Deck 10: C: Emotional Development

Question 1

Your friend Beth has a nine-month-old baby and she is considering returning to work full-time. She has heard that infants who are in day care full-time have a slightly higher risk of forming an insecure attachment. She told you that she is willing to take that risk because attachment only lasts a few years and doesn't affect other behaviours. What can you tell Beth about the relation between attachment and later social behaviour?

Answer 1

A good answer will be similar to the following:
Attachment does last longer than a few years and a secure attachment is related to better social relationships later in life. There is much evidence that children who form secure attachments as infants have better social relationships with peers later in life. For example, children with secure attachment relationships have higher-quality friendships and fewer conflicts with friends than children with insecure attachments as infants. Also, school-age children are less likely to have behaviour problems if they have a secure attachment relationship.

Question 2

Explain what is meant by basic emotions and complex emotions and give examples of each.

Answer 2

A good answer will include the following key points:
∙ Basic emotions are experienced by people throughout the world and are comprised of three elements: a subjective feeling, a physiological change, and an overt behaviour. Basic emotions include happiness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, and sadness.
∙ Complex emotions have an additional evaluative component to them and are not experienced the same ways in all cultures. Complex emotions include pride, guilt, and embarrassment.

Question 3

Recently, your friends went out for the evening and got a babysitter. They have gotten babysitters in the seven months since their baby was born, but this time the baby cried when the babysitter came in the door and rushed to pick him up. A few weeks ago when the same sitter came to the house, the baby was willing to go to her. Your friends can't figure out what happened to the baby or the babysitter to change the situation. What can you tell your friends about stranger wariness that might explain the baby's behaviour?

Answer 3

A good answer will be similar to the following:
You can tell your friends that around six months of age, stranger wariness emerges in infants. So, infants who had gone to strangers readily just a few weeks before will fuss or cry when approached by a stranger. In general, infants show less stranger wariness in familiar environments than unfamiliar environments. Infants also show more wariness when someone rushes at them (like the babysitter did) and less wariness when they are given time to "warm up" to the stranger. This wariness will decline as your friends' baby learns to interpret facial expressions and recognizes when strangers are friendly or hostile.

Question 4

What are some new ways to regulate emotions that children develop as they get older?

Question 5

Name the four primary types of attachment relationships observed by Ainsworth. Describe the typical reaction of infants with each type of attachment to the separation and reunion episodes of the Strange Situation procedure.

Question 6

Your friends have a six-month-old son, Ethan. Ethan often is irritable, is prone to anger, and is easily distressed. Your friends are hoping that Ethan is just "in a bad stage" and that he will outgrow his behaviour. Which category of temperament would you put Ethan in and what can you tell your friends about the stability of temperament

Question 7

Name and describe some different dimensions of temperament.

Question 8

According to Bowlby, what are the four phases of growth in attachment? Briefly describe the major change(s) that occur during each of these stages.

Question 9

Your friend Jamal has a 12-month-old daughter, Kia. Recently, they ran into one of Jamal's coworkers who Kia did not know. When this "stranger" approached, Jamal thought that Kia looked at him to gauge his reaction to the "stranger" and then smiled after she saw Jamal greet the "stranger" in a friendly manner. When Jamal told this story to his wife, Yolanda, she laughed and told him that he was giving Kia more credit than a one-year-old should get. Is Jamal or Yolanda correct? Explain your answer.

Question 10

List four pieces of support showing the importance of a caregiver's sensitivity to the development of attachment in the child.

Question 11

You know your child tends to be quite fearful. One day you catch her cheating while playing a family board game. What do you know about how temperament interacts with the environment, and how should you respond to the cheating situation?