327

10Psychosocial and Emotional Development

Fuse/Thinkstock

Learning Objectives

After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

• Describe attachment theory, how early attachment occurs, and variations in attachment relationships.

• Describe the emergence of positive and negative emotions.

• Discuss the process and purpose of social referencing and empathy, and their relationships to developing emotions.

• Identify examples of emotional regulation and potential influences of social and cultural variables.

• Explain how separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, and self-conscious emotions represent developmental advancements.

• List some of the behavioral signs of depression, and identify high-risk behaviors that are markers for poten- tial suicide.

• Summarize socioemotional selectivity theory and its relationship to emotional development.

mos82599_10_c10_327-360.indd 327 2/11/16 9:05 AM

© 2016 Bridgepoint Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Not for resale or redistribution.

328

Prologue

Chapter Outline

Prologue

10.1 Attachment Attachment Theory Measuring Attachment Multiple Attachments and Diversity Fathers and Attachment Long-Term Effects of Attachment

10.2 The Development of Emotions Positive Emotions Negative Emotions Emotional Development and Culture

10.3 Understanding Others: Social Referencing and Empathy Social Referencing Empathy

10.4 Emotional Regulation

10.5 The Growth of Emotional Expression Stranger Anxiety Separation Anxiety Self-Conscious Emotions Neuroscience and Emotions

10.6 Emotional Difficulties in Adolescence Depression Gender and Ethnic Difference in Depression Suicide

10.7 Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

Summary & Resources

Prologue I once coached a basketball team of 11-year-old girls. It was a highly competitive league, but we were out to have fun as well. My slight, 4 1/2-foot-tall daughter was on the team, as was a girl she eventually befriended, Crystal, who was about a foot taller, about 50 pounds heavier, and well into puberty. Crystal could easily have passed for 16 years old. After one particularly hard practice, I gave a few of the girls hugs of encouragement as they were leaving. I did not really think anything of it at the time.

At the beginning of the next practice, Crystal’s mother made a point of letting me know that my hug had a tremendous impact on Crystal and later brought her mother to tears. Because of her size, adults rarely treated Crystal as the young child she was. Sometimes adult men would flirt with her or otherwise look at her in a way that was entirely inappropriate even for a teenager, let alone an 11-year-old. As a result, Crystal had changed from an outgoing child to one who was more withdrawn.

mos82599_10_c10_327-360.indd 328 2/11/16 9:05 AM

© 2016 Bridgepoint Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Not for resale or redistribution.

329

Section 10.1 Attachment

Crystal’s emotional development was on par with that of my daughter. In nearly every way in which development is measured, Crystal and Mariana were identical, but you would not know it by looking at the two of them on a basketball court. Even though Crystal was able to throw around her size and weight to the team’s advantage, she still liked dolls, children’s music, and stuffed animals. My hug, and Mariana’s friendship, apparently allowed her to recapture the social and emotional processes that had become detoured. Her mother reported that the turnaround was immediate and sustained; Crystal had once again become more outgoing and child-like.

Beginning with this chapter, we will see that factors that directed Crystal’s social, emotional, and personality development are even harder to pinpoint than those related to physical and cognitive development. Although there are many universal aspects to psychosocial and emo- tional development, it is especially important to remain aware of the lasting effects of indi- vidual experiences, like Crystal’s.

10.1 Attachment Certainly there is an evolutionary advantage for adults to care for their children and to con- nect emotionally with them. But as explained earlier, since mothers were historically at risk during birth there is also an evolutionary advantage for any adult to bond with a neonate. And that appears to be the case. It turns out that the closeness that mothers feel toward their new- borns is the same feeling that fathers and other adults have too. Part of the response that both mothers and fathers feel is due to the production of the hormone oxytocin (Gordon, Zagoory- Sharon, Leckman, & Feldman, 2010). The same response occurs during other “love” behav- iors, such as a hug or a kiss. This initial bond that adults feel is essentially a one-way relation- ship (Roisman & Groh, 2011). Adults can experience this spontaneous emotional connection to many people, or even a pet. It is not the same thing as a sustained two-way relationship.

Instead, attachment describes a sustained, developmen- tal (rather than spontaneous) connection. It emerges as a result of a close relationship between a child and at least one caregiver, usually a parent. Although psycho- social attachment takes place due to biological and evo- lutionary mandates, the way it is expressed is almost entirely a function of the social environment. That is not to suggest that children are a tabula rasa (or blank slate) with regard to attachment. Instead, available adults, whose presence is independent of infants’ inter- nal states, determine the attachment relationships that children will make.

In a series of famous experiments with monkeys, Harry Harlow dramatically demonstrated the need for affection and comfort. In one experiment, Harlow separated baby rhesus mon- keys from their mothers soon after birth and provided nutrition only from a bottle. He soon noticed that the infant monkeys formed an attachment to the soft material that lined their cages. When the material was removed, the monkeys threw violent temper tantrums. It became obvious that food and other physiological needs were insufficient for proper growth.

Critical Thinking

Contrary to what many people think, babies do not automatically develop a preference for their biological mothers (or fathers) during the first months of infancy. In what way might this behavior have an evolutionary advantage?

mos82599_10_c10_327-360.indd 329 2/11/16 9:05 AM

© 2016 Bridgepoint Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Not for resale or redistribution.

330

Section 10.1 Attachment

In a series of follow-up experiments, he first raised monkeys in a cage with a bare floor. Like humans who are denied appropriate emotional support and stimulation, those monkeys strug- gled even to survive. This research provided insight into the process of nonorganic failure to thrive, which is a phenomenon that sometimes occurs when children who receive sufficient nutrition nevertheless cease to grow. Cases are often multifaceted, how- ever, as children who are emotionally neglected are also sometimes denied proper nutrition and other forms of attention. Symptoms of nonorganic failure to thrive mimic the listlessness and underdevelopment of those suf- fering from severe malnutrition. These children do not always present any

biological cause for growth failure but begin to starve because they have been denied appro- priate affection, emotional support, and stimulation (Scholler & Nittur, 2012).

In another series of experiments, Harlow supplied wire-mesh cones and the babies did bet- ter. Finally, he covered the wire cones with soft terry cloth to form “surrogate” mothers and discovered that “husky, healthy, happy babies” emerged. Rather than mothers simply pro- viding sustenance through the breast, as Freud may have theorized, Harlow demonstrated that affection is indeed necessary for healthy development. “Above and beyond the bubbling fountain of breast or bottle, contact comfort might be a very important variable in the devel- opment of the infant’s affection for the mother” (Harlow, 1958, emphasis added). That is, the physical contact was deemed an essential factor in an infant’s sense of contentment.

Attachment Theory John Bowlby formulated attachment theory to help describe how early social experiences with primary caregivers affect relationships throughout the lifespan (Bowlby, 1969, 1973). Although Bowlby was influenced by psychodynamic theory, he dismissed the prevailing view that internal states were dependent on unconscious motivations. Instead, inspired by Konrad Lorenz’ ethological theory and the finding that early relationships in other animals are essen- tial to development, Bowlby focused on observable childhood phenomena. As a result, he the- orized that there are four phases of attachment, as outlined in Table 10.1. Bowlby recognized that babies at first have no preference for particular humans, but they begin to show strong emotional connections to adult caregivers beginning at 4 to 6 months. Bowlby used attach- ment theory to help explain how children who were physically separated from their parents thrived—or not—depending on how attached they became to alternate caregivers. His theory was instrumental in changing public policy about how children were treated during long hos- pital stays or other circumstances during which children and parents were separated.

Science Source/Getty Images