she was no longer merely a creature who needed feed-
ing and cleaning, but that she was telling him that
‘‘she’s with us’’—becoming an active contributor to
family relationships.
Although the diary entry points out the impor-
tance of emotions in everyday life, a national survey
released by the organization Zero to Three revealed
that parents have relatively little knowledge and in-
formation about their children’s emotional develop-
ment. Although parents believed that what they did
as parents had the greatest influence on their chil-
dren’s emotional development, they also said that
they had the least information in this area.
This lack of information about children’s emo-
tional development may stem in part from emotions
being internal processes that are difficult to study. Be-
cause of this, for many decades researchers ignored
the study of emotions. More recently, the study of
emotions and emotional development has seen a re-
surgence of interest as developmental scientists agree
that the study of emotions is central to an understand-
ing of child development. Additionally, more sophis-
ticated methods have been developed to study
emotions.
Historically, emotions have proved remarkably
difficult to define. This might seem surprising given
that emotions are such a common human phenome-
non. Emotions have been considered to be synony-
mous with certain patterns of facial expression,
physiological reactions, muscular feedback, or brain
activity. None of these definitions has proved ade-
quate, and emotions are now considered to be closely
linked with what a person is trying to do: They reflect
a person’s attempt or readiness to establish, maintain,
or change the relation between the person and his or
her environment. For example, a child who over-
comes obstacles to a goal is likely to experience hap-
piness. In contrast, a child who has a goal blocked is
likely to experience anger. A child who gives up a goal
is likely to experience sadness. These are not the only
ways that emotions can be generated, but this func-
tional definition of emotion helps us understand that
emotions organize and coordinate both intrapsychic
(e.g., thoughts and motivations) and interpersonal
(e.g., social interactions) processes.
Emotional Development in Infancy and
Toddlerhood
There is a fair amount of consensus that distress,
pleasure, anger, fear, and interest are among the ear-
liest emotions experienced by infants, although ex-
actly when these emotions appear is still debated. As
infants develop, emotions become more differentiat-
ed. For example, the earliest smiles are reflexive and
often occur during sleep. By six months, smiling is
more sophisticated and social. It increasingly results
from the interactions between infants and their care-
givers. Crying is another powerful emotional behav-
ior that is present in early development and is an
effective tool for communicating with the social
world. Children cry more during infancy than at any
other period and their cries differ in their patterns
depending on whether they are in pain, hungry, or
angry.
Infants also have strategies for regulating their
emotions. Research by Sarah Mangelsdorf and her
colleagues indicates that from six to eighteen months,
infants’ emotional regulation strategies change. Al-
though gaze aversion and sucking characterize youn-
ger infants’ responses to a distressing situation, older
infants are better able to engage in self-soothing or
distract themselves.Emotions and Early Relationships
It is clear that parents play an important role in
children’s emotional development. Through rela-
tionships with caregivers, children develop a sense of
themselves and of others, and get clues about the way
that the world works. For example, an infant who has
fallen down and is unsure of whether he is hurt may
look to his parent for information. Social referencing
provides an infant with an opportunity to get feed-
back from a caregiver about how to feel in an uncer-
tain situation.
Joseph Campos and his colleagues studied young
children’s fear of heights using a clever apparatus
known as the ‘‘visual cliff’’ (which has a pane of glass
over a visible drop-off). Fear or wariness of heights
does not emerge until after some experience with
crawling—it is not inborn. New crawlers will crawl
over what appears to be a cliff, whereas infants with
a month or two of crawling experience will not. Im-
portantly, parents’ facial expressions can also encour-
age infants to cross the cliff or stay in place. An infant
who sees her mother display a fear expression will not
cross, whereas a happy expression will encourage
movement across the cliff. Thus, children can learn
how to feel in emotional situations by observing their
parents’ reactions, and many of the common fears
(such as fear of spiders) are thought to be learned in
this way.
Stanley Greenspan detailed a series of emotional
stages during infancy and toddlerhood that span the
course of development from self-regulation to emo-
tional understanding. He believes that the key to
healthy emotional development is based on the ‘‘fit’’
between the parent’s style of interaction and the in-
teractive style and needs of the child. Take the case
of a highly irritable infant and a highly negative andEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 133