pp.125 – 156
I. Assessing Infant Socio-emotional Development
a. What are differences between:
i. Emotional Experience
ii. Emotional Expression
iii. Emotional State
II. Assessing Basic Infant Emotions
a. Cognitive Maturity
b. Emotional Elicitors
c. What is meant when Creasey writes that “Cognitive appraisal” precedes the actual emotional experience?
d. What are the different types of emotions, cognitive antecedents, and time windows during which they normally appear in infancy? (Table 5.1)
e. Emotional Elicitors – researchers contrive situations to “move emotions” in infants
a. Eliciting Discrete emotions
b. Eliciting Self-Conscious emotions
c. Eliciting Self-Evaluative emotions
f. Measuring Emotional Expression and States
a. Facial Expressions, physiological responses, actions, and behaviors.
b. Widely used measures:
i. Maximally Discriminative Facial Movement Coding System (MAX)
ii. Baby Facial Action Coding System (FACS)
iii. Which one is more specific? Which is more general?
c. Beyond the Face
i. Four broad configurations of emotional expressions:
1. Social Engagement
2. Object Engagement
3. Passive Withdrawal
4. Active Protest
g. Emotional States
a. Table 5.3 measuring Self-Conscious and Self-Evaluative Emotions
III. Assessing Emotion Regulation
a. Definition and Basic Measurement Strategies
i. How is emotion regulation defined?
ii. After emotional elicitation, the infant’s facial expressions, body movements, and vocalizations are monitored, which can yield the following responses:
1. Response latency =
2. Rise time =
3. Persistence or duration =
4. Recovery =
b. Predictors of Emotion Regulation
i. Three most studied variables:
1. Social Referencing – using the emotional expressions of caregivers for information regarding hw to respond and react to arousing environmental events.
a. Novel Toy Procedure
2. Caregiver Sensitivity – ability to respond appropriately to the emotional signals of the infant.
a. Awareness of infant emotional /communication signals
b. Accurate interpretation of these signals
c. Appropriate response to signals
d. Prompt response to these signals
3. Attunement – emotional synchrony between the baby and the caregiver during interactions.
IV. Assessing Infant Attachment
a. Attachment behaviors – what are they? Why are they exhibited?
b. Attachment relationship – must meet following criteria:
i. Affectional bonds are persistent rather than temporary.
ii. An affectional bond is directed toward a specific person, who is not interchangeable with another person
iii. The relationship is emotionally significant.
iv. The individual wishes to maintain proximity with the person.
v. The individual feels distress when separated or apart from the person.
vi. The individual seeks security and comfort in the relationship with the person.
c. The Strange Situation Procedure (Know this process)
i. Four Attachment Styles
1. Secure (B)
2. Avoidant (A)
3. Ambivalent or resistant (C)
4. Disorganized/disoriented (D)
** Cultural variation in attachment/difficulty in measuring and doing comparisons. (Not in book, but we will cover in lecture)
ii. Attachment Behavior Q-Set
iii. Most of research focuses on correlating assessments of maternal sensitivity with either Strange Situation or Attachment Behavior Q-sort ratings.
d. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)
i. 20 item protocol designed to assess adult’s state of mind regarding attachment experiences.
ii. In 14 study-meta-analyses, ~70% of the time, parents rated secure or insecure on AAI had babies with identical secure-insecure match (assessed by Strange Situation).
e. Frightening or Frightened Caregiver Behavior
i. Study Table 5.11 – Frightening, Frightened, & Disorganized Parenting Behavior.