Chapter 5
Emotions: Thoughts about Feelings
Chapter Outline
EMOTIONS: THOUGHTS ABOUT FEELINGS
WHAT ARE EMOTIONS?
WHY ARE EMOTIONS IMPORTANT?
PERSPECTIVES ON EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
LEARNING PERSPECTIVE
FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONS
Primary Emotions
Joy
Bet You Thought That . . . a Smile Is a Smile Is a Smile
Fear
Anger
Sadness
SECONDARY EMOTIONS
Pride and Shame
Learning from Living Leaders: Michael Lewis
Jealousy
Guilt
Empathy
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIVENESS
Learning from Living Leaders: Carolyn Saarni
DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING
RECOGNIZING EMOTIONS IN OTHERS
Cultural Context: Expressing and Understanding Emotions in Different Cultures
BEYOND RECOGNITION: THINKING ABOUT EMOTIONS
Matching Emotions to Situations: Emotional Scripts
Multiple Emotions, Multiple Causes
EMOTION REGULATION
Into Adulthood: Controlling Negative Emotions in Adulthood
SOCIALIZATION OF EMOTION
Learning from Living Leaders: Susanne A. Denham
SOCIALIZATION BY PARENTS
SOCIALIZATION BY OTHER CHILDREN
Research up Close: Emotional Development in a High School Theater Program
SOCIALIZATION BY TEACHERS
Real-World Application: Teachers as Promoters of Emotional Competence
WHEN EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT GOES WRONG
Insights from Extremes: When Children Commit Suicide
CAUSES OF CHILDHOOD DEPRESSION
Biological Causes
Social Causes
Cognitive Causes
TREATING CHILDHOOD DEPRESSION
Chapter Summary
Key Terms
At the Movies
Learning Objectives
1. Define what emotions are, specifically primary and secondary emotions.
2. Explain why emotions are important.
3. Understand the different perspectives on emotional development (biological, learning,
functional).
4. Describe the development of primary and secondary emotions.
5. Explain the difference between reflex and social smiles. Define Duchenne smile and explain
when it is more likely to be displayed.
6. Describe stranger distress or fear of strangers, when in development it emerges, and what
factors might affect its display.
7. Explain what social referencing is and the role it plays in emotional development.
8. Describe other common fears (e.g., separation anxiety, fear of heights) and explain how
cognitive development contributes to fear.
9. Discuss the development of secondary emotions. Give examples and trace the development
of a secondary emotion
10. Describe individual differences in emotional expressiveness.
11. Explain why recognizing others’ emotion is important and how it develops.
12. Define emotional script and describe the development of emotional scripts.
13. Describe how the understanding of multiple emotions and causes develops.
14. Define emotion regulation, explain how it develops and its significance for development of
social competence
15. Describe the model of emotional socialization.
16. Describe how parents, other children, and teachers contribute to the socialization of emotion.
17. Discuss childhood depression including incidence, differences across gender, and links to
suicide.
18. Understand the biological, cognitive and social causes of depression.
19. Describe cognitive behavior therapy for treating depression.
Student Handout 5-1
Chapter Summary
Why Are Emotions Important?
 Children communicate their feelings, needs, and wishes to others and regulate other people’s
behavior through emotional expressions.
Primary and Secondary Emotions
 Biological, learning, and functional theories explain different aspects of emotional
development.
 Babies begin expressing primary emotions of anger, joy, fear, and sadness early in life.
 Smiling begins with the newborn’s reflex smile, which depends on the baby’s internal state.
Social smiles appear between 3 and 8 weeks. By 12 weeks, infants smile selectively at
familiar faces and voices, depending on the situation. By 4 months, infants begin to laugh.
Both laughter and smiling express joy and play a critical role in maintaining the proximity of
the caregiver to the baby.
 Fear emerges gradually in the first year. Babies tend to be less fearful in a familiar setting
and when they feel as if they have some control over the situation. Social referencing helps
them know how to behave in unfamiliar situations.
 In the second year, children develop secondary or self-conscious emotions such as pride,
shame, guilt, jealousy, and empathy. These emotions rely on the development of selfawareness.
Individual Differences in Emotional Expressiveness
 Differences in emotional expressiveness are rooted in biology and have important
implications for children’s later adjustment.
Development of Emotional Understanding
 In the first 6 months of life, infants begin to recognize emotional expressions in other people.
They typically recognize positive emotions before negative ones, which has functional value
because it strengthens the infants’ bond with caregivers.
 As children mature, they develop an understanding of emotion terms. Emotional scripts help
them identify the feelings that typically accompany particular situations. They learn that
people can experience more than one emotion at a time and two emotions may conflict.
Emotion Regulation
 A major challenge for children is to learn how to modify, control, and regulate emotions so
they are less frequent and less intense.
 By the preschool years, children begin to follow emotional display rules that dictate which
emotions to show under what circumstances. Culture affects these rules, and the display of
such emotions as anger and shame may be sanctioned in one culture but disapproved of in
another.
Socialization of Emotion


Parents influence children’s emotional expressions, understanding, and regulation. They
serve as models for emotional displays and by reacting to the child’s emotional expressions
encourage or discourage such displays. Children whose parents serve as coaches in helping
them understand and manage their emotions are better able to handle emotional upset on their
own and are more accepted by their peers. Belittling or dismissing children’s emotions or
punishing children for their expression may prevent children from learning how to manage
their own feelings and understand other people’s emotions.
Peers and teachers also play a role in the socialization of children’s emotions.
When Emotional Development Goes Wrong
 Children sometimes experience extreme anger, fear, phobias, anxiety, or depression.
 The prevalence of depression increases in adolescence and is higher in girls than boys. In
extreme cases, suicide sometimes occurs, especially among some minority groups.
 Biological, social, and cognitive factors are all potential contributors to the development of
depression. Medications, cognitive therapy, and prevention programs are ways of treating
child and adolescent depression.
Student Handout 5-2
Key Terms
GLOSSARY TERMS
childhood depression
A mood disorder often manifested in
despondent mood and loss of interest in
familiar activities but possibly expressed as
irritability and crankiness and difficulty
concentrating or focusing on tasks.
cognitive behavior therapy
A therapy technique useful for treating
depression in adolescents that teaches
strategies for dealing with depressive moods
and acquiring a more positive outlook.
Duchenne smile
A smile reflecting genuine pleasure, shown in
crinkles around the eyes as well as an upturned
mouth.
emotion regulation
The managing, monitoring, evaluating, and
modifying of emotional reactions to reduce the
intensity and duration of emotional arousal.
emotional display rule
An implicit understanding in a culture of how
and when an emotion should be expressed.
emotional script
A scheme that enables a child to identify the
emotional reaction likely to accompany a
particular event.
empathy
A shared emotional response that parallels
another person’s feelings.
learned helplessness
A feeling that results from the belief that one
cannot control the events in one’s world.
primary emotions
Fear, joy, disgust, surprise, sadness, and
interest, which emerge early in life and do not
require introspection or self-reflection.
reflex smile
An upturned mouth seen in the newborn that is
usually spontaneous and appears to depend on
some internal stimulus rather than on
something external such as another person’s
behavior.
secondary or self-conscious emotions
Pride, shame, guilt, jealousy, embarrassment,
and empathy, which emerge in the second year
of life and depend on a sense of self and the
awareness of other people’s reactions.
separation anxiety
Fear of being apart from the familiar caregiver
(usually the mother or father) which typically
peaks at about 15 months of age.
social referencing
The process of “reading” emotional cues in
others to help determine how to act in an
uncertain situation.
social smile
An upturned mouth in response to a human
face or voice, which first occurs when the
infant is about 2 months old
stranger distress or fear of strangers
A negative emotional reaction to unfamiliar
people, which typically emerges in infants
around the age of 9 months.
OTHER IMPORTANT TERMS IN THIS CHAPTER
Duplay smile
egocentric empathic distress
emotion coaching
emotional competence
emotional expressiveness
learned helplessness
Max Emotion Coding System
mixed emotions
play smile
quasi-egocentric empathic distress
rudimentary empathic responding
self-conscious emotions
simple smile
social signaling system
true empathic distress
visual cliff
Practice Exam Questions
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. Which of the following emotions typically emerges first: (a) pride (b) *sadness (c) jealousy (d)
guilt
2. Secondary emotions: (a) emerge in infancy (b) do not require introspection to emerge (c)
*depend on an awareness of others’ reactions (d) do not require a sense of self
3. Emotional expressions: (a) are culture specific (b) involve an objective reaction to something in
the environment (c) *are generally accompanied by physiological arousal (d) are evident only
in the second half of the first year
4. Babies smile more at familiar faces than unfamiliar ones at about: (a) 1 year (b) 9 months (c) 6
months (d) *3 months
5. The process of reading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in an uncertain
situation is called: (a) using emotional display rules (b) following an emotional script (c)
experiencing empathy (d) *social referencing
6. 40. By the time children are 3 years old, solving a problem that is not particularly difficult
elicits ______, but succeeding on a difficult task produces ______: (a) joy, sadness (b) joy,
anxiety (c) *joy, pride (d) joy, guilt
7. Cross-cultural research on the timetable of emotional recognition suggests that: (a) compared
with children from the U.S., Japanese preschool children are faster at recognizing negative
emotions (e.g., anger) and positive emotions (e.g., joy) (b) compared with children from the
U.S., Japanese preschool children are faster at recognizing negative emotions (e.g., anger) (c)
compared with children from the U.S., Japanese preschool children are faster at recognizing
positive emotions (e.g., joy) (d) *children from different cultures follow a similar timetable for
recognizing basic emotions
8. The process of monitoring, managing, and modifying emotional reactions to reduce the
intensity and duration of emotional arousal is known as: (a) following an emotional script (b)
expressing a secondary emotion (c) knowing emotional display rules (d) *emotional regulation
9. Compared with younger adults, older adults: (a) distort their memories to make them more
emotionally gratifying (b) experience fewer negative emotions (c) are less likely to confront
their emotions (d) *all of the above
10. If parents are positive and provide comfort when interacting with their children, the children
are more likely to: (a) know how emotions should be displayed (b) develop constructive
reactions to anger (c) regulate their emotions better (d) *all of the above
11. The PATHS Head Start curriculum designed to facilitate children’s emotional competence
shows success at: (a) *increasing emotional vocabulary (b) reducing aggression and attention
problems at home (c) increasing reading skills (d) a and b but not c
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. How is emotional regulation expressed in infancy and in preschool?
2. Discuss the role of social referencing in social development and describe how it changes with
development.
3. Give three reasons that emotions are important for children’s social development.