, the infant
knows better how to behave
 Example: with the visual cliff, infant would not cross the cliff to
get the toy and meet the parent if the parent was looking fearful or
unhappy, but would crawl over if they are happy
 Video: when there is a loud train sound approaching, child looks at
mom for guiding behavior to see if should be scared or okay with
train  when mom looks scared, child mirrors that emotion and
vise a versa with happy
 “Still Face” Experiment: mom and infant interacting/smiling/laughing and
then the mom turns her back to the infant and then turns back around and
has a still face suddenly (no affect staring at infant)  child will do
everything to try to get the mother to show emotion again (points, puts
hands up, screeches; resorts to negative emotions because of stress
experiences)  uses and is sensitive to others’ emotions

,  Relate this to post partum depression in mothers: mother cannot
emotionally interact with child which stunts socio-emotional skills
and social referencing
- Stages in the Development of Children’s Understanding that People can Experience
Multiple Emotions Simultaneously
Stage Age Understanding Example
1 5 A situation can A child could be
cause a person to sad or angry that a
experience two best friend is
different emotions moving away
2 6½ A situation can A child could be
cause a person to sad and a little
experience to angry that a best
experience two friend is moving
different emotions away
that differ in
intensity
3 8 A situation can A child could be
cause a person to happy and scared
feel positively and about staying
negatively at the home alone
same time
- Regulating Emotions
o Our ability to regulate our emotions is an extremely important social skill 
development of regulation is key
1. Self-Regulation
 Tied to cognitive skills  language
 As learn to perceive and produce speech, can “use their words” to
communicate their emotions and understand others’
communication their emotions
 At age 1, they understand “no”
 At age 2, they can use language to regulate their motor behavior;
can yell to tell them to stop running across the street
 At age 2, begins regulation of emotions
 Not a coincidence that at age 5 we start formal education when
children can regulate their emotions pretty well
 Parent Expectations
 If understand expectations of what parents expect, may know how
to regulate emotions accordingly
 Ex. Temper Tantrums peak at around age 2 (Terrible Two’s) where
children have difficulty regulating emotions (more in boys than
girls)
o Reflects immaturity/inability to regulate one’s emotions
(negative) and also reflects kids being purposeful and goal
directed (positive b/c mostly upset because not getting what
they want)