Somatovisceral Influences on Emotional Development

Abstract

Frameworks of emotional development have tended to focus on how environmental factors shape children's emotion understanding. However, individual experiences of emotion represent a complex interplay between both external environmental inputs and internal somatovisceral signaling. Here, we discuss the importance of afferent signals and coordination between central and peripheral mechanisms in affective response processing. We propose that incorporating somatovisceral theories of emotions into frameworks of emotional development can inform how children understand emotions in themselves and others. We highlight promising directions for future research on emotional development incorporating this perspective, namely afferent cardiac processing and interoception, immune activation, physiological synchrony, and social touch.

The role of metamotivational knowledge in the regulation of motivation.

“…Although one can learn didactically about various task demands and strategies to address them, it may be more difficult to learn what a particular motivational state “feels like.” Our theorizing on metamotivational self-knowledge suggests that people need to be able to notice changes in their internal states, distinguish between states that resemble each other, and be willing to use this information to guide their self-regulatory efforts. Insights into the development of these abilities may require integrating ideas from other literatures, including constructs such as interoception (Faig et al, 2023), emotion differentiation (Kashdan et al, 2015; Seah & Coifman, 2022), and trust in feelings-as-information (Avnet et al, 2012), respectively. Unpacking how people develop and acquire metamotivational self-knowledge may thus prompt researchers to further break down silos and generate novel research connections.…”