1. Emotional Development and the Establishment of Intimate Relationships
Chapter 11
Dr. Martha Pelaez

2. 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
Primary emotions- set of emotions present at birth or emerging early in the first year that some theorists believe to be biologically programmed. Emotions such as anger, sadness, joy, surprise and fear
Secondary emotions- self-conscious or self-evaluative emotions that emerge in the second year and depend on cognitive development. Emotions such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy, and pride

3. 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 infant’s pleasant feelings
Parents become less responsive to infant’s 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
Emotional display rules- culturally defined rules specifying which emotions should or should not be expressed under which circumstances

4. An Overview of Emotional Development
Recognizing and Interpreting Emotions
Infant’s 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 one’s own and others’ emotions (empathy)
Social referencing- the use of others’ emotional expressions to infer the meaning of otherwise ambiguous situations
Empathy- the ability to experience the same emotions that someone else is experiencing

5. An Overview of Emotional Development
Emotions and Early Social Development
Emotions play two important roles in an infant’s life
The child’s emotional displays promote social contact with caregivers and help them to adjust their behaviors his or her needs and goals
The infant’s 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

6. 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)

7. Temperament and Development
Five Main Attributes:
Activity Level
Irritability
Soothability
Fearfulness
Sociability

8. 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
Goodness of fit- notion that development is likely to be optimized when parent’s childrearing practices are sensitively adapted to the child’s temperamental characteristics

9. 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
Parent’s initial bonding with their infant builds in strength as they gear their behavior to the infant’s social signals and establish synchronized routines
Exquisite interactions are pleasing for both parents and infants and strengthen attachments
Synchronized routines- generally harmonious interactions between two persons in which participants adjust their behavior in response to their partner’s feelings or actions

10. 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
Secure base: use of a caregiver as a base from which to explore the environment and to which return for emotional support

11. 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 infant’s level of cognitive development
Ethological Theory
Proposes that humans have preadapted characteristics that predispose them to form attachments
Preadapted characteristics: an attribute that is a product of evolution and serves some function that increases the changes of survival for the individual and the species.

12. 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

13. Individual Differences in Attachment Quality
Assessing Attachment Security
Strange Situation- Ainsworth’s 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 child’s attachment-related behaviors at home
Four attachment classifications have been identified:
Secure, Resistant, Avoidant, and Disorganized/Disoriented

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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 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

18. 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
Parent’s Working Models
Tend to correspond closely with the working models of their children
Children’s 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

19. 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
Reactive attachment disorders- Inability to form secure attachments bonds with other people; characterizes many victims of early social deprivation or abuse

20. 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