Outline: Lecture 15
1. Introduction
Emotions
- Subjective reaction in response to some environmental stimulus
- Affect: the outward expression of an emotion
- More than a behavioural expression
- Regulation
- Not just read through facial expressions
- http://www.biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BMLwalker.html
- Emotion is not independent of cognition
- the same physiological arousal may represent different emotions
2. Theories on the Emergence of Emotion
1. 1872: Charles Darwin
- “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”
Direct link between inner emotional states and their facial expression
- Adaptive benefit of emotional expression
2. Carroll Izard
- Basic emotions are innate, and each has a specific and distinctive set of bodily and facial reactions
3. Joseph Campos
- Emphasize role of environment
- Emotional reactions affected by others
- e.g., shame and guilt related to standards of parents
3. Emergence of Emotional Expressions
Primary emotions
e.g., distress, disgust, interest, surprise, contentment, joy, anger, sadness, and fear
- Disgust
- Joy: Smiling
Endogenous Smiles: caused by some internal state
- reflexive?
Social Smiling: around 3 months, “social happiness”
- Fear and Distress
Hard to separate via facial expression, but we have a sense of what things cause fear
- Stranger Anxiety (8mos - 2yr)
- Separation Anxiety (increases from 8-15mos)
Preparedness to acquire fears?
Secondary, self-conscious emotions
- appear around 1-2 years
- envy (jealousy), nonevaluative embarrassment, empathy
- appear around 2.5-3 years
- pride, guilt, shame, hubris, evaluative embarrassment
Shame and Guilt:
guilt: feeling remorse, empathy, trying to make up
shame: not concern for others but for self, hide
Experiment (2-years-old):
- play with experimenter’s doll
- leg falls off
2 types of responses when experimenter returns:
1. Shame: avoided adult, delayed telling
2. Guilt: repaired doll, told adult
Parental Practices:
- Experience guilt if told the behaviour was bad; and told about effect it has on others
- Experience shame if told they are bad
4. Emotion Recognition
Neonatal Imitation
Social Referencing
- The use of another’s emotional cues to clarify the interpretation of an uncertain/ambiguous event
5. Emotion Understanding
lets us:
anticipate how our actions may affect others
reflect on reasons for emotions
developmental changes between 3 and 11 years
Understanding external causes of emotions
Understanding relationships between morality and emotions
Development due to:
- increasing social cognitive ability
- specific experiences
- emotion talk with adults