4.1 Emotional Development

In the first two years, infants progress from reactive pain and pleasure to complex patterns of social awareness (see At About This Time) (Lewis, 2010). This is a period of high emotional responsiveness (Izard et al., 2002), expressed in speedy, uncensored reactions—crying, startling, laughing, raging—and, by toddlerhood, in complex responses, from self-satisfied grins to mournful pouts. As always, culture and experience influence the norms of development. This is especially true for emotional development after the first eight months.

Early Emotions

The earliest emotions, also called primary emotions, emerge within the first 6 months (Izard, 1978). At first, there is pleasure and pain. Newborns are happy and relaxed when fed and drifting off to sleep. They cry when they are hurt or hungry, tired or frightened (as by a loud noise or a sudden loss of support). Some infants have bouts of uncontrollable crying, called colic—probably the result of immature digestion. About 20 percent of babies cry excessively, defined as more than three hours a day, for more than three days a week, for more than three weeks (Kim, 2011).

Smiles All Around Joy is universal when an infant smiles at her beaming grandparents. This particular scene takes place in Kazakhstan, in central Asia.

CHRISTOPHER HERWIG/GETTY IMAGES

Smiling and LaughingSoon, additional emotions become recognizable (Lavelli & Fogel, 2005). Curiosity is evident as infants (and people of all ages) respond to objects and experiences that are new but not too novel. Happiness is expressed by the social smile, evoked by a human face at about 6 weeks. A social smile is a developmental milestone as it indicates that the infant is intentionally communicating with others (e.g., inviting adults to interact with her, or responding to somebody else’s smile). Preterm babies smile a few weeks later because the social smile is determined by cognition (development of the brain), which is less developed for preterm babies.

Infants worldwide express social joy, even laughter, between 2 and 4 months (Konner, 2007; Lewis, 2010). Among the Navajo, whoever brings forth that first laugh gives a feast to celebrate the baby’s becoming a person (Rogoff, 2003). Laughter builds as curiosity does; a typical 6-month-old laughs loudly upon discovering new things, particularly social experiences that have the right balance between familiarity and surprise, such as Daddy making a funny face.

Anger and SadnessThe positive emotions of joy and contentment are soon joined by negative emotions, more frequent in infancy than later on (Izard, 2009). Anger is evident at 6 months, usually triggered by frustration, such as when infants are prevented from moving or grabbing.

To see how infants responded to frustration, researchers gently restrained children’s arms from behind for 2 minutes or until 20 seconds of hard crying ensued (Mills-Koonce et al., 2011). Hard crying is a common reaction when infants are strapped in, caged in, closed in, or even just held in place when they want to explore.

In infancy, anger is a healthy response to frustration, unlike sadness, which also appears in the first months. Sadness indicates withdrawal and is accompanied by an increase in the body’s production of cortisol, the primary stress hormone.

In a series of experiments, 4-month-olds were taught to pull a string to see a picture, which they enjoyed—not unlike the leg-kicking described in Chapter 3. Then the string was disconnected. Most babies reacted by angrily jerking the string. Some, however, quit trying and looked sad (Lewis & Ramsay, 2005); their cortisol levels increased. This suggests that anger relieves stress, but that some babies learn to repress their anger.

Since sadness produces physiological stress (e.g., cortisol), sorrow negatively impacts the infant. All social emotions, particularly sadness and fear, probably shape the brain (Fries & Pollak, 2007; Johnson, 2010). As you learned in Chapter 3, experience matters.

FearFear in response to some person, thing, or situation (not just starting in surprise) is evident at about 6 to 9 months and soon becomes more frequent and obvious (Witherington et al., 2004). Two kinds of social fear are typical:

• Separation anxiety—clinging and crying when a familiar caregiver is about to leave
• Stranger wariness—especially when an unfamiliar person moves too close, too quickly.

Separation anxiety is normal at age 1 year, intensifies by age 2, and usually subsides after that. Fear of separation interferes with infant sleep. For example, if infants fall asleep next to familiar people, they may wake up terrified if they are alone (Sadeh et al., 2010). Some babies become accustomed to a transitional object, such as a teddy bear or blanket, that comforts them as they transition from sleeping in their parents’ arms to sleeping alone.

Transitional objects are not pathological; they are the infant’s way to cope with anxiety. However, if separation anxiety remains strong after age 3, it is considered an emotional disorder and is accompanied by physiological signs of distress (Kossowsky et al., 2012).

Developmentally Correct Both Santa’s smile and Olivia’s grimace are age-appropriate reactions. Babies between the ages of 6 to 9 months often have a fear of strangers, as Olivia, 7 months, shows here.

REUTERS/SUZANNE PLUNKETT

Strangers—especially those who move or appear unlike familiar caregivers—merit stares, not smiles, at age 1. This is a good sign: Infant memory is active and engaged. Many 1-year-olds fear not only strangers but also anything unexpected, from the flush of the toilet to the pop of a jack-in-the-box, from closing elevator doors to the tail-wagging approach of a dog. With repeated experience and reassurance, older infants might enjoy flushing the toilet (again and again) or calling the dog (and crying if the dog does not come).

Every aspect of early emotional development interacts with cultural beliefs, expressed in parental actions. There seems to be more separation anxiety and stranger wariness in Japan than in Germany because Japanese infants have very few experiences with separation from the mother, whereas in Germany, infants are more likely to experience time apart from their mothers (Saarni et al., 2006).

Toddlers’ Emotions

Emotions take on new strength during toddlerhood. This is evident in temper tantrums. Toddlers are famous for fury, when something angers them so much that they yell, scream, cry, and do something physical—throwing a chair, throwing a punch, or throwing themselves on the floor. Logic is beyond them; if adults respond with anger or teasing, that makes it worse. Soon sadness comes to the fore, and then comfort (not acquiescence or punishment) is helpful (Green et al., 2011).

Gradually, more complex emotions emerge as toddlers develop a sense of themselves in relation to others (social awareness) and of their own uniqueness as a person (self-awareness).

Social AwarenessTemper can be seen as an expression of selfhood. So can these new and more complex emotions: pride, shame, empathy, jealousy, embarrassment, and disgust. These emotions require social awareness, which emerges from family interactions and is shaped by culture (Mesquita & Leu, 2007).

Pride is experienced when the toddler feels joy at doing something successfully (Stipek et al., 1992). For example, many North American parents encourage toddler pride (saying, “You did it yourself!”), but Asian families typically discourage pride. Instead, they cultivate modesty and shame. Shame happens when a child thinks he or she has failed to meet the standards and expectations set by family or culture. This emotion then makes the child want to hide or disappear (Lewis, 1992).

Embarrassment occurs when a toddler feels confused and awkward as the result of unwanted attention. For example, a little boy can feel embarrassed simply from being stared at or pointed at by strangers. The difference between embarrassment and shame that shame stems from a sense of failure, but embarrassment is a result of unwanted attention from others, such as when an older person points at a child and exclaims, “Isn’t she adorable!”

The emotion of empathy allows a young child to actually share another person’s feelings. It is not uncommon for a toddler to look sad in the presence of a playmate who is crying and to pat that other child on the back (Lewis, 2007). Jealousy, on the other hand, makes a child want what someone else has, whether that something is a toy or food or attention.

Disgust as a physical reaction to an unpleasant taste or smell is evident very early. Even infants younger than 6 months will immediately spit out food that tastes bad or smells unpleasant. Disgust at a more complex level is strongly influenced by other people and age. For example, 18-month-olds (but not younger infants) express disgust at touching a dead animal (Stevenson et al., 2010).

By age 2, most children display the entire spectrum of emotions, and they begin to regulate their reactions, with more fear or boldness depending on experience (Saarni et al., 2006). For example, many toddlers hide behind their parents when a dog approaches. Depending on how their mother or father reacts to the dog, and their prior experience with pets, the toddler may peek out and perhaps pet the dog himself or herself.

Self-AwarenessIn addition to social awareness, another foundation for emotional growth is self-awareness, the realization that one’s body, mind, and activities are distinct from those of other people (Kopp, 2011). Closely following the new mobility that results from walking, an emerging sense of “me” and “mine” leads to a new consciousness of others at about age 1.

Very young infants have no sense of self—at least of self as most people define it (Harter, 2006). In fact, a prominent psychoanalyst, Margaret Mahler, theorized that for the first 4 months, infants see themselves as part of their mothers. At about 5 months, they begin to spend several months developing self-awareness (Mahler et al., 1975).

Some aspects of selfhood emerge before age 1, but

In a classic experiment known as the mirror/rouge test (Lewis & Brooks, 1978), 9- to 24-month-olds looked into a mirror after a dot of rouge had been surreptitiously put on their noses. If they reacted by touching their noses, that meant they knew the mirror showed their own faces. None of the babies younger than 12 months old showed that self-recognition, although they sometimes smiled and touched the dot on the “other” baby in the mirror. However, between 15 and 24 months, babies became self-aware, touching their noses with curiosity and puzzlement. Self-recognition usually emerges at about 18 months, along with two other advances: pretending and using first-person pronouns (I, me, mine, myself, my) (Lewis, 2010).

Who Is That? At 18 months, this boy is at the beginning of self-awareness, testing to see whether his mirror image will meet his finger.

ANTONIE JULIETTE/AGE FOTOSTOCK