How does emotional development work? - Chapter 10

How do emotions develop?

Emotions are often equated with feelings. Development ideologists have a more complex approach to look at emotions. They see emotions as consisting of multiple components: neural responses, the physiological factors (heartbeat, breaths, hormone levels), subjective feelings, emotional expression and the desire to take action (flee, approach, or change people or things in the environment). However, there is a lot of discussion about whether emotions are innate or have been learned. 

What are the theories regarding the nature and emergence of emotions?

The discrete emotions theory states that emotions are innate, and it is possible to distinguished between them from birth. Also, they state that each emotion is accompanied by a specific set of physical reactions and facial expressions. This is derived from the idea of ​​Darwin. According to his theory, emotional reactions are mainly automatic and not based on cognition. Babies have a set of recognizable emotions, without being able to actively learn about these emotions. Also, certain expressions of emotions around the world are the same. The functionalist perspective, however, states that emotions depend on the environment, and the function of emotions is to take actions to achieve a certain goal. Emotions can not be distinguished discrete of each other here and are partly based on the social environment. The two approaches agree that cognitions and experiences influence emotional development.   

How do emotions arise?

Researchers agree that there are several universal basic emotions in all human cultures. These basic emotions have important survival and communication functions. They can be seen very early in life, which supports discrete emotion theory.

In the first month, a baby sometimes smiles during sleep. These early smiles are reflexive and are not generated by social interaction. From the third to the eighth week, a baby smiles due to external stimuli. When they are about 6-7 weeks they start laughing at others, this is called social smiles. In the seventh month, babies laugh at familiar people. This is intended to strengthen the bond. At the end of the first year of life, babies show that they enjoy unexpected things, like mommy with a crazy hat on.       

From the fourth month, babies seem to be aware of unknown objects and events. When they are 6-7 months old, the first signs of fear start to occur. Mainly fear of strangers. This normally disappears around the second year of life. In the eighth to the thirteenth month, babies show fear when they are separated from the primary caregivers. This is called separation anxiety. It also decreases as they age.     

Anger is the reaction of a child to frustrating or threatening situations and is often an interpersonal experience. In babies, anger often appears fused with grief. Only from the children's first year of life anger is seen as a separate emotion. The reasons for anger change as children develop. Because they earn more understanding about the intentions and motives of others. Young children show that they are upset when they have no control over certain situations. As children grow older, they show sadness when, for example, separated from their parents. 

At about 6 months, most babies for the first time show surprise. Often this emotion is short and quickly changes into a different emotion. Disgust is said to have an evolutionary basis because it would prevent you from eating poisoned things. However, individuals learn what is considered disgusting.

The above emotions are thought to be innate. Self-conscious emotions develop during the second and third year of life. Self-conscious emotions are emotions such as pride, shame, guilt and shyness. These self-conscious emotions are related to our self and our awareness of other people's reactions to us. Guilt is associated with empathy for others and other people's feelings. One regrets one's own behavior and one wants to undo the consequences of one's own behavior. Shame, however, arises when the attention goes to ourselves. We feel that we are exposed and want to hide. These self-aware emotions differ per culture. The situations that generate these emotions and the frequency with which they occur are different.

To determine whether emotions are innate or learned, researchers have investigated whether babies show recognizable emotions in response to external stimuli. AFFEX is a system for coding emotions in babies. Therefore, certain facial expressions and movements of facial muscles are linked to certain emotions. This system has shown links between emotional expressions of children and their emotion regulation skills and social behaviors. A recent study found that the more children showed anger and grief, the more mental health problems and behavioral problems they showed six months later.

How can we understand emotions?

How are we able to identify emotions of others?

The first step in understanding emotions is the recognition of different emotions in others. Already at the age of 3 months, babies can distinguish between different facial expressions. Social referencing is the use of facial expression or vocal cues of a parent or other adult to decide how to deal with new, ambiguous or potentially threatening situations. The ability to differentiate between emotions and to identify different emotions helps children to respond appropriately to their own emotions and those of others.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to cognitively process information about emotions and use this information to guide both thoughts and behavior. It also contains the ability to understand one's own emotions and emotions of others through facial expressions, body language and speaking tone. Children with a high emotional intelligence are better in regulating their emotions and less often show aggressive behavior. Also, emotional intelligence predicts self-confidence, personality and cognitive intelligence. This has led to the promotion of emotional intelligence as an intervention for aggressive and antisocial behavior.  

How can we understand the causes of emotions?

Knowing the causes of emotions is important for understanding one's own behavior and one's own motives and those of others. It is the key to regulating your own behavior and therefore, for social competence. From the age of 4-6 years, children can provide accurate explanations for why their peers show negative emotions. With age, children also understand that people can feel certain emotions because things from the past are remembered. They become aware of cognitive processes that are related to emotion and the fact that emotional intensity decreases after a while. They also learn that people can experience multiple emotions at the same time.

How can we distinguish true from false emotions? 

Understanding real and false emotions is an important developmental process. A child must learn to understand that the emotions people show do not necessarily show their true feelings. To understand false emotions, there needs to be a growing understanding of display rule. These are the norms in a certain social group about when, where, and how often someone shows their emotions and when someone has to suppress or mask them. Children of one and a half years can already recognize exaggerated and fake emotions. With age, children learn to follow display rules. Children of four years are not yet able to do so, while more than half of the eight-year old’s can.

How does emotion regulation work?

Regulating emotions is very important to achieve your own goals. Emotion regulation is a set of both conscious and unconscious processes that are used to monitor and modulate emotional experiences and expressions.  

How does emotion regulation develop?

The emotional states of young babies are externally regulated by means of co-regulation. The caregiver shows the necessary comfort or distraction to the child, so that grief is reduced. When children are about 5 months, they show superficial emotion regulation through, for example, self-comforting behavior. These are repetitive actions that regulate arousal by providing a positive physical sensation, such as sucking on the fingers. Another strategy is self-distraction, looking away from the disturbing stimulus to regulate the arousal level. From 9-12 months, children become aware of parents' demands and behave accordingly. Their compliance is growing rapidly in the second year of life. Whereas young children mainly use behavioral strategies to regulate their emotions, older children mainly use cognitive strategies and problem solving.

Children learn by time which cognitive strategies or behavioral strategies are suitable to use in a given situation. Older children, for example, are more aware than younger children that there are situations where they have no control and in that case, it is easier to regulate their emotions by adapting to the situation instead of changing the situation. 

How does emotion regulation relate to social competence and adaptation?

Social competence is the ability to achieve personal goals in social interactions while at the same time maintaining a positive relationship with others. Research shows that children who have the ability to inhibit inappropriate behavior, to postpone satisfaction and to use cognitive methods for emotion regulation, are better adapted and more liked by their peers and adults.

Which role does temperament play?

There are individual differences in emotions and their regulation. There are many similarities, but also many differences in the development of emotions and self-regulation capacities. Some people are very superficial in emotions, while others are very emotional. This has led researchers to develop the concept of temperament. Temperament refers to individual differences in emotion, activity level and attention. Those are seen in different contexts. Also, they are present from the age of babies, so that it is thought to be genetically determined. Environmental factors also partly influence the temperament.   

Thomas and Chess came up with an experiment in which babies are divided into groups, based on the degree of temperament: easy babies (40%) adjust quickly in certain situations or routines. Difficult babies (10%) adapt slowly in certain situations or routines and often show negative reactions more quickly. '' Slowly warming up '' babies (15%) first have difficulty adjusting to certain situations or routines, but due to repeated contact with new objects, people or situations, they adapt more and more quickly. The remaining percentage of babies do not fit into any of the groups above. Nowadays, instead of using a between person approach, researchers try to use an within-person approach to understand development. Based on this approach, each child has a certain level of every dimension of temperament. Not all researchers agree on how many dimensions there are, but Rothbart is a leading expert in this field and has identified five main dimensions of temperament: anxiety, stress / anger / frustration, attention span, activity level and smiling/ laughter. Ratings of temperament appear to be fairly stable over time and situations and predict later development in areas such as behavioral problems, anxiety disorders and social competence. Ratings of temperament appear to be fairly stable over time and situations and predict later development in areas such as behavioral problems, anxiety disorders and social competence. Attention span, activity level and (smile) laugh. Ratings of temperament appear to be fairly stable over time and situations and predict later development in areas such as behavioral problems, anxiety disorders and social competence.

Children with different temperaments show differences in heart rate. EEG measurements show that activation in the left frontal lobe is associated with approaching behavior, positive affect, exploration and socialization. However, activation in the right frontal lobe is associated with withdrawal, insecurity and anxiety. Children with more activity in the right frontal lobe react with more anxiety and avoidance than individuals with more activity in the left frontal lobe.   

Changes in how much and when temperament is expressed at different ages is probably due to genes that are turned on and off during development.

What are the determinants of temperament?

The idea that temperament has a genetic component gets evident from many studies, such as twin studies. They show that identical twins are more equal in terms of emotion (regulation) than fraternal twins. However, the environment also plays an important role after birth. The behavior of the parents is of strong influence. Children who grow up in unstable family situations and receive a less warm upbringing, have more problems with self-regulation and emotion expression. However, children also influence their parents, children who are more social and have more regulation can generate more warmth in their parents.

A combination of genetic factors and environmental factors contribute to individual differences in the emotions of children and related behavior.

What is the role of temperament in social skills and inappropriate behavior?

One of the reasons temperament is of interest, is it's important role in determining the social adjustment of children. The way children adapt to new situations depends not only on the type of temperament that children have, but also on how well that temperament fits in a certain environment they find themselves. This is also called goodness of fit and is the extent to which the individual temperament fits the expectations of the child's social environment or the behavior of the parents. Some temperaments make children highly reactive in both positive and negative family environments. These children show a characteristic of differential susceptibility, which means that the same characteristic that children run a high risk of negative outcomes when exposed to a harsh environment also causes them to flourish when the home environment is positive.

What is the role of the family in emotional development?

What is the influence of the quality of the parent-child relationship?

The relationship the child has with the parents influenced the sense of security and how the child feels about himself and others. These feelings in turn influence which emotions are expressed. Children who are securely attached and therefore have a trusted high-quality relationship with parents, will show more joy and less social anxiety and anger than children who are unsafe attached and therefore have little trust and support in the relationship with the parents.

The parent’s emotion expression influences how children see themselves and others in their social world. They learn which emotions are appropriate and effective. If little emotions are shown, for example, a child can get the idea that emotions are bad and should be avoided. In homes where many positive emotions are present, children are happier and, among other things, less aggressive. If there is a great deal of anger, children are less socially competent and experience more negative emotions themselves.  

How does the socialization of the parents influence the emotional responses of children?

The emotional development of children is also influenced by emotional socialization, which is the process teaching children the values, standards, skills, knowledge and behaviors that are appropriate for their current and future role in their culture. In this process, the social competence of the children is also influenced.   

How parents respond to the emotions of their children influences the emotion expression of the children, their social competence and their social adaptation. Emotional support is important for the healthy development of emotions and the expression of emotions. Parents who are critical about expressions of sadness and fear communicate to their children that these emotions are not valid.  

Having family conversations about emotions is another important aspect of emotional socialization. By talking about emotions, parents teach children the meaning of emotions, when emotions should and should not be expressed and the consequences of whether or not to express emotions. In addition, the children can be taught how to deal with emotions. These children are more socially competent, more empathetic and show less problem behavior and depression.

There are cultural differences in emotional expression. European-American culture is independent, assertive and encourages the expression of emotions. This leads to children showing more negative emotions in these countries. In China, for example, people are interdependent, children of this culture want to belong to a group and work towards harmonious interpersonal relationships. This means that they show fewer negative emotions. In China negative emotions are avoided and shame is seen much more often than in Western cultures.       

What are the problems that can arise in emotional development?

Mental health is an important component of emotional development. It reflects the well-being of the child, both internally (emotions and stress) and externally (relationship with family and friends).  

What influence does stress have?

When children come into situations or environments perceiving them as frightening, threatening or overwhelming, they can experience stress. Stress is a physiological response to changes or threats in the environment. The heart rate increases, stress hormones are released, more blood is brought to the brain and there is an increased feeling of anxiety and alertness. Stress can be useful to mobilize the child to take action and, for example, to learn well for a test. However, if stress is chronic, it can become problematic. Children experience a lot of negative emotions. Sometimes a single violent negative event can cause a traumatic stress. 

Toxic stress is the experience of overwhelming levels of stress without the support of adults to help mitigate the effects. When a child has so much stress, the brain areas that regulate anxiety become overloaded, causing atrophy and shrinkage. Some changes are permanent and can cause long-term changes in stress reactions. There are various sources of stress: abuse, poverty and war. The more of such experiences, the more chance of high stress levels, depression, anxiety, obesity, smoking and alcoholism. There is some evidence that exposure to non-stressful environments and treatment can reverse these effects somewhat.   

How does the internalizing of mental disorders occur?

If a child is repeatedly exposed to stress or experiences traumatic stress, it can lead to the development of mental disorders. These are chronic conditions that are permanent in childhood and adulthood, it is a state of having problems with emotional reactions to the environment and with social relationships in a way that affects daily life. There is no specific path to a particular disorder. Equifinality is the concept that different causes can lead to the same mental disorder. Multifinality is the concept that certain risk factors do not always lead to a mental disorder.

Depression is a mental disorder characterized by a sad or irritated mood associated with physical and cognitive changes affecting daily life. That a child gets the diagnosis the following symptoms must be present: sad or irritated mood for at least two weeks, physical and cognitive symptoms such as sleep problems, significant changes in weight, inability to concentrate or loss of interest in activities. Some also have suicidal tendencies or thoughts. Both genetic factors and environmental factors influence the likelihood that a child will get depression. Children whose parents have a history of depression are more likely to have depression, and heritability is 40%. The environment also has influence, little sensitivity, support and acceptance of the parents lead to higher levels of depression in children. Often it is a combination of personal vulnerability and external stressful factors.

Anxiety disorders are a set of mental disorders characterized by the inability to regulate fear and worry. The fear persists for days or months, affecting the daily functioning of the person. In young children, the most common disorder is separation anxiety disorder, which is a persistent fear of being separated from a caregiver or that a caregiver is in danger. This is normal to a certain extent, but if it remains and interferes with behavior, it is seen as a disorder. Also, in anxiety disorders both genetic influences and environmental influences are contributing.   

Drug therapy for depression in children and adolescents in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) seems to be effective for reducing depressive symptoms. Drug therapy alone can also help for depression, but serious side effects could be present, such as increasing the risk of suicidal behavior. CBT alone is effective both for treating depression and anxiety, it teaches children to recognize maladaptive thoughts and to learn how to modify these thoughts. 

As children grow older, the risk of depression increases. Girls, however, have a faster increasing risk than boys. At the age of 17 girls have s 2-3 times higher chance of depression. One reason for this gender difference is that girls show more internalizing emotions in the younger years than boys. Another reason is that the biological changes in puberty are more difficult for girls than for boys. Girls are also more affected by chronic stress from social interactions, which predicts depressive symptoms. Important stressors are concerns about the body and the appearance. One risk factor for boys is a later onset of puberty compared to their peers. Rumination is the focusing on one's own negative emotions and negative self-esteem and on the causes and consequences of it without putting effort to improve the situation. The more the behavior occurs, the higher the chance of depression. This is more common in girls. Co-rumination is the extensive discussion of emotional problems with another person. This is also more common in girls.