Current Emotion Research in Developmental Psychology

Abstract

Emotion theories based on research with adults must be able to accommodate developmental data if they are to be deemed satisfactory accounts of human emotion. Inspired in part by theory and research on adult emotion, developmentalists have investigated emotion-related processes including affect elicitation, internal and overtly observable emotion responding, emotion regulation, and understanding emotion in others. Many developmental studies parallel investigations conducted with adults. In this article, we review current theories of emotional development as well as research related to the several aspects of emotion designated above. Beyond providing an overview of the field, we hope to encourage greater cross-fertilization and research collaboration between developmental psychologists and scholars who focus on adult emotion.

Jealousy in Infants

“…Apart from what they tell about jealousy, these distinctions between anger and sadness are of interest for their contribution to the understanding of emotional expression in infants. In particular, they weigh in on the ongoing controversy over whether infants' facial expressions reflect a more generalized distress reaction or if they are meaningful in the sense that they map onto different kinds of internal states or felt experiences (Bennett et al 2002(Bennett et al , 2004Camras and Shuster 2013;Camras et al 1993;Izard 2004;Lemerise and Dodge 2008;Oster et al 1992;Saarni et al 2006). The distinctions that we found seem consistent with those uncovered by Lewis and Ramsay (2005) in research on infants' responses to goal blockage.…”

Emotional Abilities in Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD): Impairments in Perspective-Taking and Understanding Mixed Emotions are Associated with High Callous–Unemotional Traits

“…As more complex social contexts become more usual, the deficit in understanding ambivalent emotions in others may play an increasing role in maintaining or worsening ineffective social interactions. For the majority of children the capacity to appreciate mixed emotions is continuing to develop during the early school years [18,29]. Our results suggest that efforts to enhance emotional competence in these years could make use of these opportunities to improve children's understanding of mixed emotional contexts.…”

“…The current study examines the performance of young children in the first years of school across emotional competencies including 1) emotion perception, 2) emotion perspective-taking, 3) understanding the causes of emotions, and 4) understanding ambivalent or mixed emotions as well as their parents' ratings of their levels of 5) cognitive and affective empathy. By age 8 most children have progressed in each of these competencies and are beginning to experience and understand the social meaning of emotions such guilt and shame [18,29]. This study firstly compares children 4 to 8 years who have a diagnosis of ODD to their non-ODD peers, including a subgroup with internalising problems, across these four emotion competencies using behavioural measures, and on cognitive and affective empathy using parent's report.…”

Forms of vitality revisited: The construction of an affective bodily self

“…Understanding others' emotions is a complex matter. For example, one has to detect differences among emotional expressions, as well as among emotional and neutral expressions (for an overview on developmental studies, see Camras & Shuster, 2013).…”