Inhoud
Lecture 1 – Emotion Theories................................................................................................................3
Lecture 2 – Emotion expression.............................................................................................................5
Lecture 3 – Emotion regulation..............................................................................................................7
Conclusion lecture 1-3............................................................................................................................9
Lecture 4 – Social emotions...................................................................................................................9
Lecture 5 – Emotion socialization, emotional competence, (adaptive) social adjustment.....................10
Lecture 6 – Emotional competence and anxiety...................................................................................13
Lecture 7 – Emotional competence and depression..............................................................................16
Lecture 8 – Emotional competence as a transdiagnostic factor.............................................................17
Articles.................................................................................................................................................20
Emotion (Sherer)..............................................................................................................................20
Anger response style in Chinese and Dutch children: a socio-cultural perspective on anger
regulation (Novin)............................................................................................................................21
Comparison of sadness, anger and fear facial expressions when toddlers look at their moms (Buss)
..........................................................................................................................................................22
Distinguishing between negative emotions: children’s understanding of the self-regulatory aspects
of emotions (Jenkins)........................................................................................................................22
Awareness of single and multiple emotions in high-functioning children with autism (Rieffe)........23
Emotion control predicts internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in boys with and
without autism spectrum disorder (Bos)...........................................................................................23
Preliminary findings on association between moral emotions and social behavior in young children
with normal hearing and with cochlear implants (Ketelaar).............................................................24
Moral emotions and moral behavior (Tangney)................................................................................24
Do social media foster or curtail adolescents’ empathy? A longitudinal study (Vossen)..................25
Children’s emotional development: challenges in their relationships to parents, peers and friends
(von Salisch).....................................................................................................................................26
‘Good enough’ parental responsiveness to children’s sadness: links to psychosocial functioning
(Poon)...............................................................................................................................................27
A developmental angle to understanding the mechanisms of biased cognitions in social anxiety
(Haller).............................................................................................................................................27
Cognitive bias modification of interpretation in children: processing information about ambiguous
social events in a duo (Vassilopoulos)..............................................................................................28
Reactivity to social stress in subclinical social anxiety: emotional experience, cognitive appraisals,
behavior and physiology (Crisan).....................................................................................................28
Dynamics of affective experience and behavior in depressed adolescents (Sheeber).......................29
Maternal enhancing responses to adolescents’ positive affect: associations with adolescents’
positive affect regulation and depression (Fredrick).........................................................................30
Empathy and prosocial behavior in response to sadness and distress in 6- to 7-year-olds diagnosed
with disruptive behavior disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (Deschamps)...........31
1
,Rumination as a transdiagnostic factor in depression and anxiety (McLaughlin).............................31
Rumination and psychopathology: are anger and depressive rumination differentially associated
with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology? (Du Pont)....................................................32
2
,Lecture 1 – Emotion Theories
What are emotions?
Emotions are folk psychology: people think they know what emotions are, why we have them,
etc., without any scientific knowledge
Emotions are signals, they tell you that something meaningful has happened and everything
kind of fades away
Emotion has a core function, namely communication (to communicate with the social
world around us, it has a meaning towards our social partners/environment)
Functionalistic view on emotions
Emotion is a process (which consists of five aspects): it’s how you approached a
situation, how you formulated goals in a situation, what is the function of the displayed
emotion?
1. Cognitive processing (primary appraisal): defines what’s good or not good, quasi-
automatic, not controllable, focus on the event, physiologically aroused
2. Physiological arousal: you’re ready to go, the body can react quickly (a core function of
every emotion)
a. The primary function of physiological changes is the provision of energy, the
mobilization of the organism prepare for action (you are alert)
b. There is little evidence that specific patterns underlie specific emotions (e.g. heart
rate, blood flow)
3. Action tendency: an urge to do something (it doesn’t mean that you will do it, that you
will act it out)
4. Cognitive processing (secondary appraisal): based on previous experiences, on the own
abilities, which strategy/outcome, different responses are possible, determines which
emotion you have
5. Motor expression
6. Subjective feeling state: the verbal label to describe what you can feel
Something happens in a situation which is important to you (either positive or negative), it
changes, and you are alert
You have changes in your action readiness (adrenalin, focus): it is aimed to change or
maintain relationships
Emotions serve a function in our contact with other people, they’re a form of communication:
the outcome one wants to achieve, or one thinks one is able to achieve, determines the
emotional reaction (emotions don’t just happen, they are influenced by social context and
focus, it’s a deliberate choice)
Emotions arise with a reason/function, emotions aren’t just a feeling (it’s a process)
Adaptive reaction to a change in a situation and reflects strategic approach to situation
Each emotion contains unique action tendency that reflects what one wants to achieve in that
particular situation
Different emotions reflect different concerns or expected outcomes
3
, Deaf children and emotions
More than 90 percent of deaf children grow up in a hearing environment and the consequences
of this are: fewer communication means, little communication time (thus, problems in social-
emotional development)
Sadness (focus on consequence, evaluation: reinstatement desired situation is impossible),
versus anger (focus on cause, evaluation: reinstatement desired situation is possible)
Deaf children way more often (than hearing children) said they will feel sad (hearing children
more often angry), because they have a different strategy
- Deaf children don’t have access to the social world around them to the same extent as
hearing children: more time to deal with the loss (consequence) and not the cause (as with
hearing children)
Emotions have interpersonal functions (communication)
Fear is about avoiding harm, anger is stopping another from harming you, love is
strengthening relationships with others (bonding; emotions are not just about sending, but also
about receiving back), jealousy is protecting what’s mine, shame (moral, social emotion) is
failing to live up to ego-ideal in context of social norms and values, pride is to reinforce
behavior that you did that is valued positively within social context
Functionalistic view: emotions serve to communicate with the social environment
(communicative function)
James-Lange theory
Perception of an event physiological arousal subjective feeling
Emotion is our feeling (awareness) of the bodily changes as they occur and then make
interpretation of the situation
Not really a valid theory, because subjective feeling is a cause rather than a consequence (it’s
the end of a process). Also open to misinterpretation (the same physiological arousal might
depend on interpretations and can have different emotions)
Emotions have a direct link with specific emotion-evoking events/situations/memories, while mood
state isn’t linked to specific situations, but they’re general feelings (the cause is unclear, a longer
duration, a lower intensity)
Learning about emotions: are emotions innate or learned?
Everyone experiences emotions, we are born with pre-set modules that enable us to have
emotions and emotional reactions (innate). When those emotions are experienced and how
they are expressed is learned through socialization
You have to learn the basics of emotion at a young age (through emotional socialization),
otherwise you will never be able to be truly good at it
There are different sources of information that teach children about emotions (what’s
appropriate in their cultural/social context)
- Self-observation: perceiving your own body in relation to the environment
- Observations of others
4
Lecture 1 – Emotion Theories................................................................................................................3
Lecture 2 – Emotion expression.............................................................................................................5
Lecture 3 – Emotion regulation..............................................................................................................7
Conclusion lecture 1-3............................................................................................................................9
Lecture 4 – Social emotions...................................................................................................................9
Lecture 5 – Emotion socialization, emotional competence, (adaptive) social adjustment.....................10
Lecture 6 – Emotional competence and anxiety...................................................................................13
Lecture 7 – Emotional competence and depression..............................................................................16
Lecture 8 – Emotional competence as a transdiagnostic factor.............................................................17
Articles.................................................................................................................................................20
Emotion (Sherer)..............................................................................................................................20
Anger response style in Chinese and Dutch children: a socio-cultural perspective on anger
regulation (Novin)............................................................................................................................21
Comparison of sadness, anger and fear facial expressions when toddlers look at their moms (Buss)
..........................................................................................................................................................22
Distinguishing between negative emotions: children’s understanding of the self-regulatory aspects
of emotions (Jenkins)........................................................................................................................22
Awareness of single and multiple emotions in high-functioning children with autism (Rieffe)........23
Emotion control predicts internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in boys with and
without autism spectrum disorder (Bos)...........................................................................................23
Preliminary findings on association between moral emotions and social behavior in young children
with normal hearing and with cochlear implants (Ketelaar).............................................................24
Moral emotions and moral behavior (Tangney)................................................................................24
Do social media foster or curtail adolescents’ empathy? A longitudinal study (Vossen)..................25
Children’s emotional development: challenges in their relationships to parents, peers and friends
(von Salisch).....................................................................................................................................26
‘Good enough’ parental responsiveness to children’s sadness: links to psychosocial functioning
(Poon)...............................................................................................................................................27
A developmental angle to understanding the mechanisms of biased cognitions in social anxiety
(Haller).............................................................................................................................................27
Cognitive bias modification of interpretation in children: processing information about ambiguous
social events in a duo (Vassilopoulos)..............................................................................................28
Reactivity to social stress in subclinical social anxiety: emotional experience, cognitive appraisals,
behavior and physiology (Crisan).....................................................................................................28
Dynamics of affective experience and behavior in depressed adolescents (Sheeber).......................29
Maternal enhancing responses to adolescents’ positive affect: associations with adolescents’
positive affect regulation and depression (Fredrick).........................................................................30
Empathy and prosocial behavior in response to sadness and distress in 6- to 7-year-olds diagnosed
with disruptive behavior disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (Deschamps)...........31
1
,Rumination as a transdiagnostic factor in depression and anxiety (McLaughlin).............................31
Rumination and psychopathology: are anger and depressive rumination differentially associated
with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology? (Du Pont)....................................................32
2
,Lecture 1 – Emotion Theories
What are emotions?
Emotions are folk psychology: people think they know what emotions are, why we have them,
etc., without any scientific knowledge
Emotions are signals, they tell you that something meaningful has happened and everything
kind of fades away
Emotion has a core function, namely communication (to communicate with the social
world around us, it has a meaning towards our social partners/environment)
Functionalistic view on emotions
Emotion is a process (which consists of five aspects): it’s how you approached a
situation, how you formulated goals in a situation, what is the function of the displayed
emotion?
1. Cognitive processing (primary appraisal): defines what’s good or not good, quasi-
automatic, not controllable, focus on the event, physiologically aroused
2. Physiological arousal: you’re ready to go, the body can react quickly (a core function of
every emotion)
a. The primary function of physiological changes is the provision of energy, the
mobilization of the organism prepare for action (you are alert)
b. There is little evidence that specific patterns underlie specific emotions (e.g. heart
rate, blood flow)
3. Action tendency: an urge to do something (it doesn’t mean that you will do it, that you
will act it out)
4. Cognitive processing (secondary appraisal): based on previous experiences, on the own
abilities, which strategy/outcome, different responses are possible, determines which
emotion you have
5. Motor expression
6. Subjective feeling state: the verbal label to describe what you can feel
Something happens in a situation which is important to you (either positive or negative), it
changes, and you are alert
You have changes in your action readiness (adrenalin, focus): it is aimed to change or
maintain relationships
Emotions serve a function in our contact with other people, they’re a form of communication:
the outcome one wants to achieve, or one thinks one is able to achieve, determines the
emotional reaction (emotions don’t just happen, they are influenced by social context and
focus, it’s a deliberate choice)
Emotions arise with a reason/function, emotions aren’t just a feeling (it’s a process)
Adaptive reaction to a change in a situation and reflects strategic approach to situation
Each emotion contains unique action tendency that reflects what one wants to achieve in that
particular situation
Different emotions reflect different concerns or expected outcomes
3
, Deaf children and emotions
More than 90 percent of deaf children grow up in a hearing environment and the consequences
of this are: fewer communication means, little communication time (thus, problems in social-
emotional development)
Sadness (focus on consequence, evaluation: reinstatement desired situation is impossible),
versus anger (focus on cause, evaluation: reinstatement desired situation is possible)
Deaf children way more often (than hearing children) said they will feel sad (hearing children
more often angry), because they have a different strategy
- Deaf children don’t have access to the social world around them to the same extent as
hearing children: more time to deal with the loss (consequence) and not the cause (as with
hearing children)
Emotions have interpersonal functions (communication)
Fear is about avoiding harm, anger is stopping another from harming you, love is
strengthening relationships with others (bonding; emotions are not just about sending, but also
about receiving back), jealousy is protecting what’s mine, shame (moral, social emotion) is
failing to live up to ego-ideal in context of social norms and values, pride is to reinforce
behavior that you did that is valued positively within social context
Functionalistic view: emotions serve to communicate with the social environment
(communicative function)
James-Lange theory
Perception of an event physiological arousal subjective feeling
Emotion is our feeling (awareness) of the bodily changes as they occur and then make
interpretation of the situation
Not really a valid theory, because subjective feeling is a cause rather than a consequence (it’s
the end of a process). Also open to misinterpretation (the same physiological arousal might
depend on interpretations and can have different emotions)
Emotions have a direct link with specific emotion-evoking events/situations/memories, while mood
state isn’t linked to specific situations, but they’re general feelings (the cause is unclear, a longer
duration, a lower intensity)
Learning about emotions: are emotions innate or learned?
Everyone experiences emotions, we are born with pre-set modules that enable us to have
emotions and emotional reactions (innate). When those emotions are experienced and how
they are expressed is learned through socialization
You have to learn the basics of emotion at a young age (through emotional socialization),
otherwise you will never be able to be truly good at it
There are different sources of information that teach children about emotions (what’s
appropriate in their cultural/social context)
- Self-observation: perceiving your own body in relation to the environment
- Observations of others
4
