Emotional Development during Infancy and Childhood - Development of Emotion

Topics

Introduction
How Did Psychologists Respond?
Age-wise Emotional Changes
Real-Life Application
Key Point Summary

CISCE: Class 12

Introduction

When babies are born, they do not show clear emotions. Their reactions are general and not specific to any feeling. As babies grow, their emotions slowly become clearer and separated.

CISCE: Class 12

How Did Psychologists Respond?

Several psychologists watched the recordings and gave different labels for the baby’s reactions:

Emotion Reported	Number of Psychologists
Anger	21
Hunger	12
Pain	6
Colic Pain	11
Awakened from Sleep	11
Noise	1
Grief	1
Rage	1
Fear	7
Bandage tight	1

The baby’s reaction was massive excitement that did not clearly match one emotion.
Psychologists gave many different answers, showing it’s hard to put a label on a newborn’s feelings.
This disagrees with Watson’s belief that babies are born with clear emotions like fear, rage, and love.

CISCE: Class 12

Age-wise Emotional Changes

Age	Emotions Seen	How They Show
Birth	General excitement	Gasping, crying, random movement
3 months	Distress, Delight	Crying for distress, smiling for delight
6 months	Anger, Disgust, Fear	Different faces, loud crying, stiff body
12 months	Elation, Affection	Happy smiles, attachment to familiar people or things
18 months	Jealousy, Affection for adults/children	Shares or shows strong likes/dislikes
24 months	Joy, Elation, Mature Affection	Laughs, hugs, shows deep feelings

CISCE: Class 12

Real-Life Application

Example from Experiments:

Researchers watched babies’ reactions to things like falling, hunger, or pain. Most said the babies showed general distress or excitement. Specific emotions, such as fear or anger, were difficult to label in newborns.

CISCE: Class 12

Key Point Summary

Newborns only show general excitement, not specific emotions.
As they grow, emotions become distinct—distress and delight appear first, then anger, disgust, and fear.
Emotions continue to develop with age, learning, and more experiences.