E219 Week 5 Emotion
intro audio
Professor Vasu Reddy,
most interesting recent findings- the correlation/ continuity between humans and other animals emotionality- eg.laughter in rats
emotions everywhere- in every facet of our lives.
varies from culture to culture even within families
emotional engagement rather then breaking it down into specific behaviours
Chapter 4 - Emotion in the Early Years
Cindy Kerawalla
smile infant- carer- so infant smiles more etc. signs of joy. reciprocal
EMOTION -25 yrs ago 2 elements- feeling & behaviour
Now appreciated more complex -
cognition(how brain interprets something),
affect (feeling incited),
physiology (eg- raised pulse/sweating if scared),
Behaviour (gestures, expressions, sounds)
Context (relation to others)
Today, most theories of emotion development acknowledge the systemic nature of emotions – that emotions consist of more than one element – but the theories differ in the importance that they place on the various elements of the system.
most theories and studies are western (European/ US) !!!
different cultures
eg- plate of crickets- disgust or delight? depends on cultural norms/expectations. ( I think food a bad example- parmesan-me v dave.)
book: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872),
Tibetans no direct translation for 'anger' is this cos do not recognise it as we do?? language is nuanced- maybe lung lang= mortified. did they have a word for livid?
Research summary 1: Cultural perspectives on emotion development
says Tibetans have negative feelings towards anger ( which is same as parenting advice) US impartial - can be good to 'let off steam'
flaws; who was asked?
how many?
all backgrounds?
what were questions exactly?
ages? any correlation between the 2 cultures so only location differed?
US diff from UK diff from France etc etc
from my experience Germans are more akin to the Tibetan reasoning than US
spoilt child- Can culture override a physiological emotion response (e.g. a surge of adrenalin) and, if not, is there an innate element to an emotional response?
we may all experience a similar feeling to an event but how we process or express the emotion will depend on cultural expectation
Charles Darwin
2.1 Innate facial expressions?
some modern researches agree in part - Freedman, 1964) all babies (even blind) smile in sleep, but Wolff, 1963) say involuntary at birth like sucking. social smiles come later.
weeping, laughter and grief
Ekman (1999) study
majority of people labelled photographs correctly
Russell (1994) argued choices should not have been given but Frank and Stennett (2001) gave list of options plus 'none of the above' and concluded, like Ekman, too many in agreement to be chance.
Izard (1972; 1977) developed Differential Emotions Theory (DET)
we have evolved to feel and display for survival- eg- babies cry
two basic positive emotions – interest and joy
- an interested infant explores their surroundings and a joyful infant, who usually elicits joy in their caregiver, receives love and attention. As a consequence, they learn and they survive. You saw earlier in this module that an important part of the attachment relationship that develops between a child and their carer is based on emotional reciprocity.*
four basic negative emotions – sadness, anger, disgust and fear
babies innately cry to elicit attention/have their needs met
- mutual amplification- babies smile & coo from 2 months as response to carer smile/talk and it is cyclical.
3 Dynamic systems approach to emotion development proposes that infants are complex systems operating within complex environments
Research summary 3: Lavelli and Fogel (2005)
- 1st month neutral attention
3- they look for a reaction & response
Activity 4 The emotional effects of sudden carer unresponsiveness- links to the still face paradigm (SFP) - Tronick et al. (1978)
inter-relationships vital
(Smith and Thelen, 2003)
post natal depression
The researchers suggest (just as Lavelli and Fogel (2005) did)
sad angry mothers=sad angry children= sadder mothers (perpetuates)
Pickens and Field (1993)- split mums into 3 groups based on Beck Depression Inventory (depressed, poss mild D(as scored low) and not depressed. observed 3 min play/interaction. Infants in D group displayed most sad/angry facial expressions and seemed least interested in parent (not said in module materials = poor attachment)
Research summary 5: The role of reciprocity in parenting ‘difficult’ children
Bugental et al. (1990) US study
mothers who feel a child should regulate it's behaviour lose patience and are harsher/angrier negative towards 'difficult' children. If carer appreciates they have control/responsibility they lose cool less.
MM: mothers of difficult children need support
MM: genes also play a role in how adversity (neg experience) impacts (McCrory et al., 2011) whether resilient or not in in your nature plus exposure to negativity can increase resilience
avert attention from carers for self preservation
similarly abused children
abused recognise angry images quicker than non abused
children who display greater emotion knowledge have mothers who are emotionally expressive, and exhibit low rates of anger and sadness (Camras et al., 1990).
- = more likely be popular and make academic progress.*
nature
nurture
dyad
word used all the time for child-adult relationship
bad examples of still face paradigm - I think babies too young so not displaying engagement in version 1 to show enough contrast. look disinterested in mother at start. B does get more vocal but maybe filling silence- maybe she should let him speak more in active face version?
Reading A
Morris et al
emotion regulation (ER)
see separate mind map...
Experiments- using naturally occurring variables as to set up would be unethical- PND, absent fathers (akin to feral children) separated twins = quasi-experiments