14.6: Emotions- Infancy and Early Childhood

Emotions are composed of 1. Neurological factors, 2. Physiological changes 3. Subjective feeling 4. Emotional expression 5. Action tendency. Functionalists suggest that emotion serve a purpose for adaptation. Emotions organize and regulate how we react – attention, cognition, social function, health effects.

Infant Emotional Development

Initially infants do not demonstrate different emotions – just general distress and contentment. At birth, infants exhibit two emotional responses: attraction and withdrawal. They show attraction to pleasant situations that bring comfort, stimulation, and pleasure, and they withdraw from unpleasant stimulation such as bitter flavors or physical discomfort. At around two months, infants exhibit social engagement in the form of social smiling as they respond with smiles to those who engage their positive attention (Lavelli & Fogel, 2005). Smiling and laughing becomes more differentiated and permanent by end of year.

Social smiling becomes more stable and organized as infants learn to use their smiles to engage their parents in interactions. Pleasure is expressed as laughter at 3 to 5 months of age, and displeasure becomes more specific as fear, sadness, or anger between ages 6 and 8 months.

Anger is often the reaction to being prevented from obtaining a goal, such as a toy being removed (Braungart-Rieker, Hill-Soderlund, & Karrass, 2010). Anger is more common at end of first year because their movements and control are developing and up until 3 they are also less easily distracted. From 3 to 6 years, there is decrease of anger because of self regulation and better language skills. Anger often results in crying and of course evolutionarily caregivers want to reduce that crying and therefore have that anger resolved.

In contrast, sadness is typically the response when infants are deprived of a caregiver (Papousek, 2007).

Fear increases in end of first year with stranger anxiety. Fear keeps exploration in check, and by second year they learn to distinguish between threatening and non-threatening individuals. Fear is often associated with the presence of a stranger, known as stranger wariness, or the departure of significant others known as separation anxiety. Both appear sometime between 6 and 15 months after object permanence has been acquired. Further, there is some indication that infants may experience jealousy as young as 6 months of age (Hart & Carrington, 2002).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Very small infants show facial expressions of anger.[1]

Early emotions are often divided into two general categories: Basic emotions (primary emotions), such as interest, happiness, anger, fear, surprise, sadness and disgust, which appear first, and self-conscious emotions (secondary emotions), such as envy, pride, shame, guilt, doubt, and embarrassment. Unlike primary emotions, secondary emotions appear as children start to develop a self-concept, and require social instruction on when to feel such emotions. The situations in which children learn self-conscious emotions varies from culture to culture. Individualistic cultures teach us to feel pride in personal accomplishments, while in more collective cultures children are taught to not call attention to themselves, unless you wish to feel embarrassed for doing so (Akimoto & Sanbinmatsu, 1999).

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Infants certainly cry under a number of different conditions. [2].

Facial expressions of emotion are important regulators of social interaction. In the developmental literature, this concept has been investigated under the concept of social referencing; that is, the process whereby infants seek out information from others to clarify a situation and then use that information to act (Klinnert, Campos, & Sorce, 1983). To date, the strongest demonstration of social referencing comes from work on the visual cliff. In the first study to investigate this concept, Campos and colleagues (Sorce, Emde, Campos, & Klinnert, 1985) placed mothers on the far end of the “cliff” from the infant. Mothers first smiled to the infants and placed a toy on top of the safety glass to attract them; infants invariably began crawling to their mothers. When the infants were in the center of the table, however, the mother then posed an expression of fear, sadness, anger, interest, or joy. The results were clearly different for the different faces; no infant crossed the table when the mother showed fear; only 6% did when the mother posed anger, 33% crossed when the mother posed sadness, and approximately 75% of the infants crossed when the mother posed joy or interest.

Other studies provide similar support for facial expressions as regulators of social interaction. Researchers posed facial expressions of neutral, anger, or disgust toward babies as they moved toward an object and measured the amount of inhibition the babies showed in touching the object (Bradshaw, 1986). The results for 10- and 15-month olds were the same: Anger produced the greatest inhibition, followed by disgust, with neutral the least. This study was later replicated using joy and disgust expressions, altering the method so that the infants were not allowed to touch the toy (compared with a distractor object) until one hour after exposure to the expression (Hertenstein & Campos, 2004). At 14 months of age, significantly more infants touched the toy when they saw joyful expressions, but fewer touched the toy when the infants saw disgust.

A final emotional change in infancy is in self-regulation. Emotional self-regulation refers to strategies we use to control (modulate and regulate) our emotional states so that we can attain goals (Thompson & Goodvin, 2007). This requires effortful control of emotions and initially requires assistance from caregivers (Rothbart, Posner, & Kieras, 2006). Young infants have very limited capacity to adjust their emotional states and depend on their caregivers to help soothe themselves. Caregivers can offer distractions to redirect the infant’s attention and comfort to reduce the emotional distress. Parents help in the start by coregulating emotions. As areas of the infant’s prefrontal cortex continue to develop, infants can tolerate more stimulation. By 4 to 6 months, babies can begin to shift their attention away from upsetting stimuli (Rothbart et al, 2006). By five months infants comfort themselves by sucking their thumb or self distraction by looking away. These are paralleled by neurological developments in inhibition and attention regulation. Older infants and toddlers can more effectively communicate their need for help. By the age of two they can discuss and regulate emotions better especially with growth of language skills that can help with planning and problem solving. And by this time they can crawl or walk toward or away from various situations (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010). This helps them in their ability to self-regulate. Throughout the process, parents also teach and model emotional regulation. Problems with emotional regulation are also problematic for later development.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Some children are more cautious and thoughtful by nature/temperament. They might be more considering and hesitant than others who jump into situations more impulsively.[4]

Development of sense of self: During the second year of life, children begin to recognize themselves as they gain a sense of self as separate from their primary caregiver. In a classic experiment by Lewis and Brooks (1978) children 9 to 24 months of age were placed in front of a mirror after a spot of rouge/red powder was placed on their nose as their mothers pretended to wipe something off the child’s face. If the child reacted by touching his or her own nose rather than that of the “baby” in the mirror, it was taken to suggest that the child recognized the reflection as him or herself. Lewis and Brooks found that somewhere between 15 and 24 months most infants developed a sense of self-awareness. Self-awareness is the realization that you are separate from others (Kopp, 2011). Once a child has achieved self-awareness, the child is moving toward understanding social emotions such as guilt, shame or embarrassment, as well as, sympathy or empathy.[5]

Toddlers develop guilt, shame, envy, embarrassment and pride at about 18-24 months as a result of a sense of self and what societal expectations are. Since these self conscious emotions are influenced by societal expectations, they are experienced and result differently in different cultures. Personal achievement, for example, in individualistic cultures results in pride, but in collectivistic cultures in self effacement and embarrassment.

Children are also able to interpret facial expressions of others – 3 month olds can distinguish happiness, anger and surprise and 7 month olds can distinguish fear, sadness and interest. And they begin to understand what those emotional expressions convey, and so by 8-10 months they can start social referencing in uncertain situations. Social cognition depends on understanding others’ emotions – 1. Giving insight in cause and effect 2. Understanding that thinking and feeling are connected (even thinking about sad past can lead to sadness and 3. Combining multiple cues to understand complexity.

Social Emotional Milestones of infancy

As infants and toddlers interact with other people, their social and emotional skills develop. Here is a table of social and emotional milestones that they typically experience during the first two years.

Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Social and Emotional Milestones of development in infancy[6]

Typical Age	What Most Children Do By This Age
2 months	Begins to smile at people Can briefly calm self (may bring hands to mouth and suck on hand) Tries to look at parent
4 months	Smiles spontaneously, especially at people Likes to play with people and might cry when playing stops Copies some movements and facial expressions, like smiling or frowning
6 months	Knows familiar faces and begins to know if someone is a stranger Likes to play with others, especially parents Responds to other people’s emotions and often seems happy Likes to look at self in a mirror
9 months	May be afraid of strangers May be clingy with familiar adults Has favorite toys
1 year	Is shy or nervous with strangers Cries when mom or dad leaves Has favorite things and people Shows fear in some situations Hands you a book when wants to hear a story Repeats sounds or actions to get attention Puts out arm or leg to help with dressing Plays games such as “peek-a-boo” and “pat-a-cake”
18 months	Likes to hand things to others as play May have temper tantrums May be afraid of strangers Shows affection to familiar people Plays simple pretend, such as feeding a doll May cling to caregivers in new situations Points to show others something interesting Explores alone but with parent close by
2 years	Copies others, especially adults and older children Gets excited when with other children Shows more and more independence Shows defiant behavior (doing what he has been told not to) Plays mainly beside other children, but is beginning to include other children, such as in chase games

Emotional Development in Early Childhood

In early childhood, children’s understanding of themselves and their role in the world expands greatly.

Social and Emotional Milestones

That expanding understanding of themselves and others develops with age. Here is a table of social and emotional milestones that children typically experience during early childhood.

Table \(\PageIndex{2}\): Social and Emotional Milestones of development in early childhood[7]

Typical Age	What Most Children Do by This Age
3 years	Copies adults and friends Shows affection for friends without prompting Takes turns in games Shows concern for a crying friend Dresses and undresses self Understands the idea of “mine” and “his” or “hers” Shows a wide range of emotions Separates easily from mom and dad May get upset with major changes in routine
4 years	Enjoys doing new things Is more and more creative with make-believe play Would rather play with other children than by self Cooperates with other children Plays “mom” or “dad” Often can’t tell what’s real and what’s make-believe Talks about what she likes and what she is interested in
5 years	Wants to please friends Wants to be like friends More likely to agree with rules Likes to sing, dance, and act Is aware of gender Can tell what’s real and what’s make-believe Shows more independence Is sometimes demanding and sometimes very cooperative

Many things influence how children develop those milestones as how they view themselves and how they interact with those around them changes.

Attributions:

Child Growth and Development by Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, and Dawn Rymond, 2019, is licensed under CC BY 4.0 (adapted by Bhadha, 2023)

[1] Image by Brytny.com on Unsplash

[2] Image by acheron0 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

[3] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[4] Image is licensed under CC0

[5] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[6] Developmental Milestones by the CDC is in the public domain

[7] Developmental Milestones by the CDC is in the public domain