Infant differential behavioral responding to discrete emotions.

Abstract

Emotional communication regulates the behaviors of social partners. Research on individuals' responding to others' emotions typically compares responses to a single negative emotion compared with responses to a neutral or positive emotion. Furthermore, coding of such responses routinely measure surface level features of the behavior (e.g., approach vs. avoidance) rather than its underlying function (e.g., the goal of the approach or avoidant behavior). This investigation examined infants' responding to others' emotional displays across 5 discrete emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. Specifically, 16-, 19-, and 24-month-old infants observed an adult communicate a discrete emotion toward a stimulus during a naturalistic interaction. Infants' responses were coded to capture the function of their behaviors (e.g., exploration; prosocial behavior; security seeking). The results revealed a number of instances indicating that infants use different functional behaviors in response to discrete emotions. Differences in behaviors across emotions were clearest in the 24-month-old infants, though younger infants also demonstrated some differential use of behaviors in response to discrete emotions. This is the first comprehensive study to identify differences in how infants respond with goal-directed behaviors to discrete emotions. Additionally, the inclusion of a function-based coding scheme and interpersonal paradigms may be informative for future emotion research with children and adults. Possible developmental accounts for the observed behaviors and the benefits of coding techniques emphasizing the function of social behavior over their form are discussed.

Parental communication about emotional contexts: Differences across discrete categories of emotion

“…Conversely, parents talked about the referent more in disgust, fear, and joy contexts than in sadness and anger contexts. These differences in parent talk about discrete emotions mirror some findings of infant behavioral responses to such contexts, specifically infants' physical avoidance of disgust referents, engagement with sad emoters, and social avoidance of angry emoters (Walle, Reschke, Camras, et al, ). However, it should be emphasized that although the frequency of parents' mentioning the emoter and the referent varied across discrete emotions, this does not signify that parents talked exclusively about one element or the other.…”

“…For example, increased parent focus on the emoter in sadness contexts may influence infant's prosocial responding to sad individuals whereas focus on a disgusting referent may result in physical avoidance of the object. Further study of how parent talk about discrete emotions corresponds with differential behavioral responding to such emotions (Walle, Reschke, Camras, et al, ) can inform our understanding of how parent socialization of emotion corresponds with infant functional affective responding (see Walle & Campos, ). More broadly, considering qualitative differences in the value and function of discrete emotions will sharpen our focus on how socialization practices, such as parent talk about emotions, facilitate emotional development.…”

“…However, a valence‐based approach precludes a full understanding of the development of discrete categories of emotion (Walle & Campos, ). A recent study by Walle, Reschke, Camras, and Campos () found that infants demonstrate distinct behavioral responses to discrete emotions gradually between 16 and 24 months of age. For example, 24‐month‐old infants were less likely to explore a referent when an experimenter expressed disgust than when she expressed sadness, and were more likely to socially avoid an emoter when she expressed anger than when she expressed sadness, fear, or disgust (16‐ and 19‐month‐old infants did not demonstrate these differences in responding).…”

“…The present study investigated how parents differentially discuss discrete emotional contexts (anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and joy) in a picture book task. Eighteen‐ and 24‐month‐old infants were included because infants in this age range demonstrate an emerging appreciation for discrete emotions (see Walle, Reschke, Camras, et al, ) and this is a period of considerable emotional development (see Walle & Campos, ). Amount of parent talk about the emotional contexts was predicted to increase with infant age (e.g., Lagattuta & Wellman, ).…”

The effect of emotional communication on infants' distinct prosocial behaviors

“…Thus, we explored whether infants' prosocial behavior varied (a) in response to a specific discrete emotion across age groups, and (b) across discrete emotions within a particular age group. For example, infants' use of indirect helping in response to an angry adult might be most prevalent by 24-month-old infants, an age group previously found to demonstrate more differentiated behavioral responses to this emotion than younger infants (see Walle et al, 2017). However, we refrained from making specific hypotheses for each possible comparison given the exploratory nature of the analyses.…”