Social and emotional development

An Overview based on Thompson (1993; 1999; 2000)

PSY341

Vertus and Messinger

Class

• Questions

• Overview

• Final topic questions

• Next time

Questions

• Describe Greenspan and Shanker's (G&S) description of the transformation in emotional and intellectual growth.

• How do they relate to Erikson's (E) levels? • Using G&S (or E), identify times in your own

development that correspond to their levels? Describe times in the development of someone younger than yourself and someone older than yourself in terms of Greenspan and Shanker's levels.

• If appropriate, use the "developmental highlights" video from class to illustrate your discussion.

Neonate

4 months4 Months

8 months

1 year

1 year 6 months

Erikson’s Stages

Erikson (ages and interpretation)

Example

• Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood (bananas)

Temperament• Temperament: underlying, biologically based

(heritable) individual differences in the behavioral characteristics of the individual that is constant over time and across situations

• Personality-to-be

Temperament

• Dispositions– Reactivity and regulation

• More multidimensional and enduring than emotion

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Genes and environment

• Genetic individual differences can be reflected in some physiological systems– reactivity in sympathetic and central nervous system

• Individual temperamental characteristics interact with the child’s environment

– level of stress in home, sensitivity and adaptability of social partners, cultural beliefs and values

• To influence attachment, sociability, and adjustment.

How or what of behavior

• Rhythmicity of biological functions, approach to or withdrawal from new stimuli, adaptability, distractibility, activity level, quality of mood, persistence or attention span, intensity of reaction, and threshold of of responsiveness (Thomas, Chess, et al.)

• Activity level, soothability, duration of orientation, smiling and laughter (positive reactivity), fear, and distress to limitations (frustrations) (Rothbart, 1981, 1986; Derryberry, 1981)

• Activity level, emotionality, and sociability (Buss & Plomin)

Temperament and Emotion

• Two perspectives on the same phenomena?

• Similar behavioral measures

• Exciting, emerging literature on their correspondence

• But differences as well• (A final project?)

Temperament conceived in more emotional terms

• with increasingly sophisticated behavioral and autonomic measures

• with attention to genetic basis

• yielding surprising findings– (1/3 of shy 2 year olds are so no longer at 4

years)

Emotion

• Structuralist Theory: The physiological (heart rate, sweaty palms), subjective (level of distraction) , cognitive appraisal ( threats, the unexpected), and expressive components (facial expressions) that accompany such feelings as fear, anger, joy, distress, guilt, happiness.

Emotion

• Involves expression, understanding, & regulation

• Shaped by cultural beliefs– Behavioral standards

• Person-environment transactions (socialization)

• Empathy & emotion contagion

• Display rules vs. ER

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Structuralist views

• Established emotions as respectable, portraying them as– Biologically based– “discrete, coherent constellations of

phsyiological, subjective, and expressive activity” (Thompson, 1993, p. 374)

– yield discrete emotions (fear, anger, joy)– micro-analytic coding because – Face = emotion.

But emotion is functional

• Functionalist theory: Emotion is the person’s attempt or readiness to establish, maintain, or change the relation between the person and the environment on on matters of significance to that person (Saarni et al., 1998).

• Emotion is associated with goal-attainment, social relationships, situational appraisals, action tendencies, self-understanding, self regulation, etc.

Functionalist views

• Emotion has to do with goals– changing and maintaining relationship with the

environment.

• Emotions come in families defined by these goals – not by facial expression, or brain activity

• Research focus – socialization of emotional experience

– acquisition of emotional competence (Saarni),

– secondary emotions such as pride.

Critique of functionalism

• Overly broad

• Circular reasoning– How do you measure goals? – Or final causality

• Multimodal measurement

• Measurement of impact of emotional signal– Similar to ethology

Emotion regulation

• Modifying emotions to attain goals• Sees emotions as

– flexible not stereotypical– functional not disruptive– responsive not rigid

• E.g., Impulse control, anger modulation, embarrassment, gift receipt.

– Similar to general movement of field in ‘80-90s and to functionalism in particular.

Critique of emotion regulation• Inhibition or maintenance/intensification?

• Self or other regulation?

• What’s emotion and what’s its regulation?– Does functionalism wish to unite concepts?

– Is a regulated emotion the same emotion?

– Avoid premature judgements of good emotion regulation before we know its normative development and how to measure its adequacy

Structural/Functional synthesis• Structural insight.

– Discrete or no, emotional processes have an internal dynamic

• happiness wanes, frustrated love is not neutral; sadness loves company

• Functional insight– Emotions are inherently relational. – And usually but not always functional

• Methodological synthesis. – Detailed attention to face and other expressive

modalities, and their perception by others.

ATTACHMENT

• The Big Question: How do early experiences of relationships impact later relationships?– Infancy to childhood

– Infancy to adulthood

– Infancy to parenthood

• Through behavioral and then internal representations of what can be expected from relationships

Internal representations

• New research based on premise that individuals construct belief systems and interpret (and sometimes construct) reality based on those beliefs.

Self

• Grounded in temperament– Life choices

• Awareness/representation– Internal working model– Provides coherence to experiences

• Ingroup/outgroup distinctions• Elements of the self

– Self-perceptions– Memory– Self-esteem

What is Self(“me”)

• Self is comprised of the “I-self”– active participant, contributor to experiences

• And the ‘me’– self-evaluations

– and the social self.

• With some things in between– self-representation,

– autobiograghical personal narrative,

Infant self

• Early. Through sensorimotor interactions with the environment and social interactions, infants acquire the capabilities that allow then to develop a sense of self

• Middle Infancy: Social scope extends to peer relationships. Children compare themselves to other peers. Evaluation of strengths and weaknesses takes place.

Early Childhood Self

• Infant-caregiver interactions become crucial infant’s self-representation; self-evaluations based upon parents; descriptive physical and psychological characteristics

Adolescence and Beyond:

• Development of abstract thinking allows the teenager to reconcile conflicting, inconsistencies in themselves and others. Experimentation in search of the true self is undertaken. An identity is formed/formulated.

• The “self” is continually shaped and developed.

• Personality: Different experiences throughout the lifespan, negatively or positively go into shaping the individual’s personality.

The Big Picture: Psychosocial ecology of human development

• Physical and social circumstances are likely to be the among the strongest predictors of socioemotional development– divorce/remarriage, beginning and changing

schools, economic upturns/downturns -

• Are these direct or indirect effects?– The emotional impact of the divorce or the

downturn in standard of living?

Parenting

• Different parenting styles have different outcomes

• Authoritative style thought to be optimal

Parenting: Current view

• What particular features of a parenting style - including affective behavior - produces outcomes in particular circumstances.– More flexibility for older adolescents– Group differences

• More restrictive caregiving is seen as more loving and has more positive outcomes among African-American teens (Mason’s work)

Parenting and emotion

• Try to achieve goals with/for offspring is very emotional!– Discipline strategies are modified by perception

of child’s temperament.– The actual process is bidirectional

• Mutual expectations impact next interactions so that relationships impact relationships

In Defense of Parenthood: Children Are Associated With

More Joy Than Misery   • S. Katherine Nelson, Kostadin Kushlev, Tammy English, Elizabeth W. Dunn, and Sonja Lyubomirsky

• Does having children make people happier? Participants were prompted to report their level of positive and negative emotions five times a day for 7 days. Researchers also collected information on participants' level of global happiness and depressive symptoms. The researchers found that participants with children reported higher levels of global well-being, fewer depressive symptoms, and more positive emotions than did nonparents. Parenthood was more consistently linked to increases in well-being in men. A follow-up study also found that parents reported more positive emotions and a stronger sense of meaning in life when taking care of their children. These findings run contrary to the widely held belief that children are a source of reduced wellbeing.

Policy Implications

• Researchers can’t hide in the lab, but they should not be overly prescriptive

• They should understand that policy can have unintended repercussions for diverse parties– attachment and daycare– adoption– maternal drug use

References

– Thompson, R. A. (1999). The individual child: Temperament, emotion, self, and personality. In M. H. Bornstein & M. E. Lamb (Eds.), Developmental psychology: An advanced textbook (4th ed.) (pp. 377-409). Mahwah, NJ: Larence Earlbaum.

– Thompson (2001). Development in the first years of life. The Future of Children, 11(1), 20-33.

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