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Dec 26, 2023 · 1. Discrete emotions perspective. Carroll Izard’s discrete emotions perspective is one of the most well-recognized theories of infant emotional development. Izard proposes that infants are born with basic emotions that are universal, meaning all humans are born ready to experience and express these emotions.
- Overview
- Infancy
- Toddlerhood and early childhood
- Middle and late childhood
emotional development, emergence of the experience, expression, understanding, and regulation of emotions from birth and the growth and change in these capacities throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The development of emotions occurs in conjunction with neural, cognitive, and behavioral development and emerges within a particular soci...
The expression of emotions during infancy promotes the transition from complete dependency to autonomy. The expression of interest promotes exploration and cognitive development. Social (intentional) smiles and other expressions of joy promote social interaction and healthy attachment relationships with primary caregivers. The expression of sadness encourages empathy and helping behaviour, and the expression of anger signals protest and discomfort. Infants’ unique tendency to experience and express particular emotions and the threshold for expressing those emotions is usually referred to as their temperament or characteristic emotionality.
Researchers generally agree that neonatal (nonintentional) smiles are present at birth and that social smiling and emotional expressions of interest appear as early as six weeks of age. By four to five months of age, infants selectively smile at familiar faces and at other infants, and their caregivers begin to share positive emotional exchanges with them.
Researchers disagree in their explanations of the development and time of emergence of discrete negative emotional expressions. Consistently with the view that infants express negative emotions in early infancy, scientists have shown that infants perceive and respond differentially to the negative emotional expressions (e.g., sadness, anger) of others by the age of four months.
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During the second six months of life, as infants gain rudimentary cognitive and memory capacities, they begin to express particular emotions based on context. Emotions begin to emerge dynamically as the infant begins to take a more direct role in emotional exchanges with caregivers. The emotional bond with the caregiver is increasingly important, as infants seek support for exploration and look for signals of danger.
During the toddler period, in conjunction with rapid maturation of the frontal lobes and the limbic circuit in the brain, recognition of the self emerges. As a result, the toddler strives to become more independent, and the expression of anger and defiance increases in that struggle for autonomy. The ability to differentiate the self from others also promotes basic empathetic behaviour and moral understanding. By the end of the second year of life, toddlers respond to negative signals from others, and they have specific emotional responses to their own negative actions. The emotions that emerge with a rudimentary conception of the self are often called self-conscious emotions and include shame, embarrassment, guilt, and pride. Some self-conscious emotions, such as pride and guilt, do not emerge until toddlers and young children have learned to conceptualize internalized standards of behaviour.
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As children enter preschool, they begin to label their own emotions and rely on discourse about emotions within the family to facilitate their understanding of basic emotions. Young children first distinguish happiness from negative emotions and then begin to distinguish negative emotions such as sadness, anger, and fear from each other. They begin to recognize these emotions in facial expressions, and then, as they enter middle childhood, they begin to understand situational determinants of emotions. An understanding of emotional subjectivity also develops as children learn that what makes one child happy may not make another child feel the same way.
During middle and late childhood, stable self-concepts based on the child’s typical emotional experiences emerge. With the increased capacity for self-reflection, children gain an understanding of their self-conscious emotions. As a result, the consistent experience of patterns of self-conscious emotions has an impact on the child’s self-concept. For example, the tendency to experience shame rather than guilt in response to negative transgressions affects the child’s emergent self-esteem and may encourage a tendency to respond with aggression or violence.
Also during middle and late childhood, children begin to understand that a single situation or event can lead to the experience of multiple, mixed emotions. For example, older children understand that a goodbye party for a sibling who will leave for college is likely to be both a happy and a sad event for the child and his sibling. This capacity likely emerges with the cognitive capacity to understand multiple aspects of a situation, called decentration.
Jul 5, 2019 · There are several emotional development theories, none of which ascribes to a single view of the nature of emotion; no single emotional development theory guides contemporary research. In fact, much of the published evidence is descriptive and often either is not guided by hypotheses of an explicit theory or cites a theory but does not explicitly test the theory.
- Kristin A. Buss, Pamela M. Cole, Anna M. Zhou
- 2019
In this chapter, we review several theories of emotional development. For each, we address definitions and basic tenets, we ask what “develops” and how emotions change with age. What is particularly noteworthy is that although there are several emotional development theories, none ascribes to a single emotion theory. Moreover, no single emotional development theory guides contemporary ...
Jul 1, 2019 · Theories of emotional development across childhood and adolescence emphasize the contextual embeddedness of affective systems, and highlight the role of evolving physiological, cognitive, and ...
Jul 23, 2024 · During the elementary school stage (ages 6-12), children face the task of Industry versus Inferiority. Children begin to compare themselves to their peers to see how they measure up. Figure 12.1.1 12.1. 1: The academic award this boy is receiving may contribute to his sense of industry.
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In the second half of the chapter, we review other conceptual frameworks and theories that are not emotion theories per se but are widely used to guide research on emotional development. Throughout this chapter, we provide illustrative empirical examples for aspects of each theory. In many ways, this chapter is a primer on emotion development ...
