Emotional Development in the Early Years

1
Emotional Development in the Early Years

• The Life Span
• Human Development for Healthcare Professionals,
  Chapter 4

2
Emotions Why do we have them?

• Survival
• Communication
• Cognitive influences
• Phineas Gage matrix
• Mental Health
• Emotional Intelligence

3
The Basic Emotions

• The basic emotions we are born with are fear,
  sadness, happiness, anger, and surprise.
• Other emotions its believed we have at birth
  include distress, contentment, disgust, and
  interest.
• How are emotions developed?
• Izards Differential Emotions Theory emotions
  are are the direct product of the underlying
  neural processes related to each of the emotional
  expressions. (An evolution theory)
• Sroufes Development Position emotions are not
  fully formed at birth and they develop from
  undifferentiated responses into more
  differentiated ones and finally in an integrated
  emotional repertoire. (A nurture theory)

4
Early Caregiver-Infant Interactions and Emotional
Development

• Why do we take care of babies in the first place?
• Releasers
• Biologically predisposed?
• Emotional Regulation
• Visual Cliff experiments and mothers facial
  expressions
• Tronick, Als, Brazeltons Stiff-face paradigm
• Other-directed coping behaviors from baby to
  mother
• Self-directed coping behaviors baby trying to
  cope with own feelings

5
Infants of Depressed Mothers

• Depressed caregivers typically do not show
  positive facial expressions to their infants
• Often leads to
• Most self-directed coping behaviors
• Higher levels of cortisol higher heart rates
• May lead to
• Greater incidences of depression in the child?

6
Attachment Early Social Relations

• Bonding the process of a mother/father/caregiver
  s forming a relationship with the infant,
  typically in the first hours after birth.
• Attachment the process of forming a
  relationship with a caregiver used by an infant.
• Bonding ? Attachment!!!

7
Attachment Early Social Relations

• Erikson stated that attachment was a direct
  response to an infant learning how to trust
  his/her caregivers.
• Bowlby stated that attachment and bonding
  occurred to ensure the survival of the infant.
• Separation anxiety
• Stranger anxiety

8
Attachment Early Social Relations

• Ainsworth found that infants form different types
  of attachments with their primary caregivers
• Strange situation test
• Securely attached babies show distress upon
  separation, but greet mother happily upon return
• Anxious Ambivalent (Insecurely Attached)
  distressed upon separation, resist mother on her
  return (show anger, approaching and resisting
  mother)
• Avoidant (Insecurely Attached) showed relatively
  low amounts of anxiety upon separation and fairly
  unresponsive upon reunion
• Disorganized/Disoriented (Insecurely Attached)
  upon reunion, both approach and push mother away.

9
Another theory on Bonding and Attachment

• Freud felt that babies became attached to their
  mother because she was the provider of food, and
  they did NOT attach to the father.
• Harlow felt this was incorrect and conducted his
  famous terry-cloth mother experiments.

10
Infant Temperament

• One of the most significant factors in attachment
  and bonding is the infants temperament, or their
  individual emotional and behavioral
  characteristics.
• Common temperament styles include
  fearfulness/reactivity, irritability/negative
  emotionality, activity level, positive affect,
  attention-persistence, and rhythmicity (how
  predictable the infant is).

11
Infant Temperament

• Where does temperament come from?
• Assumed to be biological (for instance-reactivity)
  
• Still mostly unstudied
• How is it related to parental caregiving?
• Thomas Chess (1977)
• Four types of babies as defined by their
  temperament easy (about 40), difficult (about
  10), slow-to-warm (about 15), and undefined
  (35)
• Followed the parents as well and found that
  parents of easy and undefined babies adapted
  easier than did parents of the other two groups.
  Perhaps it has something to do with how well the
  parents expectations were met.

12
Infant Temperament

• Does temperament play a role in the development
  of attachment relationships?
• The better the fit between the infant/caregiver,
  the better the childs temperament
• Proneness to distress the warmer, more
  supportive the mother, the less likely the baby
  is prone to distress
• Class and Culture effects on temperament

13
Variations in Attachment Relationships

• Attachment with mothers and fathers
• typically, babies make primary attachments to
  mother, secondary to fathers/other caregivers.
• Attachments to fathers are typically the same as
  with the mothers, but with other secondary
  caregivers, its often qualitatively different.

14
The Importance of Early Attachments

• Erikson and Bowlby both state that if a child has
  made secure attachments from birth they are more
  likely to grow up in a stable environment. This
  is not foolproof, however, and there are steps
  that need to be taken to maintain this type of
  relationship.
• Its also been theorized that infants that have
  attached to both parents tend to lead more stable
  lives.