Child Development:
Chapter 10
Emotional
Development and
Attachment
Chapter Outline
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Emotions: Universality and Difference
Attachment
Development of Emotions
Normal Emotions and Emotional
Problems
Emotions: Universality and Difference
Although our basic emotions appear to be
biologically determined, we quickly
develop ways of thinking about emotions,
called emotion schemas, that affect how
we experience and show emotions.
Emotion schemas differ by culture, gender,
personality and other factors.
Cultural differences affect both the display
and the interpretation of emotions.
Temperament
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The general emotional style an individual displays in
responding to events.
Chess and Thomas’s types of temperament.
Easy: positive mood, easy adaptation to change, and
regularity and predictability in patterns of eating,
sleeping, and elimination.
Difficult: more negative mood, frustration and intense
responses, slow adaptation to change, and irregular
patterns of eating, sleeping, and elimination.
Slow-to-warm: slow adaptation to new experiences and
moderate irregularity in eating, sleeping, and elimination.
Attachment
Secure attachment can be defined as a
strong, positive emotional bond with a
particular person. You turn to that person for
comfort. You are usually happy to see that
person and may be unhappy about
separations. This is a person with whom you
can feel free to “be yourself” in the fullest
sense.
Attachment and Adaptation
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Attachment is adaptive because it allows the
infant to feel secure
Infant behaviors are designed to keep the
parent nearby to satisfy needs
When infants and toddlers feel secure they
can explore, which leads to learning
Safe base for exploration: Child feels safe to
explore while parent is there. Goes back for
hugs: “emotional refueling”
The History of the Study of
Attachment
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Freud and behaviorism are both drive reduction theories.
Hunger is a drive that is satisfied by food from the
mother.
Behaviorism – classical conditioning of the mother
(neutral stimulus) with the food (unconditioned stimulus)
to produce satisfaction.
Freud – baby develops a cathexis of the mother because
of the food she provides.
Therefore, feeding causes attachment.
Development of the Ethological
Point of View
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HOWEVER, Harry Harlow’s research on
monkeys showed otherwise:
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John Bowlby’s Stages of the
Development of Attachment
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Preattachment (birth to 6 weeks):
sensory preferences, social smile
Attachment in the making (6 weeks
to 6-8 months): stranger anxiety
Clear-cut attachment (6-8 months to
18 months-2 years): separation
anxiety
Goal corrected partnership or
Formation of reciprocal relationships
(18 months on)
Development of internal working
models
Mary Ainsworth’s Strange
Situation
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Mother and baby enter a comfortable room (equipped with a oneway mirror so they can be observed) with the stranger, who
immediately leaves.
Baby plays while mother responds naturally.
Stranger enters, and at the end of 3 minutes the mother leaves.
Baby is in the room with the stranger, who may interact with the
baby.
Mother returns, stranger leaves, and at the end of 3 minutes the
mother again leaves.
Baby is alone for 3 minutes.
Stranger enters and may interact with the baby.
Mother returns.
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(Ainsworth & Bell, 1970)
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Ainsworth’s Categories of
Attachment
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Secure attachment
anxious avoidant attachment
anxious ambivalent attachment
disorganized/disoriented attachment
Behavior during strange situation
Attachment is a relationship
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Mother – responsiveness to the baby’s
needs
What helps mothers to be responsive?
A positive relationship with their partner
Adequate economic resources
Good psychological health (for example, maternal
depression has been linked to insecure attachment)
A history of good care in their own childhood
An infant who is easy to care for
Father
Supports mother emotionally, maybe
financially
Forms secure attachment with infants as well
Baby
Temperament affects type of attachment
Medical factors may play a role
Colicky babies are difficult
It’s a Complicated Picture
Infant negative emotionality (intense and frequent crying)
Less sensitive mothering when the babies were 6 mos. old
More insecure attachment at 1 year (Crockenberg, 1981; Sroufe, 2005).
BUT, this relationship only held when mothers were at risk
from poverty, inadequate social support, or a history of
parental rejection. Mothers who were not at risk were
often more involved with their fussy babies. (Crockenberg & Leerkes,
2003).
Attachment: Biology
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Children raised by their parents from birth
experience a rise in oxytocin after interacting
with their parents, while neglected, orphaned
children who are adopted do not show this
rise. Oxytocin is linked with a positive feeling
that arises in connection with warm social
interactions
(Carter, 2005).
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Many neglected children produce low levels
of vasopressin, a hormone that is linked with
the ability to recognize individuals as being
familiar.
Children reared in deprived situations are
more likely to run to any available adult when
distressed or withdraw from all adults.
It is not yet clear whether these chemical
responses are set for life or can change with
life experiences.
Attachment and Culture
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In most countries, 2/3 of infants have secure attachment.
What do different cultures define as sensitive parenting?
For example, what is good parenting when your infant
cries every hour through the night while all their needs
have already been cared for?
American mothers tend to see this behavior as testing
the limits and asserting one’s self.
Japanese mothers are more likely to see this as a need
for closeness or interdependence.
How is maternal behavior likely to differ based on these
two different interpretations?
The impact of early attachment
and later experiences
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The myth of bonding
Long-term outcomes of infant attachment
Impact of Later Experiences
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An indirect link between early attachment and
the ability to have intimate, romantic
relationships in early adulthood.
Secure attachment in infancy prepares the
child for later positive peer relationships
The child’s history with peer relationships
independently predicts some aspects of adult
relationships
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The combination of early attachment and
later experiences with peers was even more
predictive of some aspects of later romantic
relationships.
Each stage provides the foundation for the
next stage, but experiences at each
successive stage also change the nature and
direction of a child’s development.
Romantic Attachment Styles
Reactive Attachment Disorders
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Inhibited type: inability to form any
attachments
Disinhibited type: indiscriminant attachments
to anyone
Prevention and Treatment
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The most effective therapies focused on
developing the mother’s sensitivity to her
baby.
Therapy that involved both mothers and
fathers had even greater effect
For adopted children with attachment
disorders, it is important for a family to know
that much hard work will be needed to try to
reverse the child’s earlier experiences.
Development of Emotions
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Understanding and recognition of basic
emotions develops before awareness of selfconscious emotions.
Basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear,
anger, surprise/interest, and disgust
Self-conscious emotions: those that depend
on awareness of oneself, such as pride, guilt,
and shame.
Empathy and Sympathy
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Empathy: sharing the feelings of other
people.
Sympathy: concern for others’ welfare that
often leads to helping or comforting them
Social Referencing
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Social referencing: using the reaction of
others to determine how to react in
ambiguous situations
Representation of emotions
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Labeling and discussion of emotions with
young children helps them to cope with
stressful situations.
Regulation of emotions
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Infants – soothed by caregivers; also develop
ways to soothe themselves: thumb sucking,
holding a favorite “blankie,” or avoidance of
something by looking away
Preschoolers – those with more able to
regulate their emotions had higher academic
ability in third grade and higher social
competence in adolescence and adulthood
(Mischel & Ayduk, 2004; Izard, 2007).
Emotional intelligence:
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Understanding and controlling one’s own
emotions, understanding those of others, and
being able to use all of this understanding to
navigate human interactions successfully
Daniel Goleman (1995) believes that the
ability to deal with emotions is of equal
importance to our academic success as our
cognitive abilities.
Normal emotions and
emotional problems
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Emotions are normal reactions to events in
our lives.
Sometimes emotions go beyond adaptive
response and interfere with ongoing
development for children and adolescents.
Fear and Anxiety
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Fear: response to something specific
Anxiety: a vague sense of fear or a feeling of
dread.
Development of Fear
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Fear of things like loud noises or novel items
along with stranger and separation anxiety
appear during the end of the first year of life.
Toddlers and preschoolers experience fear of
the dark or of monsters in the closet, linked
with fantasy.
Fears increase through age 8 and then
recede.
Anxiety disorders
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A level of anxiety that interferes with normal
functioning; includes separation anxiety
disorder in older children or adolescents,
generalized anxiety disorder, and social
phobias.
Sadness and depression
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Sadness is a normal response to loss and
disappointment.
Depression goes beyond sadness to feelings
of worthlessness and hopelessness, a lack of
pleasure, sleep and appetite disturbances,
and possibly suicidal ideas or plans.
Depression is more common in teens than
younger children and in adolescent girls than
in adolescent boys.
Anger and Aggression
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Most children learn to control their anger by
channeling it in appropriate ways. However,
some children are not able to control feelings
that lead them into conflict with others.
Most often higher levels of aggression in
younger children decline as the children get
older. For a small subgroup levels of
aggression remain high.
Conclusion
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From earliest infancy onward, we learn to
understand, express, and control our emotions.
Emotional experiences develop within the
context of our close relationships with other
people.
At each stage of development we add new
levels of understanding and experience that
build upon each other to shape the nature of our
feelings about others and about ourselves.