Emotions: thoughts about feelings

Student Handout 5-1

Chapter Summary

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  Children communicate their feelings, needs, and wishes to others and regulate other people’s behavior through emotional expressions.
  

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  Biological, learning, and functional theories explain different aspects of emotional development.
  
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  Babies begin expressing primary emotions of anger, joy, fear, and sadness early in life.
  
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  Smiling begins with the newborn’s reflex smile, which depends on the baby’s internal state. Social smiles appear between 3 and 8 weeks. By 12 weeks, infants smile selectively at familiar faces and voices, depending on the situation. By 4 months, infants begin to laugh. Both laughter and smiling express joy and play a critical role in maintaining the proximity of the caregiver to the baby.
  
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  Fear emerges gradually in the first year. Babies tend to be less fearful in a familiar setting and when they feel as if they have some control over the situation. Social referencing helps them know how to behave in unfamiliar situations.
  
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  In the second year, children develop secondary or self-conscious emotions such as pride, shame, guilt, jealousy, and empathy. These emotions rely on the development of self-awareness.
  

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  Differences in emotional expressiveness are rooted in biology and have important implications for children’s later adjustment.
  

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  In the first 6 months of life, infants begin to recognize emotional expressions in other people. They typically recognize positive emotions before negative ones, which has functional value because it strengthens the infants’ bond with caregivers.
  
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  As children mature, they develop an understanding of emotion terms. Emotional scripts help them identify the feelings that typically accompany particular situations. They learn that people can experience more than one emotion at a time and two emotions may conflict.
  

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  A major challenge for children is to learn how to modify, control, and regulate emotions so they are less frequent and less intense.
  
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  By the preschool years, children begin to follow emotional display rules that dictate which emotions to show under what circumstances. Culture affects these rules, and the display of such emotions as anger and shame may be sanctioned in one culture but disapproved of in another.
  

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  Parents influence children’s emotional expressions, understanding, and regulation. They serve as models for emotional displays and by reacting to the child’s emotional expressions encourage or discourage such displays. Children whose parents serve as coaches in helping them understand and manage their emotions are better able to handle emotional upset on their own and are more accepted by their peers. Belittling or dismissing children’s emotions or punishing children for their expression may prevent children from learning how to manage their own feelings and understand other people’s emotions.
  
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  Peers and teachers also play a role in the socialization of children’s emotions.
  

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  Children sometimes experience extreme anger, fear, phobias, anxiety, or depression.
  
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  The prevalence of depression increases in adolescence and is higher in girls than boys. In extreme cases, suicide sometimes occurs, especially among some minority groups.
  
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  Biological, social, and cognitive factors are all potential contributors to the development of depression. Medications, cognitive therapy, and prevention programs are ways of treating child and adolescent depression.
  

1. 
   Which of the following emotions typically emerges first: (a) pride (b) *sadness (c) jealousy (d) guilt
   
2. 
   Secondary emotions: (a) emerge in infancy (b) do not require introspection to emerge (c) *depend on an awareness of others’ reactions (d) do not require a sense of self
   
3. 
   Emotional expressions: (a) are culture specific (b) involve an objective reaction to something in the environment (c) *are generally accompanied by physiological arousal (d) are evident only in the second half of the first year
   
4. 
   Babies smile more at familiar faces than unfamiliar ones at about: (a) 1 year (b) 9 months (c) 6 months (d) *3 months
   
5. 
   The process of reading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in an uncertain situation is called: (a) using emotional display rules (b) following an emotional script (c) experiencing empathy (d) *social referencing
   
6. 
   40. By the time children are 3 years old, solving a problem that is not particularly difficult elicits ______, but succeeding on a difficult task produces ______: (a) joy, sadness (b) joy, anxiety (c) *joy, pride (d) joy, guilt
   
7. 
   Cross-cultural research on the timetable of emotional recognition suggests that: (a) compared with children from the U.S., Japanese preschool children are faster at recognizing negative emotions (e.g., anger) and positive emotions (e.g., joy) (b) compared with children from the U.S., Japanese preschool children are faster at recognizing negative emotions (e.g., anger) (c) compared with children from the U.S., Japanese preschool children are faster at recognizing positive emotions (e.g., joy) (d) *children from different cultures follow a similar timetable for recognizing basic emotions
   
8. 
   The process of monitoring, managing, and modifying emotional reactions to reduce the intensity and duration of emotional arousal is known as: (a) following an emotional script (b) expressing a secondary emotion (c) knowing emotional display rules (d) *emotional regulation
   
9. 
   Compared with younger adults, older adults: (a) distort their memories to make them more emotionally gratifying (b) experience fewer negative emotions (c) are less likely to confront their emotions (d) *all of the above
   
10. 
    If parents are positive and provide comfort when interacting with their children, the children are more likely to: (a) know how emotions should be displayed (b) develop constructive reactions to anger (c) regulate their emotions better (d) *all of the above
    
11. 
    The PATHS Head Start curriculum designed to facilitate children’s emotional competence shows success at: (a) *increasing emotional vocabulary (b) reducing aggression and attention problems at home (c) increasing reading skills (d) a and b but not c
    

2. Discuss the role of social referencing in social development and describe how it changes with development.