Abstract
This chapter shows that, as children move from infancy into childhood, they begin to show considerable mastery of emotions. Emotions become more elaborated cognitively; for example, children begin to become aware of which emotions are socially acceptable or not, “good” or “bad,” and understand in which situations emotions are appropriate to express and which ones to be avoided. Overall, the control and understanding of emotions becomes considerably more complex, as children begin to acquire a more profound understanding of how emotions “work” in social settings, and they can adjust their emotional expressions accordingly—for example, they may dissimulate their feelings and express an emotion that is more desirable than what they are feeling, reflecting increasing knowledge about how emotions are related to cultural and social rules and conventions. This expansion of emotional sophistication goes along with cognitive growth that permits children to not only enact emotions, but to reflect about them and represent them. Emotions thus can become objects to be thought about—just as the child can begin to think about the self as an object of thought. These capacities to think about self and one’s emotions are aided by the acquisition of language, which further broadens the meaning of and communication about emotions; the presence of language further is known to relate to the capacity to regulate emotions and render them more controllable.
Crucial in the continuing growth of emotions and their understanding and regulation is the emergence of self-awareness, a capacity through which, as Piaget suggests, “the subject takes consciousness of his own activity.” Self-awareness also highlights the moral consequences of emotion-related actions and brings forward “self-conscious emotions” such as pride, shame, or guilt that carry moral importance. The chapter concludes with empathy as a moral emotion of particular importance at all levels of development—here discussed in young children.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In the language of psychology and psychoanalysis, and even in ordinary discourse, “object” often refers to a person (e.g., parent) of whom the child has a representation and to whom he or she is attached—as in the popular reference to somebody as an “object” of our desire.
- 2.
In later chapters we will see that this sense of “autonomous” morality continues to develop well into adulthood.
- 3.
As pointed out later, the specific nature of the child–parent relationship is extremely important in that respect.
- 4.
The experimental setup and the children’s astonishingly competent responses can be watched by turning to youTube and entering “Heineken Prizes—Professor Michael Tomasello”.
- 5.
The addition of chimpanzees may seem a surprising research choice—but it was motivated by a great scientific interest in the evolution and development of empathy and confirmed that chimpanzees, too, are endowed with it.
References
Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Gibbs, J., & Lieberman, M. (1983). A longitudinal study of moral judgment. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48(1–2), 1–124.
Cole, P. M. (1986). Children’s spontaneous control of facial expression. Child Development, 57, 1309–1321.
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Darwin, C. R. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: John Murray.
Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71–100.
Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2006). Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. TheScientificWorldJournal, 6, 1146–1163.
Decety, J., & Meyer, M. (2008). From emotion resonance to empathic understanding: A social developmental neuroscience account. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 1053–1080. doi:10.1017/S0954579408000503.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1975). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Gewirth, A. (1984). Ethics. In Encyclopedia Britannica (15th ed., Vol. 6, pp. 976–998). Chicago: Ecyclopedia Britannica.
Goldberg, E., & Costa, L. (1981). Hemispheric differences in the acquisition and use of descriptive systems. Brains and Language, 14, 144–173.
Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 852–870). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Hare, R. M. (1981). Moral thinking: Its levels, method, and point. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Hariri, A. R., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Mazziotta, J. C. (2000). Modulating emotional responses: Effects of a neocortical network on the limbic system. Neuroreport, 11, 43–48.
Harris, P. L. (1989). Children and emotions: The development of psychological understanding. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Harris, P. L., Johnson, C. N., Hutton, D., Andrews, G., & Cooke, T. (1989). Young children’s theory of mind and emotion. Cognition and Emotions, 3, 379–400.
Hoffman, M.L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. New York: Cambridge University Press. (This book has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Serbian.)
Jackson, P. L., Brunet, E., Meltzoff, A. N., & Decety, J. (2006). Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain. Neuropsychologia, 44(5), 752–761.
Kagan, J. (1981). The second year: The emergence of self-awareness. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992). Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
Kochanska, G. (2002). Mutually responsive orientation between mothers and their young children: A context for the early development of conscience. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(6), 191–195.
Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive developmental cognitive developmental approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research (pp. 347–480). Chicago: Rand McNally.
Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on moral development (The philosophy of moral development, Vol. I). San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-064760-4.
Labouvie-Vief, G., DeVoe, M., & Bulka, D. (1989). Speaking about feelings: Conceptions of emotion across the life span. Psychology and Aging, 4, 425–437.
Lagatutta, K. H., & Thompson, R. A. (2007). The development of self-conscious emotion. In J. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions (pp. 91–113). New York: Guilford Press.
Lamm, C., Batson, C. D., & Decety, J. (2007). The neural substrate of human empathy: Effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(1), 42–58.
Lamm, C., Porges, E. C., Cacioppo, J. T., & Decety, J. (2008). Perspective taking is associated with specific facial responses during empathy for pain. Brain Research, 1227, 153–161.
Lewis, M. (1993). Self-conscious emotions: Embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt. New York: Guilford Press.
Lewis, M., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (1979). Social cognition and the acquisition of the self. New York: Plenum Press.
Lewis, M., & Haviland-Jones, J. M. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of emotions (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Merriam, E. P., Garver, K. E., Minschew, N. J., et al. (2001). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18, 421–428.
Luria, A. R. (1932). The nature of human conflicts. New York: Liveright.
Luria, A. R. (1967). The regulative function of speech in its development and dissolution. In K. Salzinger & S. Salzinger (Eds.), Research in verbal behavior and some neurophysiological implications (pp. 405–427). New York: Academic.
Piaget, J. (1981). Intelligence and affectivity: Their relationship during child development (T. A. Brown & C. E. Kaegi, Trans.). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.
Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(1), 1–20; discussion 20–71.
Saarni, C. (1984). Observing children’s use of display rules: Age and sex differences. Child Development, 59, 367–377.
Saarni, C. (1999). The development of emotional competence. New York: Guilford Press.
Schore, A. N. (1998a). Early shame experiences and infant brain development. In G. Gilbert & B. Andrews (Eds.), Shame, interpersonal behavior, psychopathology, and culture (pp. 57–77). New York: Oxford University Press.
Schore, A. N. (1998b). Early shame experiences and infant brain development. In G. Gilbert & B. Andrews (Eds.), Shame, interpersonal behavior, psychopathology, and culture (pp. 337–358). New York: Oxford University Press.
Singer, T. (2006). The neuronal basis of empathy and mind-reading: Review of literature and implications for future research. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 30(6), 855–863.
Stein, N. L., & Levine, L. (1987). Thinking about feelings: The development and organization of emotional knowledge. In R. E. Snow & M. Farr (Eds.), Aptitude, leaning and instruction: Vol. 3. Cognition, conation, and affect. Hilldale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. (2007). What’s moral about the self-conscious emotions? In J. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions. New York: Guilford Press.
Tomkins, S. S. (1962). Affect, imagery, consciousness: The positive affects (Vol. 1, Ch. 9). New York: Springer.
Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2007). The self in self-conscious emotions: A cognitive appraisal approach. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tagney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 3–20). New York: Guilford.
Warneken, F., Hare, B., Melis, A. P., Hanus, D., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Spontaneous altruism by chimpanzees and young children. Science, 311, 1301–1303.
Werner, H. (1957). Comparative psychology of mental development. Oxford: International Universities Press.
Werner, H., & Kaplan, B. (1963). Symbol formation: An organismic developmental approach to language and the expression of thought. New York: Wiley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Labouvie-Vief, G. (2015). Cognitive–Emotional Development in Childhood. In: Integrating Emotions and Cognition Throughout the Lifespan. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09822-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09822-7_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-09821-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-09822-7
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)