1. Infancy Emotional Development

2.  Roles of emotions  Help humans survive and adapt to their environment  Fear, smile  Guide and motivate human behavior  Categorize events as dangerous or beneficial  Support communication with others  read facial. Gestural, postural, and vocal cues  Social Referencing  Inexperienced person relies on experienced person to interpret the behavior

3. Emotional Development in Infants  6 basic emotions  Happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, fear  Some present at birth, Develop as grow  Birth – distress, disgust, interest  6-10 weeks – social smile – joy  3-4 months – anger, surprise, sadness  5-7 months – fear  6-8 months – shame. Shyness, self-awareness  2 nd year – contempt, guilt  Self-regulation  Ability to control negative emotions and integrate emotions adaptively into daily social interacting  Main task during first year  Appears 2 nd ½ of 1 st year.

4. Greenspan’s Model Stages in Children's Emotional Development AgeMilestone 0-3 monthsSelf-regulation and interest in world 2-7 months“Falling in love” 3-10 monthsDevelop intentional communication 9-18 monthsEmergence of an organized sense of self 18-36 monthsCreating emotional ideas 30-48 monthsEmotional thinking – the basis for fantasy, reality, and self-esteem

5. Attachment  affectionate bond that one individual forms for another and that endures across time and space  3 stages in developing infant attachment  First 2 months – infants are aroused by all parts of their environment  3 rd month – infants display indiscriminate attachment  7 th month – babies show signs of specific attachment  First object of attachment most commonly mother  Stranger anxiety  A wariness of unknown people  7-8 months, peaks at 13-15 months then decreases  Separation anxiety  Crying and exhibiting other signs of distress when a familiar caregiver leaves  Starts about 8 months and lasts about 8 months

6. Temperament  Relatively consistent basic disposition that underlie and modulate much of a person’s behavior  Alexander Thomas Study – 3 most common types of babies  Difficult babies  Wail and cry, tantrums, not easy (10%)  Slow-to-warm-up babies  Low activity, adapt slowly, withdrawn, negative mood (15%)  Easy babies  Sunny, cheerful mood, adapt quickly (40%)  Remaining 35% mixtures of traits

7. 9 Components of Temperament  Activity level – active vs. inactive  Rhythmicity – regularity  Distractibility – outside stimuli after behavior  Approach/withdrawal – new people  Adaptability  Attention span and persistence  Intensity of reaction  Threshold of responsiveness – degree of stimuli needed  Quality of mood