1
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Castillo A, Lopez LD. Studying hot executive function in infancy: Insights from research on emotional development. Infant Behav Dev 2022; 69:101773. [PMID: 36137464 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101773] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2022] [Revised: 09/01/2022] [Accepted: 09/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Recent calls have urged to bridge the fields of emotional and cognitive development to advance theoretical and empirical pursuits. Yet, despite notable overlap between research on executive function and emotion regulation, a uniting theory that informs future avenues of research is lacking. Infants are known to lack emotion regulation skills, as they are developing the abilities to regulate their emotions and coordinated responses. However, the field of emotional development demonstrates that at an early age, infants are adept at regulating their behaviors in response to others emotional reactions. Moreover, although classic delay of gratification tasks are fairly ecological measures, rarely are rules expressed to infants without emotions. This paper draws from recent interest in hot executive function to link infancy research on executive function and emotion. Hot executive function lends itself as a useful construct in this endeavor because it unites the study emotion and executive function. We offer a perspective that refines hot executive function within prominent emotion theories while discussing infant executive function and emotion empirical pursuits. Our perspective presents reliable paradigms from the field of emotional development to serve as tools for studying the development of hot executive function.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lukas D Lopez
- Department of Family and Consumer Studies, University of Utah, USA
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2
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Callaghan BL, Choy T, O'Sullivan K, Routhier E, Cabrera N, Goode V, Klein T, Tottenham N. Being the third wheel: Toddlers use bystander learning to acquire cue-specific valence knowledge. J Exp Child Psychol 2022; 219:105391. [PMID: 35276421 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105391] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2021] [Revised: 01/24/2022] [Accepted: 01/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Observing others is an important means of gathering information by proxy regarding safety and danger, a form of learning that is available as early as infancy. In two experiments, we examined the specificity and retention of emotional eavesdropping (i.e., bystander learning) on cue-specific discriminant learning during toddlerhood. After witnessing one adult admonish another for playing with Toy A (with no admonishment for Toy B), toddlers learned to choose Toy B for themselves regardless of whether they were tested immediately or 2 weeks later (Experiment 1). However, if asked to make a toy choice for someone else (i.e., when toddlers' personal risk was lower), approximately half the toddlers instead selected Toy A (Experiment 2). However, such choices were accompanied by toddlers' social monitoring of the adults, suggesting that toddlers may have been attempting to safely gain (via surrogacy) more information about risk contingencies. These findings suggest that toddlers can learn to discriminate valence in a cue-specific manner through social observation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bridget L Callaghan
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
| | - Tricia Choy
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Kaitlin O'Sullivan
- Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20007, USA
| | - Emma Routhier
- Barnard Center for Toddler Development, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Nora Cabrera
- Barnard Center for Toddler Development, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Victoria Goode
- Barnard Center for Toddler Development, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Tovah Klein
- Barnard Center for Toddler Development, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Nim Tottenham
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
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3
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Conceptualizing Emotion Regulation and Coregulation as Family-Level Phenomena. Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev 2022; 25:19-43. [PMID: 35098427 PMCID: PMC8801237 DOI: 10.1007/s10567-022-00378-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
The ability to regulate one’s emotions is foundational for healthy development and functioning in a multitude of domains, whereas difficulties in emotional regulation are recognized as a risk factor for a range of adverse outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Caregivers play a key role in cultivating the development of emotion regulation through coregulation, or the processes by which they provide external support or scaffolding as children navigate their emotional experiences. The vast majority of research to date has examined coregulation in the context of caregiver–child dyads. In this paper, we consider emotion regulation and coregulation as family-level processes that unfold within and across multiple family subsystems and explore how triadic and whole family interactions may contribute to the development of children’s emotion regulation skills. Furthermore, we will examine the implications of a family-centered perspective on emotion regulation for prevention of and intervention for childhood emotional and behavioral disorders. Because emotion regulation skills undergo such dramatic maturation during children’s first several years of life, much of our focus will be on coregulation within and across the family system during early childhood; however, as many prevention and intervention approaches are geared toward school-aged children and adolescents, we will also devote some attention to later developmental periods.
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4
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Ogren M, Sandhofer CM. Toddler Word Learning is Robust to Changes in Emotional Context. INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2021; 30. [PMID: 34924818 DOI: 10.1002/icd.2270] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Word learning is a crucial aspect of early social and cognitive development, and previous research indicates that children's word learning is influenced by the context in which the word is spoken. However, the role of emotions as contextual cues to word learning remains less clear. The present study investigated word learning among 2.5-year-old children in angry, happy, sad, and variable emotional contexts. Fifty-six children (30 female; Mean age=2.49 years) participated in a novel noun generalization task in which children observed an experimenter labeling objects in either a consistently angry, consistently happy, consistently sad, or variable (one exemplar per emotion) context. Children were then asked to identify the label-object association. Results revealed that children's performance was above chance levels for all four conditions (all t's>3.68, all p's<.01), but performance did not significantly differ by condition (F(3,52)=0.51, p=.677). These results provide valuable information regarding potential boundaries for when contextual information may versus may not influence children's word learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marissa Ogren
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles
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5
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Wu Y, Schulz LE, Frank MC, Gweon H. Emotion as Information in Early Social Learning. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2021. [DOI: 10.1177/09637214211040779] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
The majority of research on infants’ and children’s understanding of emotional expressions has focused on their abilities to use emotional expressions to infer how other people feel. However, an emerging body of work suggests that emotional expressions support rich, powerful inferences not just about emotional states but also about other unobserved states, such as hidden events in the physical world and mental states of other people (e.g., beliefs and desires). Here we argue that infants and children harness others’ emotional expressions as a source of information for learning about the physical and social world broadly. This “emotion as information” framework integrates affective, developmental, and computational cognitive sciences, extending the scope of signals that count as “information” in early learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Wu
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University
| | - Laura E. Schulz
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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6
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Nguyen TT, Nelson NL. Winners and losers: Recognition of spontaneous emotional expressions increases across childhood. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 209:105184. [PMID: 34051681 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105184] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2021] [Revised: 04/26/2021] [Accepted: 04/27/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Research using posed emotional expressions is problematic because they lack ecological validity. Adults' recognition of spontaneous real-world expressions may require the inclusion of postural information. Whether posture improves children's recognition of real-world expressions was unknown. Younger children (n = 30; 5- to 7-year-olds), older children (n = 30; 8- to 10-year-olds), and adults (n = 30) judged whether tennis players had won or lost a point. Images showed one of three cue types: Head-only, Body-only, or Head-Body expressions. Recognition of expressions improved with age; older children and adults performed better than younger children. In addition, recognition of Body-only and Head-Body cues was better than Head-only cues for all ages. Spontaneous expression recognition improved throughout childhood and with the inclusion of postural information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Teresa T Nguyen
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.
| | - Nicole L Nelson
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
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7
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Qin W, Zhao L, Compton BJ, Zheng Y, Mao H, Zheng J, Heyman GD. Overheard conversations can influence children's generosity. Dev Sci 2020; 24:e13068. [PMID: 33269507 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2019] [Revised: 11/17/2020] [Accepted: 11/24/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Understanding the factors that promote the development of generosity has both theoretical and practical importance. This study examines one potential influence: overheard conversations that contain evaluative statements about the behavior of others that were described as widely shared opinions. In Study 1 (N = 120), younger (mean age 4.1 years old) and older (mean age 5.9 years old) participants overheard two adults discuss a target child's act of generosity, and in a between-subjects manipulation, the conversation included either praise for the target child, or criticism. Participants in the older group were more likely to behave generously on a distribution task if the overheard conversation involved praise rather than criticism, but the participants in the younger group showed no such effect. Study 2 (N = 150) and Study 3 (N = 60) were preregistered follow-up studies that included older children only (a 5-year-old group). Study 2 showed that children were again more likely to share after overhearing a conversation in which an individual who behaved generously was described in favorable terms, and the same effect was seen when the overheard conversation involved criticism of an individual who did not share. The procedure of Study 3 matched that of Study 1, except the distributions were made in private, and the overheard conversation effect was seen once again. These findings suggest that by age 5, children can use information they hear about individuals who are not present to guide their own behavior, and that overheard evaluative comments can promote generosity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wen Qin
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, P R China
| | - Li Zhao
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, P R China.,Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, P R China
| | - Brian J Compton
- Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, California, USA
| | - Yi Zheng
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, P R China
| | - Haiying Mao
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, P R China
| | - Jiaxin Zheng
- Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, P R China
| | - Gail D Heyman
- Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, California, USA
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8
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Emotional facial expressions affect visual rule learning in 7- to 8-month-old infants. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 61:101501. [PMID: 33161207 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2020] [Revised: 10/24/2020] [Accepted: 10/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Rule learning (RL) is an implicit learning mechanism that allows infants to detect and generalize rule-like repetition-based patterns (such as ABB and ABA) from a sequence of elements. Increasing evidence shows that RL operates both in the auditory and the visual domain and is modulated by the perceptual expertise with the to-be-learned stimuli. Yet, whether infants' ability to detect a high-order rule from a sequence of stimuli is affected by affective information remains a largely unexplored issue. Using a visual habituation paradigm, we investigated whether the presence of emotional expressions with a positive and a negative value (i.e., happiness and anger) modulates 7- to 8-month-old infants' ability to learn a rule-like pattern from a sequence of faces of different identities. Results demonstrate that emotional facial expressions (either positive and negative) modulate infants' visual RL mechanism, even though positive and negative facial expressions affect infants' RL in a different manner: while anger disrupts infants' ability to learn the rule-like pattern from a face sequence, in the presence of a happy face infants show a familiarity preference, thus maintaining their learning ability. These findings show that emotional expressions exert an influence on infants' RL abilities, contributing to the investigation on how emotion and cognition interact in face processing during infancy.
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9
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Stoop TB, Moriarty PM, Wolf R, Gilmore RO, Perez-Edgar K, Scherf KS, Vigeant MC, Cole PM. I know that voice! Mothers' voices influence children's perceptions of emotional intensity. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 199:104907. [PMID: 32682101 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104907] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2019] [Revised: 05/11/2020] [Accepted: 05/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The ability to interpret others' emotions is a critical skill for children's socioemotional functioning. Although research has emphasized facial emotion expressions, children are also constantly required to interpret vocal emotion expressed at or around them by individuals who are both familiar and unfamiliar to them. The current study examined how speaker familiarity, specific emotions, and the acoustic properties that comprise affective prosody influenced children's interpretations of emotional intensity. Participants were 51 7- and 8-year-olds presented with speech stimuli spoken in happy, angry, sad, and nonemotional prosodies by both each child's mother and another child's mother unfamiliar to the target child. Analyses indicated that children rated their own mothers as more intensely emotional compared with the unfamiliar mothers and that this effect was specific to angry and happy prosodies. Furthermore, the acoustic properties predicted children's emotional intensity ratings in different patterns for each emotion. The results are discussed in terms of the significance of the mother's voice in children's development of emotional understanding.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tawni B Stoop
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA.
| | - Peter M Moriarty
- Acoustics Program, College of Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA
| | - Rachel Wolf
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA
| | - Rick O Gilmore
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA
| | - Koraly Perez-Edgar
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA
| | - K Suzanne Scherf
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA
| | - Michelle C Vigeant
- Acoustics Program, College of Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA
| | - Pamela M Cole
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16803, USA
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10
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Interactive situations reveal more about children's emotional knowledge. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 198:104879. [PMID: 32590198 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104879] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2019] [Revised: 04/20/2020] [Accepted: 04/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Research examining children's emotion judgments has generally used nonsocial tasks that do not resemble children's daily experiences in judging others' emotions. Here, younger children (4- to 6-year-olds) and older children (7- to 9-year-olds) participated in a socially interactive task where an experimenter opened boxes and made an expression (happy, sad, scared, or disgust) based on the object inside. Children guessed which of four objects (a sticker, a broken toy car, a spider, or toy poop) was in the box. Subsequently, children opened a set of boxes and generated facial expressions for the experimenter. Children also labeled the emotion elicited by the objects and static facial expressions. Children's ability to guess which object caused the experimenter's expression increased with age but did not predict their ability to generate a recognizable expression. Children's demonstration of emotion knowledge also varied across tasks, suggesting that when emotion judgment tasks more closely mimic their daily experiences, children demonstrate broader emotion knowledge.
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11
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Wang Z, Meltzoff AN. Imitation in Chinese Preschool Children: Influence of Prior Self-Experience and Pedagogical Cues on the Imitation of Novel Acts in a Non-Western Culture. Front Psychol 2020; 11:662. [PMID: 32351426 PMCID: PMC7174596 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00662] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2019] [Accepted: 03/19/2020] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Both prior experience and pedagogical cues modulate Western children’s imitation. However, these factors have not been systematically explored together within a single study. This paper explored how these factors individually and together influence imitation using 4-year-old children born and reared in mainland China (N = 210)—a country that contains almost one-fifth of the world’s population, and in which childhood imitation is under-studied using experimental methodology. The behavior of children in this culture is of special interest to theory because traditional East Asian culture places high value on conformity and fitting in with the group. Thus, high-fidelity imitation is emphasized in the local culture. This value, practice, or norm may be recognized by children at a young age and influence their imitative performance. In this study, we crossed prior self-experience and pedagogical cues, yielding four demonstration groups in addition to a control group. This design allowed us to investigate the degree to which Chinese preschoolers’ imitation was modulated by the two experimental factors. High-fidelity imitation was significantly modulated by prior self-experience but not by pedagogical cues, as measured by the number of novel acts imitated and also the serial order of these acts. This study (i) expands our understanding of factors that modulate imitation of novel behaviors in preschoolers and (ii) contributes to efforts to broaden research beyond Western societies to enrich our theories, particularly regarding social learning and imitation. Imitation is a key mechanism in the acquisition of culturally appropriate behaviors, mannerisms, and norms but who, what, and when children imitate is malleable. This study points to both cross-cultural invariants and variations to provide a fuller picture of the scope and functions of childhood imitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhidan Wang
- School of Education Science, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
| | - Andrew N Meltzoff
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
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12
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Zhao L, Chen L, Sun W, Compton BJ, Lee K, Heyman GD. Young children are more likely to cheat after overhearing that a classmate is smart. Dev Sci 2019; 23:e12930. [PMID: 31811686 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12930] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2018] [Revised: 08/10/2018] [Accepted: 10/08/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Research on moral socialization has largely focused on the role of direct communication and has almost completely ignored a potentially rich source of social influence: evaluative comments that children overhear. We examined for the first time whether overheard comments can shape children's moral behavior. Three- and 5-year-old children (N = 200) participated in a guessing game in which they were instructed not to cheat by peeking. We randomly assigned children to a condition in which they overheard an experimenter tell another adult that a classmate who was no longer present is smart, or to a control condition in which the overheard conversation consisted of non-social information. We found that 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, cheated significantly more often if they overheard the classmate praised for being smart. These findings show that the effects of ability praise can spread far beyond the intended recipient to influence the behavior of children who are mere observers, and they suggest that overheard evaluative comments can be an important force in shaping moral development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Zhao
- Institute of Psychological Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, PR China.,Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, PR China
| | - Lulu Chen
- Institute of Psychological Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, PR China
| | - Wenjin Sun
- Institute of Psychological Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, PR China
| | - Brian J Compton
- Institute of Psychological Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, PR China.,Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Kang Lee
- Dr Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.,Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, PR China
| | - Gail D Heyman
- Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
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13
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Parkinson B. Intragroup Emotion Convergence: Beyond Contagion and Social Appraisal. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW 2019; 24:121-140. [DOI: 10.1177/1088868319882596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Mimicry-based emotion contagion and social appraisal currently provide the most popular explanations for interpersonal emotional convergence. However, neither process fully accounts for intragroup effects involving dynamic calibration of people’s orientations during communal activities. When group members are engaged in shared tasks, they simultaneously attend to the same unfolding events and arrive at mutually entrained movement patterns that facilitate emotional coordination. Entrainment may be further cultivated by interaction rituals involving rhythmic music that sets the pace for collective singing, dancing, or marching. These rituals also provide an emotionally meaningful focus for group activities and sometimes specifically encourage the experience of intense embodied states. Intragroup emotion convergence thus depends on interlocking processes of reciprocated and context-attuned orientational calibration and group-based social appraisal.
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14
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Botto SV, Rochat P. Evaluative Audience Perception (EAP): How Children Come to Care About Reputation. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES 2019. [DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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15
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Nelson NL, Mondloch CJ. Children's perception of emotions in the context of live interactions: Eye movements and emotion judgements. Behav Processes 2019; 164:193-200. [PMID: 31075385 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2019.05.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/26/2018] [Revised: 05/01/2019] [Accepted: 05/03/2019] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Research examining children's understanding of emotional expressions has generally used static, isolated facial expressions presented in a non-interactive context. However, these tasks do not resemble children's experiences with expressions in daily life, where they must attend to a range of information, including others' facial expressions, movements, and the situation surrounding the expression. In this research, we examine the development of visual attention to another's emotional expressions during a live interaction. Via an eye-tracker, children (4-11 years old) and adults viewed an experimenter open a series of opaque boxes and make an expression (happiness, sadness, fear, or disgust) based on the object inside. Participants determined which of four possible objects (stickers, a broken toy, a spider, or dog poop) was in the box. We examined the proportion of the trial in which participants looked to three areas of the face (the eyes, mouth, and nose area), and the available contextual information (the box held by the experimenter, the four objects). Although children spent less time looking to the face than adults did, their pattern of visual attention within the face and to object AOIs did not differ from that of adults. Finally, for adults, increased accuracy was linked to spending less time looking to the objects whereas increased accuracy for children was not strongly linked to any emotion cue. These data indicate that although children spend less time looking to the face during live interactions than adults do, the proportion of time spent looking to areas of the face and context are generally adult-like.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole L Nelson
- Brock University, Department of Psychology, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, L2S3A1, St. Catharines, ON, United States; University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Catherine J Mondloch
- Brock University, Department of Psychology, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, L2S3A1, St. Catharines, ON, United States.
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16
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Pauker K, Brey EL, Lamer SA, Weisbuch M. Cultural Snapshots: A Method to Capture Social Contexts in Development of Prejudice and Stereotyping. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2019; 56:141-181. [PMID: 30846046 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2018.11.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
The scientific identification of how social environments transmit intergroup biases is a transparently complex endeavor. Existing research has examined the emergence of intergroup biases such as racial prejudice and stereotypes in many ways, including correlations between racial diversity and children's prejudice, content analyses of features in the media, or experiments testing the influence of selected variables with unknown prevalence in children's environments. Yet, these approaches have left unanswered how the social environments that children engage with cause them to acquire racial prejudice and stereotypes. We provide a review of the existing literature on socialization of racial prejudice and stereotypes and then present a methodological approach that can be used to quantify and test causal relations between the features of children's social environments and intergroup biases. We provide examples of how this method has and can be used alongside a discussion of unique considerations when applied to child samples.
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17
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Callaghan B, Meyer H, Opendak M, Van Tieghem M, Harmon C, Li A, Lee FS, Sullivan RM, Tottenham N. Using a Developmental Ecology Framework to Align Fear Neurobiology Across Species. Annu Rev Clin Psychol 2019; 15:345-369. [PMID: 30786246 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050718-095727] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Children's development is largely dependent on caregiving; when caregiving is disrupted, children are at increased risk for numerous poor outcomes, in particular psychopathology. Therefore, determining how caregivers regulate children's affective neurobiology is essential for understanding psychopathology etiology and prevention. Much of the research on affective functioning uses fear learning to map maturation trajectories, with both rodent and human studies contributing knowledge. Nonetheless, as no standard framework exists through which to interpret developmental effects across species, research often remains siloed, thus contributing to the current therapeutic impasse. Here, we propose a developmental ecology framework that attempts to understand fear in the ecological context of the child: their relationship with their parent. By referring to developmental goals that are shared across species (to attach to, then, ultimately, separate from the parent), this framework provides a common grounding from which fear systems and their dysfunction can be understood, thus advancing research on psychopathologies and their treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bridget Callaghan
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; , , , .,Department of Psychiatry, Melbourne University, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
| | - Heidi Meyer
- Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; , ,
| | - Maya Opendak
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University, Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA; .,Nathan S. Klein Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, New York 10962, USA;
| | | | - Chelsea Harmon
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; , , ,
| | - Anfei Li
- Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; , ,
| | - Francis S Lee
- Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; , ,
| | - Regina M Sullivan
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University, Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA; .,Nathan S. Klein Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, New York 10962, USA;
| | - Nim Tottenham
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; , , ,
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18
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Liu P, Cole PM, Gilmore RO, Pérez-Edgar KE, Vigeant MC, Moriarty P, Scherf KS. Young children's neural processing of their mother's voice: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 2019; 122:11-19. [PMID: 30528586 PMCID: PMC6334756 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.12.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2018] [Revised: 11/13/2018] [Accepted: 12/03/2018] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
In addition to semantic content, human speech carries paralinguistic information that conveys important social cues such as a speaker's identity. For young children, their own mothers' voice is one of the most salient vocal inputs in their daily environment. Indeed, qualities of mothers' voices are shown to contribute to children's social development. Our knowledge of how the mother's voice is processed at the neural level, however, is limited. This study investigated whether the voice of a mother modulates activation in the network of regions activated by the human voice in young children differently than the voice of an unfamiliar mother. We collected fMRI data from 32 typically developing 7- and 8-year-olds as they listened to natural speech produced by their mother and another child's mother. We used emotionally-varied natural speech stimuli to approximate the range of children's day-to-day experience. We individually-defined functional ROIs in children's voice-sensitive neural network and then independently investigated the extent to which activation in these regions is modulated by speaker identity. The bilateral posterior auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus (STG), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) exhibit enhanced activation in response to the voice of one's own mother versus that of an unfamiliar mother. The findings indicate that children process the voice of their own mother uniquely, and pave the way for future studies of how social information processing contributes to the trajectory of child social development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pan Liu
- Department of Psychology, Child Study Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | - Pamela M Cole
- Department of Psychology, Child Study Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
| | - Rick O Gilmore
- Department of Psychology, Child Study Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | - Koraly E Pérez-Edgar
- Department of Psychology, Child Study Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | - Michelle C Vigeant
- Graduate Program in Acoustics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | - Peter Moriarty
- Graduate Program in Acoustics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | - K Suzanne Scherf
- Department of Psychology, Child Study Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
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Dahl A. The Science of Early Moral Development: on Defining, Constructing, and Studying Morality from Birth. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2018; 56:1-35. [PMID: 30846044 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2018.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
The first 4 years of moral development are perhaps the most transformative. Helpless neonates become infants who routinely help and harm others; infants develop into preschoolers who make moral judgments based on moral concerns with welfare. Over the past two decades, there has been tremendous empirical progress, but also theoretical stalemates, in research on early moral development. To advance the field, this chapter argues for providing definitions of key terms, adopting an interactionist and constructivist approach (eschewing the dichotomy between innate and learned characteristics), and combining naturalistic and experimental methods. On this basis, the chapter reviews research on how children's orientations toward helping and harming others develop gradually through everyday social interactions in the early years. In these interactions, children play active roles through initiation, negotiation, protest, and construction. The chapter concludes with key questions for future research on early moral development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Audun Dahl
- University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, United States.
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20
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Sixteen-month-old infants are sensitive to competence in third-party observational learning. Infant Behav Dev 2018; 52:114-120. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.07.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2018] [Revised: 06/28/2018] [Accepted: 07/03/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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21
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Patzwald C, Curley CA, Hauf P, Elsner B. Differential effects of others' emotional cues on 18-month-olds' preferential reproduction of observed actions. Infant Behav Dev 2018; 51:60-70. [PMID: 29679813 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.04.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2017] [Revised: 04/06/2018] [Accepted: 04/08/2018] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
Abstract
Infants use others' emotional signals to regulate their own object-directed behavior and action reproduction, and they typically produce more actions after having observed positive as compared to negative emotional cues. This study explored infants' understanding of the referential specificity of others' emotional cues when being confronted with two actions that are accompanied by different emotional displays. Selective action reproduction was measured after 18-month-olds (N = 42) had observed two actions directed at the same object, one of which was modeled with a positive emotional expression and the other with a negative emotional expression. Across four trials with different objects, infants' first actions matched the positively-emoted actions more often than the negatively-emoted actions. In comparison with baseline-level, infants' initial performance changed only for the positively-emoted actions, in that it increased during test. Latencies to first object-touch during test did not differ when infants reproduced the positively- or negatively-emoted actions, respectively, indicating that infants related the cues to the respective actions rather than to the object. During demonstration, infants looked relatively longer at the object than at the model's face, with no difference in positive or negative displays. Infants during their second year of life thus capture the action-related referential specificity of others' emotional cues and seem to follow positive signals more readily when actively selecting which of two actions to reproduce preferentially.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Charlotte A Curley
- Infant Action and Cognition Lab, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
| | - Petra Hauf
- Infant Action and Cognition Lab, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
| | - Birgit Elsner
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Germany
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22
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Promoting honesty in young children through observational learning. J Exp Child Psychol 2018; 167:234-245. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.11.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2016] [Revised: 10/20/2017] [Accepted: 11/06/2017] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
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23
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Waismeyer A, Meltzoff AN. Learning to make things happen: Infants’ observational learning of social and physical causal events. J Exp Child Psychol 2017; 162:58-71. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.04.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2016] [Revised: 04/20/2017] [Accepted: 04/22/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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24
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Meltzoff AN. Roots of Social Cognition. MINNESOTA SYMPOSIA ON CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 2017. [DOI: 10.1002/9781119466864.ch2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
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25
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Seehagen S, Schneider S, Miebach K, Frigge K, Zmyj N. "Should I or shouldn't I?" Imitation of undesired versus allowed actions from peer and adult models by 18- and 24-month-old toddlers. Infant Behav Dev 2017. [PMID: 28646677 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2017.06.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Imitation is a common way of acquiring novel behaviors in toddlers. However, little is known about toddlers' imitation of undesired actions. Here we investigated 18- and 24-month-olds' (N=110) imitation of undesired and allowed actions from televised peer and adult models. Permissiveness of the demonstrated actions was indicated by the experimenter's response to their execution (angry or neutral). Analyses revealed that toddlers' imitation scores were higher after demonstrations of allowed versus undesired actions, regardless of the age of the model. In agreement with prior research, these results suggest that third-party reactions to a model's actions can be a powerful cue for toddlers to engage in or refrain from imitation. In the context of the present study, third-party reactions were more influential on imitation than the model's age. Considering the relative influence of different social cues for imitation can help to gain a fuller understanding of early observational learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabine Seehagen
- Department of Psychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Massenbergstr. 9-13, 44787 Bochum, Germany.
| | - Silvia Schneider
- Department of Psychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Massenbergstr. 9-13, 44787 Bochum, Germany.
| | - Kristin Miebach
- Department of Psychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Massenbergstr. 9-13, 44787 Bochum, Germany.
| | - Katharina Frigge
- Department of Psychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Massenbergstr. 9-13, 44787 Bochum, Germany.
| | - Norbert Zmyj
- Institute of Psychology, Technical University Dortmund, Emil-Figge-Straße 50, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.
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26
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Clément F, Dukes D. Social Appraisal and Social Referencing: Two Components of Affective Social Learning. EMOTION REVIEW 2017. [DOI: 10.1177/1754073916661634] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Social learning is likely to include affective processes: it is necessary for newcomers to discover what value to attach to objects, persons, and events in a given social environment. This learning relies largely on the evaluation of others’ emotional expressions. This study has two objectives. Firstly, we compare two closely related concepts that are employed to describe the use of another person’s appraisal to make sense of a given situation: social appraisal and social referencing. We contend that social referencing constitutes a type of social appraisal. Secondly, we introduce the concept of affective social learning with the hope that it may help to discriminate the different ways in which emotions play a critical role in the processes of socialization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabrice Clément
- Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Daniel Dukes
- Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland
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27
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Abstract
Identifying the origins of social bias is critical to devising strategies to overcome prejudice. In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis that young children can catch novel social biases from brief exposure to biased nonverbal signals demonstrated by adults. Our results are consistent with this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, we found that children who were exposed to a brief video depicting nonverbal bias in favor of one individual over another subsequently explicitly preferred, and were more prone to behave prosocially toward, the target of positive nonverbal signals. Moreover, in Experiment 2, preschoolers generalized such bias to other individuals. The spread of bias observed in these experiments lays a critical foundation for understanding the way that social biases may develop and spread early in childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allison L Skinner
- 1 Department of Psychology.,2 Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington
| | - Andrew N Meltzoff
- 1 Department of Psychology.,2 Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington
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28
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Dahl A, Tran AQ. Vocal tones influence young children's responses to prohibitions. J Exp Child Psychol 2016; 152:71-91. [PMID: 27518810 PMCID: PMC5053893 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.07.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2016] [Revised: 07/19/2016] [Accepted: 07/20/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Vocal reactions to child transgressions convey information about the nature of those transgressions. The current research investigated children's ability to make use of such vocal reactions. Study 1 investigated infants' compliance with a vocal prohibition telling them to stay away from a toy. Compared to younger infants, older infants showed greater compliance with prohibitions elicited by moral (interpersonal harm) transgressions but not with prohibitions elicited by pragmatic (inconvenience) transgressions. Study 2 investigated preschoolers' use of firm-stern vocalizations (associated with moral transgressions) and positive vocalizations (associated with pragmatic transgressions). Most children guessed that the firm-stern vocalizations were uttered in response to a moral transgression and the positive vocalizations were uttered in response to a pragmatic transgression. These two studies suggest that children use vocal tones, along with other experiences, to guide their compliance with and interpretation of prohibitions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Audun Dahl
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
| | - Amy Q Tran
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
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29
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Repacholi BM, Meltzoff AN, Hennings TM, Ruba AL. Transfer of Social Learning Across Contexts: Exploring Infants' Attribution of Trait-Like Emotions to Adults. INFANCY 2016. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Betty M. Repacholi
- Department of Psychology and Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS); University of Washington
| | - Andrew N. Meltzoff
- Department of Psychology and Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS); University of Washington
| | - Theresa M. Hennings
- Department of Psychology and Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS); University of Washington
| | - Ashley L. Ruba
- Department of Psychology and Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS); University of Washington
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30
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Williamson RA, Brooks R, Meltzoff AN. The Sound of Social Cognition: Toddlers’ Understanding of How Sound Influences Others. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2015. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2013.824884] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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31
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1- and 2-year-olds' expectations about third-party communicative actions. Infant Behav Dev 2015; 39:53-66. [PMID: 25766104 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2015.02.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2014] [Revised: 01/19/2015] [Accepted: 02/10/2015] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Infants expect people to direct actions toward objects, and they respond to actions directed to themselves, but do they have expectations about actions directed to third parties? In two experiments, we used eye tracking to investigate 1- and 2-year-olds' expectations about communicative actions addressed to a third party. Experiment 1 presented infants with videos where an adult (the Emitter) either uttered a sentence or produced non-speech sounds. The Emitter was either face-to-face with another adult (the Recipient) or the two were back-to-back. The Recipient did not respond to any of the sounds. We found that 2-, but not 1-year-olds looked quicker and longer at the Recipient following speech than non-speech, suggesting that they expected her to respond to speech. These effects were specific to the face-to-face context. Experiment 2 presented 1-year-olds with similar face-to-face exchanges but modified to engage infants and minimize task demands. The infants looked quicker to the Recipient following speech than non-speech, suggesting that they expected a response to speech. The study suggests that by 1 year of age infants expect communicative actions to be directed at a third-party listener.
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32
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Kennedy K, Lagattuta KH, Sayfan L. Sibling composition, executive function, and children's thinking about mental diversity. J Exp Child Psychol 2015; 132:121-39. [PMID: 25687549 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.11.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2014] [Revised: 11/21/2014] [Accepted: 11/24/2014] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Prior investigations of relations between sibling composition and theory of mind have focused almost exclusively on false belief understanding in children 6 years of age and younger. The current work expands previous research by examining whether sibling composition predicts 4- to 11-year-olds' (N=192) more advanced mental state reasoning on interpretive theory of mind tasks. Even when controlling for age and executive function, children with a greater number of older siblings or with more same-sex siblings demonstrated stronger knowledge in both their predictions and explanations that people with different past experiences can have diverse interpretations of ambiguous stimuli. These data provide some of the first documentation of sibling constellations that predict individual differences in theory of mind during middle childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katie Kennedy
- Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Kristin Hansen Lagattuta
- Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
| | - Liat Sayfan
- Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
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33
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Shneidman L, Todd R, Woodward A. Why do child-directed interactions support imitative learning in young children? PLoS One 2014; 9:e110891. [PMID: 25333623 PMCID: PMC4205006 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110891] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2014] [Accepted: 09/20/2014] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Child-directed cues support imitation of novel actions at 18 months, but not at two years of age. The current studies explore the mechanisms that underlie the propensity that children have to copy others at 18 months, and how the value of child-directed communication changes over development. We ask if attentional allocation accounts for children's failure to imitate observed actions at 18 months, and their success at two years of age, and we explore the informational value child-directed contexts may provide across ontogeny. Eighteen-month-old (Study 1) and two-year-old (Study 2) children viewed causally non-obvious actions performed by child-directed (Study 1 & 2), observed (Study 1 & 2), or non-interactive (Study 2) actors, and their visual attention and imitative behaviors were assessed. Results demonstrated that child-directed contexts supported imitative learning for 18-month-old children, independent of their effects on proximal attention. However, by two years of age, neither directness nor communication between social partners was a necessary condition for supporting social imitation. These findings suggest that developmental changes in children's propensity to extract information from observation cannot be accounted for by changes in children's interpretation of what counts as child-directed information, and are likely not due to changes in how children allocate attention to observed events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Shneidman
- University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Roisleen Todd
- University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Amanda Woodward
- University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
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34
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Repacholi BM, Meltzoff AN, Rowe H, Toub TS. Infant, Control Thyself: Infants' Integration of Multiple Social Cues to Regulate Their Imitative Behavior. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2014; 32:46-57. [PMID: 27682643 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.04.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
This study investigated 15-month-old infants' (N = 150) ability to self-regulate based on observing a social interaction between two adults. Infants were bystanders to a social exchange in which an Experimenter performed actions on objects and an Emoter expressed anger, as if they were forbidden acts. Next, the Emoter became neutral and her visual access to the infant was experimentally manipulated. The Emoter either: (a) left the room, (b) turned her back, (c) faced the infant but looked down at a magazine, or (d) faced and looked toward the infant. Infants were then presented with the test objects. When the previously angry Emoter was facing them, infants were hesitant to imitate the demonstrated acts in comparison to the other conditions. We hypothesize that infants integrated the emotional and visual-perceptual cues to determine whether the Emoter would get angry at them, and then regulated their behavior accordingly. Temperament was related to infants' self-regulation -infants with higher impulsivity scores were more likely to perform the forbidden acts. Taken together, these findings provide insight into the roots of executive functions in late infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Betty M Repacholi
- Department of Psychology and the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences
| | - Andrew N Meltzoff
- Department of Psychology and the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences
| | - Hillary Rowe
- Department of Psychology and the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences
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35
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Turner CR, Nielsen M, Collier-Baker E. Groups' actions trump injunctive reaction in an incidental observation by young children. PLoS One 2014; 9:e107375. [PMID: 25198163 PMCID: PMC4157860 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107375] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2014] [Accepted: 08/15/2014] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Children's ability to use social information to direct their behavior is key to their survival and development. However, in observing adult behavior, children are confronted with multiple forms of social information that may vary in reliability and adaptiveness. Two of the most well established biases influencing human behavior are: (1) following the majority (majority influence or conformity); and (2) the use of emotional signals. The current experiment aimed to evaluate how children respond when both information about the majority behavior of a group (descriptive norm) and attitudes of the group towards a behavior (injunctive norm, expressed through an emotional reaction) are present and what happens when they are in conflict. We used a method designed to mimic the manner in which children might observe group members' behavior during development. Novel apparatuses were constructed for which there were two discrete actions that could be performed to retrieve a reward. Three-year-olds observed four adults demonstrating one set of actions, followed by a fifth adult who presented an alternative set of actions. The first four adults' injunctive responses to this fifth adult's actions were manipulated between-groups: positive, negative, or neutral. It was found that children preferred to copy the majority action, regardless of the injunctive reaction of the group. We argue that this affirms the adaptive utility of copying the majority.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mark Nielsen
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
- School of Applied Human Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
| | - Emma Collier-Baker
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
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36
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Marshall PJ, Meltzoff AN. Neural mirroring mechanisms and imitation in human infants. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2014; 369:20130620. [PMID: 24778387 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0620] [Citation(s) in RCA: 126] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Studying human infants will increase our understanding of the nature, origins and function of neural mirroring mechanisms. Human infants are prolific imitators. Infant imitation indicates observation-execution linkages in the brain prior to language and protracted learning. Investigations of neural aspects of these linkages in human infants have focused on the sensorimotor mu rhythm in the electroencephalogram, which occurs in the alpha frequency range over central electrode sites. Recent results show that the infant mu rhythm is desynchronized during action execution as well as action observation. Current work is elucidating properties of the infant mu rhythm and how it may relate to prelinguistic action processing and social understanding. Here, we consider this neuroscience research in relation to developmental psychological theory, particularly the 'Like-Me' framework, which holds that one of the chief cognitive tasks of the human infant is to map the similarity between self and other. We elucidate the value of integrating neuroscience findings with behavioural studies of infant imitation, and the reciprocal benefit of examining mirroring mechanisms from an ontogenetic perspective.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter J Marshall
- Department of Psychology, Temple University, , 1701 North 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
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37
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The developmental cognitive neuroscience of action: semantics, motor resonance and social processing. Exp Brain Res 2014; 232:1585-97. [DOI: 10.1007/s00221-014-3924-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/05/2013] [Accepted: 03/19/2014] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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39
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Zieber N, Kangas A, Hock A, Hayden A, Collins R, Bada H, Joseph JE, Bhatt RS. Perceptual specialization and configural face processing in infancy. J Exp Child Psychol 2013; 116:625-39. [PMID: 23994509 PMCID: PMC3796849 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.07.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2011] [Revised: 07/11/2013] [Accepted: 07/11/2013] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Adults' face processing expertise includes sensitivity to second-order configural information (spatial relations among features such as distance between eyes). Prior research indicates that infants process this information in female faces. In the current experiments, 9-month-olds discriminated spacing changes in upright human male and monkey faces but not in inverted faces. However, they failed to process matching changes in upright house stimuli. A similar pattern of performance was exhibited by 5-month-olds. Thus, 5- and 9-month-olds exhibited specialization by processing configural information in upright primate faces but not in houses or inverted faces. This finding suggests that, even early in life, infants treat faces in a special manner by responding to changes in configural information more readily in faces than in non-face stimuli. However, previously reported differences in infants' processing of human versus monkey faces at 9 months of age (but not at younger ages), which have been associated with perceptual narrowing, were not evident in the current study. Thus, perceptual narrowing is not absolute in the sense of loss of the ability to process information from other species' faces at older ages.
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40
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Moll H, Kadipasaoglu D. The primacy of social over visual perspective-taking. Front Hum Neurosci 2013; 7:558. [PMID: 24058341 PMCID: PMC3767909 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00558] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2013] [Accepted: 08/22/2013] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
In this article, we argue for the developmental primacy of social over visual perspective-taking. In our terminology, social perspective-taking involves some understanding of another person's preferences, goals, intentions etc. which can be discerned from temporally extended interactions, including dialog. As is evidenced by their successful performance on various reference disambiguation tasks, infants in their second year of life first begin to develop such skills. They can, for example, determine which of two or more objects another is referring to based on previously expressed preferences or the distinct quality with which these objects were jointly explored. The pattern of findings from developmental research further indicates that this ability emerges sooner than analogous forms of visual perspective-taking. Our explanatory account of this developmental sequence highlights the primary importance of joint attention and the formation of common ground with others. Before children can develop an awareness of what exactly is seen or how an object appears from a particular viewpoint, they must learn to share attention and build common "experiential" ground. Learning about others' as well as one's own "snapshot" perspectives in a literal, i.e., optical sense of the term, is a secondary step that affords an abstraction from all (prior) pragmatic involvement with objects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Henrike Moll
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA, USA
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Abstract
Drawing on research reviewed in this special section, the present article discusses how various contextual factors impact on production and decoding of emotion-related facial activity. Although emotion-related variables often contribute to activation of prototypical “emotion expressions” and perceivers can often infer emotional meanings from these facial configurations, neither process is invariant or direct. Many facial movements are directed towards or away from events in the shared environment, and their effects depend on these relational orientations. Facial activity is not only a medium for descriptive representation of internal affective states, but also a means of adjusting to, and operating on, external objects, and of influencing other people’s appraisals of those objects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian Parkinson
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK
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Abstract
This paper distinguishes processes potentially contributing to interpersonal anxiety transfer, including object-directed social appraisal, empathic worry, and anxiety contagion, and reviews evidence for their operation. We argue that these anxiety-transfer processes may be exploited strategically when attempting to regulate relationship partners' emotion. More generally, anxiety may serve as either a warning signal to other people about threat (alerting function) or an appeal for emotional support or practical help (comfort-seeking function). Tensions between these two interpersonal functions may account for mutually incongruent interpersonal responses to expressed anxiety, including mistargeted interpersonal regulation attempts. Because worry waxes and wanes over time as a function of other people's ongoing reactions, interpersonal interventions may help to alleviate some of its maladaptive consequences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian Parkinson
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
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Kinzler KD, Dupoux E, Spelke ES. "Native" Objects and Collaborators: Infants' Object Choices and Acts of Giving Reflect Favor for Native Over Foreign Speakers. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2012; 13:67-81. [PMID: 23105918 PMCID: PMC3478775 DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2011.567200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
Abstract
Infants learn from adults readily and cooperate with them spontaneously, but how do they select culturally appropriate teachers and collaborators? Building on evidence that children demonstrate social preferences for speakers of their native language, Experiment 1 presented 10-month-old infants with videotaped events in which a native and a foreign speaker introduced two different toys. When given a chance to choose between real exemplars of the objects, infants preferentially chose the toy modeled by the native speaker. In Experiment 2, 2.5-year-old children were presented with the same videotaped native and foreign speakers, and played a game in which they could offer an object to one of two individuals. Children reliably gave to the native speaker. Together, the results suggest that infants and young children are selective social learners and cooperators, and that language provides one basis for this selectivity.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Emmanuel Dupoux
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, EHESS
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Repacholi BM. Linking actions and emotions: Evidence from 15- and 18-month-old infants. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2010; 27:649-67. [DOI: 10.1348/026151008x354564] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
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Silva KG, Correa-Chávez M, Rogoff B. Mexican-Heritage Children’s Attention and Learning From Interactions Directed to Others. Child Dev 2010; 81:898-912. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01441.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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Williamson RA, Jaswal VK, Meltzoff AN. Learning the rules: observation and imitation of a sorting strategy by 36-month-old children. Dev Psychol 2010; 46:57-65. [PMID: 20053006 DOI: 10.1037/a0017473] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Two experiments were used to investigate the scope of imitation by testing whether 36-month-olds can learn to produce a categorization strategy through observation. After witnessing an adult sort a set of objects by a visible property (their color; Experiment 1) or a nonvisible property (the particular sounds produced when the objects were shaken; Experiment 2), children showed significantly more sorting by those dimensions relative to children in control groups, including a control in which children saw the sorted endstate but not the intentional sorting demonstration. The results show that 36-month-olds can do more than imitate the literal behaviors they see; they also abstract and imitate rules that they see another person use.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rebecca A Williamson
- Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, PO Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA.
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Emotional instability, poor emotional awareness, and the development of borderline personality. Dev Psychopathol 2010; 21:1293-310. [PMID: 19825269 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579409990162] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
Emotional instability and poor emotional awareness are cardinal features of the emotional dysregulation associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Most models of the development of BPD include child negative emotional reactivity and grossly inadequate caregiving (e.g., abuse, emotional invalidation) as major contributing factors. However, early childhood emotional reactivity and exposure to adverse family situations are associated with a diverse range of long-term outcomes. We examine the known effects of these risk factors on early childhood emotional functioning and their potential links to the emergence of chronic emotional instability and poor emotional awareness. This examination leads us to advocate new research directions. First, we advocate for enriching the developmental assessment of children's emotional functioning to more closely capture clinically relevant aspects. Second, we advocate for conceptualizing children's early family experiences in terms of the proximal emotional environment to which young children may be or become sensitive. Such approaches should contribute to our ability to identify risk for BPD and guide preventive intervention.
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