Displaying emotions
Carroll Izard and his team have studied infants' emotional expressions by recording their
responses to events like grasping an ice cube, having a toy taken from them, or seeing their
mothers return after separation. They asked raters to identify the emotion from the facial
expressions. The studies show that different adult raters consistently see the same emotion in
a baby's face. Most researchers agree that babies communicate various feelings through facial
expressions, with each expression becoming a more recognizable sign of a specific emotion
with age.
Various emotions appear at different times over the first 2 years of a child’s life
At birth babies show interest, distress, disgust, and contentment. By the end of the
second month, babies begin to display social smiles that are most often seen in inter-
actions with caregivers,
Other basic emotions that emerge between 2 and 7
months are anger, sadness, joy, surprise, and fear (Izard et al., 1995). These primary
emotions may be biologically programmed because they emerge in all healthy infants at
roughly the same ages and are displayed and interpreted similarly in all cultures
some learning may be necessary for babies to express emotions that were not present at birth.
For instance, 2- to 6-month-olds often experience surprise and joy when they discover they
can control objects and events, such as push a button on toy to play music. Disconfirmation
of these learned expectancies (as when someone or something prevents them from
exerting control, such as when the batteries run out on the mobile or toy) is likely to
anger many 2- to 4-month-olds and sadden 4- to 6-month-olds
Signs of Pride and Shame in Early Childhood
Later in their second year, infants begin to display such complex emotions as
embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy, and pride. These feelings are sometimes called self-
conscious emotions because each involves some damage to or enhancement of our
sense of self.
Michael Lewis and his associates (1989) believe that embarrassment, the simplest self-
conscious emotion, will not emerge until the child develops self-recognition. Most of the
available evidence is consistent with Lewis’s theory. For example, the only toddlers who
become noticeably embarrassed by lavish praise or by requests to show off for strangers
are those who display self-recognition
By about age 3, when children are better able to evaluate their performances as good or
bad, they begin to show clear signs of pride (smiling, applauding, or shouting “I did it!”)
when they succeed at a difficult task, such as completing a complicated puzzle with
many pieces. They also show signs of shame (a downward gaze with a slumped posture,
often accompanied by statements such as “I’m no good at this”) should they fail at an
easy task,
Later-developing emotions, such as shame and guilt, are complex and have different
implications for a child's behavior. Guilt implies failure to meet obligations, while shame is
self-focused and not based on concern for others. Guilt leads children to focus on
interpersonal consequences of their wrongdoing and may seek reparations from others.
Shame, on the other hand, is self-focused and can stem from moral transgressions, personal
failure, or social blunders. It can cause children to focus negatively on themselves and may
motivate them to hide or avoid others.
Parents' reactions to moral transgressions can influence children's feelings of guilt or
shame. Children are more likely to feel ashamed if parents belittle them,(“Claire, I can’t
believe you broke John’s toy. You’re so stupid and thoughtless!”), while they are more
likely to feel guilty if parents criticize their inappropriate behavior by emphasizing the
wrongness and potential harm, while encouraging them to repair any harm they have
caused (“Claire, it was wrong to break John’s toy. Give him your toy so that he doesn’t
feel bad”) .
Toddlers and preschool children display self-evaluative emotions only when an adult
observes their conduct. These emotions may stem from the reactions they anticipate from
adult evaluators. It may take until elementary school before children fully internalize rules or
evaluative standards, leading to feelings of pride, shame, or guilt without external
surveillance.
Later Developments in Emotional Expressivity.
Throughout their early years, children develop a variety of emotions, with the most
significant changes occurring in situations that trigger these [Link] causes of i
Children's anxieties and fears shift from (real or imagined) threats to real-life issues like
academic challenges and peer acceptance. Their social-cognitive abilities also change,
influencing the circumstances that provoke aggressive responses. As they internalize more
and more complex emotions like pride, guilt, shame, and concern for others' welfare, they
develop a greater capacity to experience these emotions.
developing persons become increasingly moody and show a dramatic
increase in negative emotions as they reach sexual maturity and make
the transition from childhood to adolescence. There is some support for
the notion that daily experience of emotion becomes somewhat more
negative and somewhat less positive from early to mid- adolescence,
particularly among young adolescents who describe themselves as lonely
or low in self-es- teem, or who display minor conduct disorders
(Schneiders et al., 2006). However, this downward trend in mood
generally levels off by mid-adolescence .bouts of serious and subclinical
depression do increase early in adolescence affecting as many as 15 to 20
percent of teenagers in one study with more girls than boys showing
elevated depressive
Physiological and hormonal changes that accompany sexual maturation
may contribute something to increased moodiness and restlessness
(Buchanan, Eccles, & Becker, 1992; Udry, 1990). However, many
researchers believe that a dramatic increase in daily hassles with parents,
teachers, and peers are primarily responsible for the less positive trend in
emotional experience early in adolescence. Consistent with this life stress
perspective, conflicts between parents and their children about personal
responsibilities and self-governance issues peak in early to mid-
adolescence and gradually decline in frequency over the teenage years
(Laursen, Coy, & Collins, 1998; Smetana & Gaines, 1999). Thus, as hassles
within the family decline, the downward trend in adolescent emotions
levels off
Not surprisingly, elevated levels of stress (of many kinds) are also major
contributors to the negative affect of adolescents who become seriously
depressed. Indeed, girls may be more susceptible than boys are to
depression for two reasons. In a recent diary study, 13- to 15-year-old
girls (1) not only reported more stressful experiences with family
members, peers, and romantic partners than boys did, but (2) reacted
more negatively to these kinds of stressors as well, particularly to the
hassles they experienced with peers (Hankin et al., 2007). From early in
the preschool period, girls are quicker than boys are to emphasize the
importance of maintaining harmonious relationships with their playmates
and other peers. And given this orientation, hassles with friends and other
peer acquaintances may simply be more noticeable and/or more
disturbing to girls, thus contributing, in part, to their greater susceptibility
to depressed affect.
