Anger in Young Children

Goodenough, Florence L.

doi:10.1097/00005053-193211000-00080

Cited by 33 publications

(43 citation statements)

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“…For instance, found that mothers of 8.5-month-old locomoting infants reported a recent increase in the frequency and intensity of their infants' anger responses to events, a change that was likely related to infants' new goals (e.g., to reach or explore new or distant objects) often not being met (see also Goodenough, 1931;Zumbahlen, 1997). Relinquishing such goals due to an inability to accomplish them might also lead to increasing experiences of sadness (Bertenthal & Campos, 1990).…”

Section: B the Negativity Bias In Emotional Contagionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

Vaish¹,

Großmann²,

Woodward³

2008

Psychological Bulletin

937

615

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There is ample empirical evidence for an asymmetry in the way that adults use positive versus negative information to make sense of their world; specifically, across an array of psychological situations and tasks, adults display a negativity bias, or the propensity to attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information. This bias is argued to serve critical evolutionarily adaptive functions, but its developmental presence and ontogenetic emergence have never seriously been considered. Here, we argue for the existence of the negativity bias in early development, evident especially in research on infant social referencing but also in other developmental domains. We discuss ontogenetic mechanisms underlying the emergence of this bias, and explore not only its evolutionary but also its developmental functions and consequences. Throughout, we suggest ways to further examine the negativity bias in infants and older children, and we make testable predictions that would help clarify the nature of the negativity bias during early development. KeywordsNegativity bias; Affective asymmetry; Social-cognitive development; Emotion; Social referencing Infants are exposed to a great deal of social information from birth, and their ability to use this information effectively is critical for development in many domains and for survival in general. This raises several important questions: do infants attend equally to all facets of this information, or do they attend to certain facets more than others? Do they, in addition, learn and remember particular kinds of information better than others? What evolutionary and developmental consequences do these ways of approaching the environment have? In this paper, we propose that infants display a negativity bias: that is, infants attend more to, are more influenced by, and use to a greater degree negative rather than positive facets of their environment. We propose possible ontogenetic pathways for the emergence of the negativity bias, and we argue that this bias serves important evolutionary and developmental functions.

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Section: B the Negativity Bias In Emotional Contagionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

Vaish¹,

Großmann²,

Woodward³

2008

Psychological Bulletin

937

615

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…A different view posits that children learn to exert control over their emotions and their behaviors, and that they generally become more able to respect social norms as they age (Cairns, 1979;Goodenough, 1931;Tremblay, 2003;Tremblay & Nagin, 2005). Within this view, children are typically expected to exhibit less PA as they approach adolescence.…”

Section: Normative Developmental Patterns Of Aggressive Behaviorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The few studies that have focused on physically aggressive behaviors during infancy and toddlerhood show that occasional use of aggression is common among preschool children (Dionne, Tremblay, Boivin, Laplante, & Pérusse, 2003;Goodenough, 1931;Tremblay et al, 1999;Tremblay et al, 2004). Moreover, two recent studies on the development of PA or conduct problems from toddlerhood to middle childhood support the possibility that aggression in kindergarten reflects the continuation of a behavior pattern that began in the preschool years.…”

Section: Atypical Developmental Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of Physical Aggression from Toddlerhood to Pre-Adolescence: A Nation Wide Longitudinal Study of Canadian Children

Côté

Vaillancourt

LeBlanc

et al. 2006

J Abnorm Child Psychol

515

413

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The objectives of the study were to model the developmental trajectories of physical aggression (PA) from toddlerhood to pre-adolescence and to identify risk factors that distinguish typical (normative) from atypical developmental patterns. Ten cohorts of approximately 1,000 children (n = 10,658) drawn form a nationally representative (Canadian) sample were followed over 6 years. Using a group-based trajectory approach, we identified three groups of children with distinct developmental trajectories between 2 and 11 years of age. One third of the children (31.1%) followed a low desisting trajectory, reflected in infrequent use of PA in toddlerhood and virtually no PA by pre-adolescence. The majority of children (52.2%) followed a moderate desisting trajectory, reflected in occasional use of PA in toddlerhood and infrequent use by pre-adolescence. One sixth of the children (16.6%) followed a high stable trajectory of PA. Multivariate logistic regression indicated that children in the high PA trajectory group were more likely to be boys (OR: 1.67; CI: 1.5-1.87), from low income families (OR: 1.4; CI; 1.27-1.67), from families where the mother had not completed high school (OR: 1.20; CI: 1.05-1.38) and who reported using hostile/ineffective parenting strategies (OR: 1.16; CI: 1.14-1.18). In sum, the results indicate that the typical developmental pattern of PA was one of occasional and declining use over time. However, about one sixth of children, mostly boys from disadvantaged families, exhibited an atypical developmental pattern reflected in more frequent and stable use of PA. The results suggest that most children learned relatively well to inhibit PA by the end of childhood and that a minority failed to do so. Family risks traditionally found to be associated with antisocial behaviors during adolescence appear to interfere with the socialization of PA during early and middle childhood.

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“…For instance, in one of the earliest account of infants' social interactions, Bridges (1933) documented the occurrence of "aggressive attacks" involving biting, hair-pulling and hitting at around 14-15 months of age (see also Brownlee & Bakeman, 1981;Bronson, 1981;Bühler, 1931Bühler, , 1935Dunn & Munn, 1985;Eckerman, Whatley & Kutz, 1975;Goodenough, 1931;Shirley, 1933). More recently, based on mothers' retrospective reports, Tremblay et al (1999) estimated the age of onset of some physically aggressive behaviors among children who manifested the behaviors in question at 17 months of age.…”

Section: Physically Aggressive Behaviors In Children Under Two Years mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender differences in physical aggression: A prospective population-based survey of children before and after 2 years of age.

Baillargeon

Zoccolillo

Keenan

et al. 2007

Developmental Psychology

197

157

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There has been much controversy over the past decades on the origins of gender differences in children's aggressive behavior. A widely held view is that gender differences emerge sometime after 2 years of age and increase in magnitude thereafter because of gender-differentiated socialization practices. The objective of this study was to test for (a) gender differences in the prevalence of physical aggression in the general population of 17-month-old children and (b) change in the magnitude of these differences between 17 and 29 months of age. Contrary to the differential socialization hypothesis, the results showed substantial gender differences in the prevalence of physical aggression at 17 months of age, with 5% of boys but only 1% of girls manifesting physically aggressive behaviors on a frequent basis. The results suggest that there is no change in the magnitude of these differences between 17 and 29 months of age.

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Anger in Young Children

Cited by 33 publications

References 0 publications

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

The Development of Physical Aggression from Toddlerhood to Pre-Adolescence: A Nation Wide Longitudinal Study of Canadian Children

Gender differences in physical aggression: A prospective population-based survey of children before and after 2 years of age.

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