Emotional Development and the Establishment of Intimate Relationships

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Emotional Development and the Establishment of
Intimate Relationships

• Chapter 11
• Dr. Martha Pelaez

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An Overview of Emotional Development

• Displaying Emotions The Development and Control
  of Emotional Expressions
• Most researchers agree that babies communicate a
  variety of feelings through their facial
  expressions and that each expression becomes a
  more recognizable sign of a particular emotion
  with age
• Sequencing of Discrete Emotions
• At birth babies display interest, distress,
  disgust, and contentment
• Primary emotions normally appear by the middle of
  the first year
• Secondary emotions emerge in the second or third
  year, after children reach cognitive milestones
  such as self-recognition and have acquired
  standards for evaluating their conduct
• More self-conscious and depends on cognitive
  development

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An Overview of Emotional Development

• Displaying Emotions The Development and Control
  of Emotional Expressions
• Socialization of Emotions and Emotional
  Self-Regulation
• Begins very early, as parents model positive
  emotions for infants
• Parents attend carefully to and try to prolong
  their infants pleasant feelings
• Parents become less responsive to infants
  negative emotional displays
• By the end of the first year, infants develop
  simple strategies for regulating aversive arousal
  and make attempts to suppress their sadness or
  anger
• It is not until well into grade-school that
  children become proficient at complying with
  culturally defined emotional display rules
• The ability to develop and control emotions is a
  slow and gradual process

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An Overview of Emotional Development

• Recognizing and Interpreting Emotions
• Infants ability to recognize and interpret
  others emotions improved dramatically over the
  first year
• 8 to 10 months infants are capable of social
  referencing
• Ability to identify and interpret others
  emotions continues throughout childhood
• This is possible by cognitive development and by
  family conversations centering on the causes of
  ones own and others emotions (empathy)

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An Overview of Emotional Development

• Emotions and Early Social Development
• Emotions play two important roles in an infants
  life
• The childs emotional displays promote social
  contact with caregivers and help them to adjust
  their behaviors his or her needs and goals
• The infants ability to recognize and interpret
  others emotions serves an important knowledge
  function by helping the child to infer how she or
  he should feel, think, or behave in certain
  situations

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Temperament and Development

• Hereditary and Environmental Influences on
  Temperament
• Hereditary Influences
• Temperament implies a biological foundation for
  individual differences in behavior
• A foundation that is genetically influenced and
  stable over time
• Environmental Influences
• Environment also contributes heavily to
  temperament
• Shared environments influence positively toned
  temperamental attitudes (smiling, laughing)
• Nonshared environments influence negatively toned
  aspects of temperament (fear, anger)

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Temperament and Development

• Five Main Attributes
• Activity Level
• Irritability
• Soothability
• Fearfulness
• Sociability

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Temperament and Development

• Early Temperamental Profiles and Later
  Development
• Infant temperament cluster in predictable ways
• Easy Temperament (40 of sample)- Easygoing
  children are even-tempered, are typically in a
  positive mood, and are quite open and adaptable
  to new experiences
• Difficult Temperament (10 of sample)- Difficult
  children are active, irritable, and irregular in
  their habits. Are slow to adapt to new persons or
  situations
• Slow to warm up temperament (15 of sample)-
  These children are inactive, moody, and are slow
  to adapt to new persons and situations
• Temperament can change and it can change by the
  goodness of fit between parents and child
• Behavioral inhibition tends to be a stable
  attribute and is genetically influenced

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What are Emotional Attachments?

• John Bowlby defines attachment as the strong
  affectional ties that we feel with the special
  people in our lives
• Attachments are Reciprocal Relationships
• Infants become attached to parents, and parents
  become attached to infants
• Genuine emotional attachments build slowly from
  parent-infant interactions that occur over the
  first several months and can become highly
  intimate
• Establishment of Interactional Synchrony
• Parents initial bonding with their infant builds
  in strength as they gear their behavior to the
  infants social signals and establish
  synchronized routines
• Exquisite interactions are pleasing for both
  parents and infants and strengthen attachments

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How do Infants become Attached?

• The Growth of Primary Attachments
• Infants pass through phases as they develop close
  ties with their caregivers
• Asocial phase 0-6 weeks infants respond in an
  equally favorable was to interesting social and
  nonsocial stimuli
• Phase of indiscriminate attachments 6
  weeks-6/7months infants prefer social to
  nonsocial stimulation and protest when put down
• Phase of specific attachment 7-9 months infants
  are attached to one close companion
• Attached infants become more curious and use
  their attachment as a secure base for exploration
• Phase of multiple attachments period when
  infants are forming attachments to companions
  other than their primary attachment object

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How do Infants become Attached?

• Theories of Attachment
• Psychoanalytic and Learning Theory
• Propose that infants become attached to persons
  who feed them and gratify their needs
• Modern learning theorists believe that
  reinforcement is the mechanism responsible for
  social attachments
• Cognitive-Developmental Theory
• Propose that the ability to form attachments
  depends on the infants level of cognitive
  development
• Ethological Theory
• Proposes that humans have preadapted
  characteristics that predispose them to form
  attachments

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How do Infants become Attached?

• Two Attachment-Related Fears of Infancy
• Infants begin to display Stranger Anxiety and
  Separation Anxiety
• These two fears stem from
• infants wariness of strange situations
• Infants inability to explain who strangers are
• Infants inability to explain the whereabouts of
  absent companions
• These fears decline dramatically in the second
  year as toddlers mature intellectually and
  venture away from their secure bases to explore

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Individual Differences in Attachment Quality

• Assessing Attachment Security
• Strange Situation- Ainsworths popular assessment
  that is used to assess the quality of attachments
  that 1-2 year olds have formed
• series of eight episode separation and reunion
  episodes in which infants are exposed in order to
  determine the quality of their attachments
• Attachment Q-set (AQS)- A versatile assessment
  that assesses ages 1-5 years old through
  observations or reports of the childs
  attachment-related behaviors at home
• Four attachment classifications have been
  identified
• Secure, Resistant, Avoidant, and
  Disorganized/Disoriented

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Individual Differences in Attachment Quality

• Cultural Variations in Attachment Classifications
• The percentages of infants and toddlers who fall
  into the various attachment categories differ
  somewhat from culture to culture and seem to
  reflect cultural variations in child rearing
• Parents around the world prefer that their
  infants from secure attachments and try to
  promote culturally valued forms of security

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Factors that Influence Attachment Security

• Quality of Caregiving
• Caregiving Hypothesis
• Secure attachments are the result of parents who
  are sensitive and responsive to their infants
• Insecure attachments are the result of parents
  who are inconsistent, neglectful, overintrusive,
  or abusive

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Factors that Influence Attachment Security

• Infant Characteristics
• Temperament Hypothesis
• Infant characteristics and temperamental
  attributes may also influence attachment quality
  by affecting the character of caregiver-infant
  interactions
• Temperaments are not merely reflections of infant
  temperament
• Therefore an integrative viewpoint is more
  important
• Notion that caregiving determines whether
  attachments are secure or insecure
• And that child temperament determines the kind of
  insecurity displayed by a child who receives
  insensitive caregiving

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Attachment and Later Development

• Long-Term Correlates of Secure and Insecure
  Attachments
• Infants who have established secure primary
  attachments are likely to display more favorable
  developmental outcomes
• Infants who were securely attached at 12-18
  months are better problem-solvers, more complex
  and creative in their symbolic play, display
  positive emotions, and are more attractive to
  toddlers as playmates
• The opposite is true for those who are insecurely
  attached
• Children can be influenced by the quality of
  their attachments for years to come
• Attachments are stable over time
• Secure attachment during infancy predicts
  intellectual curiosity and social competence
  later in childhood

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Attachment and Later Development

• Why Might Attachment Quality Forecast Later
  Outcomes?
• Infants develop Internal Working Models
• Cognitive representations of themselves and other
  people
• Used to interpret events and to form expectations
  about the character of human relationships
• Parents Working Models
• Tend to correspond closely with the working
  models of their children
• Childrens Working Models can change
• Secure attachments are no guarantee of positive
  adjustment later in life
• Insecure attachments are not an indication of
  poor life outcomes

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The Unattached Infant

• Effects of Social Deprivation in Infancy and
  Childhood
• Infants who are socially deprived or abused are
  likely to be
• Withdrawn
• Apathetic
• Display intellectual deficits
• Behavior problems
• Reactive attachment disorders
• Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis- Socially
  deprived infants develop abnormally because they
  have failed to establish attachments to a primary
  caregiver
• Social Stimulation Hypothesis- Socially deprived
  infants develop abnormally because they have had
  little contact with companions who respond
  contingently to their social overtures
• But infants display a strong capacity for
  recovery

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Maternal Employment, Day Care, and Early
Emotional Development

• Quality of Alternative Care
• Once feared that regular separations from working
  parents and placement into day care might prevent
  infants from establishing secure attachments
• Little evidence that this is true
• An employed mother and alternative caregiving is
  fine when
• Parents are sensitive and responsive caregivers
  when they are at home