Motivation and emotion/Book/2023/Emotion across the lifespan

Emotion across the lifespan:
How do emotions develop across the lifespan?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Case Study 1 Melissa is a bright blue-eyed baby who often smiles when she sees her parents and loved ones. By two she’s exploring the world with a sense of self-awareness and empathy by helping her siblings when they fall over or hurt themselves. In primary school, Melissa expresses emotions such as guilt when hurting other children and envy when her peers have items she wants. In high school, Melissa begins to experience emotions more rapidly and starts to become interested in romantic relations. As she matures to adulthood Melissa has greater regulation and control over her emotions allowing her to focus on her career and family. Over Melissa’s lifespan, she experiences numerous emotions which change rapidly as she matures and navigates her way through life. So what are the key emotional milestones that Melissa encounters during her lifespan? And when do certain emotions develop?

As we grow and navigate our way through life, we develop and experience many different emotions as depicted in Case Study 1. Emotions develop at various rates as the human brain develops and the individual experiences more life events.

Understanding how emotions develop is important as emotions help individuals communicate with one another as well as guide and motivate behaviours. For example, we may feel happiness when seeing a family member who has been away for a month causing a release of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, energising an interaction with the long-lost family member.

Examination of emotion and motivation theories and research can help gain a better understanding of potential explanations for why these phenomena occur. Theories and research in this area integrate both biological and social influences on the development of emotions and motivation in individuals, creating a rich dynamic perspective on the topic. The development of emotions can be organised into key milestones across the lifespan that occur in distinct age groups starting from infancy to adulthood. In these milestones common development patterns of primary, secondary, and complex emotions are depicted. This chapter focuses on how emotions develop across the lifespan, identify key stages of emotional development, and highlight changes that occur to emotions across the lifespan.

Focus questions: How do emotions develop across the lifespan? What are the key stages of emotional development? How do emotions change across the lifespan?

Early development

Early development of basic emotions occurs rapidly in the early years of life. The rapid onset of this vital toolkit is critical to increasing the survival of human infants. It is argued by Charles Darwin and accepted by most, that the early onset of emotional development can be explained through the evolutionary theory. It is proposed that emotions evolved as an adaptive function that equips an individual with the ability to express needs and wants thus eliciting greater survival. An infant’s brain is not capable at birth of higher-order cognitive processing such as using language to communicate, the development and expression of emotions are therefore used to communicate with the environment.See Evolution of emotion Wiki page for more information.

Birth to 12 months

In the first year of development infants learn Eklham primary emotions also known as Core emotions (see Figure 1), which are believed to be innate and shared by everyone across cultures. Newborns first experience emotions of excitement, distress, and contentment (Sigelman et al., 2019). A one-month-old infant may express excitement through kicking movements with both legs which become more coordinated and controlled as the infant progresses to four to six months of age. A study conducted by Bridges (1932) identified the three significant main causes of distress appeared to be discomfort, pain, and hunger. Infants may express emotions of distress through waving of the arms laterally as well as up and down and vigorous kicking with crying usually shortly followed or occurring at the same time. Additionally, around two months of age, an infant begins to show contentment by smiling at familiar faces and eagerly attempting to move into desired items such as food sources.

By 6 months of age excitement, distress and contentment are further expanded and refined. Distress evolves and is organised into four separate emotions, disgust, sadness, anger, and fear (Sigelman et al., 2019). A 6-month-old infant will show disgust to unpleasant foods through tensing of the top lift and turning of the head as found in the Bridges 1932 study when infants were given lemon wedges. Sadness is often triggered in infants from hunger, fatigue or discomfort and is shown through crying, fussing and facial expressions. The emotional experience of anger is regularly distinguishable in infants by 4 months of age where a greater awareness of external stimuli and mobility control is understood allowing the infant to push aversive stimuli away. An infant will experience fear of loud noises or rigorous stimuli and exhibit this emotion through a startled reaction, clinging to caregivers, or in some cases crying.

Emotional excitement further evolves into surprise where the infant will open their mouth and raise their eyebrows without raising the eyelids (Camras et al., 1996). Contentment evolves into happiness and joy as infants begin to learn how to laugh and start vocalising.

Figure 1. Chart of Primary emotions that develop in the first year of life, as seen in the Birth to 12 months section.

 

In the first year of life humans develop: Primary emotions Secondary emotions Both primary and secondary emotions

1 to 4 years of age

After the first year of life at about the 18-month mark toddlers begin to learn secondary emotions. This category of emotions requires the development of self-awareness and consists of emotions such as embarrassment, shame, and pride (Sigelman et al., 2019). At 2 years of age, a toddler becomes more aware of what is morally good and bad in the standards of the family as schemas begin to develop around praiseworthy and punishing behaviours, for example when in trouble a 2-year-old may lower his head and look at the ground with shame.

As toddlers’ self-awareness advances, their ability to recognise other feelings also develops. A 2-year-old may show empathy by expressing concern or worry when someone is hurt this was consistent with the observer and parental reports in Wager & Kiel’s (2019) study. As a child progresses into the third and fourth years of life, children begin to integrate past and present experiences to anticipate future outcomes of events. Unlike a 2-year-old who comprehends at the moment the morally acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, a four-year-old will develop a sense of anxiety over the thought of possible harm, loss or adult disapproval (Kagan, 2001) as shown in Case Study 2.

Case Study 2 Jonny is four-years-old and lives with his mother and father. Jonny’s family dog Nitro was sick last year and sadly passed away at the local veterinary clinic. The other family dog Luna has become mildly sick and Jonny's parents take her to the vet. Jonny tells his parents on the way to the veterinary clinic that he is upset and worries about Luna as the last time their family pet was sick, it passed away.

Childhood (5 - 11 years of age)

During the ages of five to eleven, children begin to develop complex emotions, these emotions are typically a collection of two or more core emotions. Children aged from five to seven years old in industrialised societies begin to experience the emotion of guilt especially when their actions lead to harmful distress of another person. In non-industrialised societies there is a delay in the development of guilt with it commonly beginning to develop between the ages of seven to ten years old, this is suggested to be due to limited socialisation that is achieved at educational institutes in industrialised societies (Denham et al, 2002). Unlike a two-year-old who feels shame when dropping food on the carpet, six-year-olds feel guilt with the further development of empathy and the integration of the capacity to remember and reflect on past behavioural actions and outcomes.

As children develop cognitively and begin to subjectively compare objects, children form the ability to compare themselves with others, allowing for emotions such as self-doubt and envy. This cognitive enhancement allows children to briefly understand symbolic interactionism and therefore can feel both shame and pride not only in an individualistic way but also in societal categories that they belong to such as social, ethnic, cultural, and family groups (Kagan, 2001).

Adolescence (12 to 17 years of age)

As individuals reach adolescence, the experience of emotions in positive and negative domains becomes more intense, to illustrate this an adolescent may feel extreme anger in a situation that a young adult would just feel slightly angry about. Adolescents transition through emotional states more rapidly and often feel a mixture of positive and negative emotions in reaction to a situation (McLaughlin et al., 2022). Additionally, adolescents experience a greater quantity of negative emotions than positive emotions (Kagan, 2001), motivational studies researching this area have found that adolescents endorse a greater desire to seek out and maintain negative emotions at the sacrifice of positive emotions (Riediger et al., 2009). In reaction to a stressful life event, an adolescent will experience greater negative effects from stressors and inflict a greater association between stressful events and the emergence of negative outcomes.

It is uncertain as to why individuals aged 12 to 17 years old possess a bias to negative emotions however there are numerous biological and social changes occurring to the individual at this age. During this period, the individual becomes independent from the family and spends more time socially with peers than with family. The individual is made to navigate through novel situations with no previous experience to fall back on. The body is also rapidly changing with hormonal shifts and growth spurts, which models of adolescent development have identified as causes of numerous significant emotional stressors such as poor self-esteem and anxiety (Susman et al., 1998). As hormonal shifts occur adolescents develop an interest in romantic relationships as the body matures reproductively introducing a new family of emotions associated with these such as love, infatuation and attraction.

Adolescents experience more negative emotions and to a greater intensity than children True False

Adulthood

During adulthood from 18 years onward emotions continue to refine and develop as individuals mature. Adults develop greater emotional regulation skills and possess a greater understanding of emotions. As an individual matures from adolescence, negative emotions such as anger and sadness become less prominent and more positive emotions such as happiness appear more frequently. Adults report lower levels of neuroticism and experience negative emotions more discretely and to a lesser degree. A study conducted on a sample comparing young and older adults showed that the older the participant the less likely that the individual would experience an intense physiologically arousing emotion such as anger towards a life event, and instead experience a more discrete emotion such as disgust (Consedine & Magai, 2006). Reiger & Freund (2008) argued this phenomenon occurs due to a greater resilience to emotion-conflicting situations.

Additionally, adults have a greater understanding of distinguishing between complex emotional events that may cause negative or positive states. With this greater understanding, adults can tolerate these feelings in a more adaptive way than adolescents (Albert et al., 1999) by accepting emotions and not ruminating on negative states of feelings. This understanding of emotions peaks in middle-aged adults but slowly declines from the 70s onwards.

Ageing

As Albert and colleagues (1999) stated an individual around the age of seventy and onwards begins to show less understanding of complex emotions and may start to revert to maladaptive strategies to negative emotions similar to adolescence, such as avoidance and ruminating behaviour. In conjunction with this decline, a decrease in positive emotions is also found to occur as adults reach their senior years of life. It has been found that poor cognitive functioning is associated with greater depressive symptomology (Charles & Carstensen, 2010).  

Elderly individuals engaged in a divided attention task struggled to implement positive biases that are commonly present in low cognitive demanding tasks, thus demonstrating limited capacity for cognitive control of emotional regulation when performing these tasks (Mather & Knight, 2005). It is important to note that, as individuals reach senior years life, stressors begin to have a greater influence on emotions in the elderly with fears of mortality arising, therefore it is vital to consider these complex issues with potential cognitive decline when analysing the expression and lifespan of emotions. See the flourishing in the elderly chapter for insight on strategies to aid psychological flourishing to improve mental health and wellbeing in the elderly community.

Conclusion

Emotions develop rapidly over the lifespan and are constantly changing as an individual ages. In the first year of life, primary emotions such as anger, joy, sadness, disgust, interest and fear are developed allowing the infant to interact with the environment via the expression of these emotions. After the first year of life until four years of age, emotions that require self-awareness are developed including embarrassment, shame, pride, and empathy. During this age range the individual also develops the cognitive ability to comprehend morally acceptable behaviours and a sense of anxiety over loss, harm, and disapproval.

As the child reaches the stage of five to eleven years of age, complex emotions begin to develop such as guilt, self-doubt, and envy. Between the ages of 12 to 17 years the adolescent experiences a greater intensity of emotions as the body experiences hormonal shifts and growth spurts. Additionally, during adolescence the individual experiences a greater amount of negative emotions and seeks to maintain these emotions at the cost of positive emotions.

As the individual matures into adulthood the previous pattern of experiencing negative emotions is reversed with adults showing a bias to positive emotions; in conjunction with this, adults also possess greater emotional regulation skills and resilience against negative emotion eliciting events. In the final stages of the lifespan the ability to understand and regulate emotions begins to decline with adults reverting to similar emotional habits of an adolescent. From seventy years of age and onwards the previous bias to positive emotions begins to decline as well as the previous capacity to effectively regulate emotions. As shown through this book chapter, emotions constantly develop and transform across the lifespan even in late adulthood. Distinct enhancements and changes of emotions occur in life stages that are efficiently differentiated by age groups as depicted in this chapter see Table 1 for a summary of emotional development across the lifespan.

Table 1. Illustration of emotional development categorised by age.

See also

• Emotion (Wikipedia)
• Evolution of emotion (Wikipedia)
• Core emotions (Book chapter, 2023)
• Flourishing in the elderly (Book chapter, 2023)

References

Bridges, K. M. B. (1932). Emotional development in early infancy. Child development, 324–341. https://doi.org/10.2307/1125359

Camras, L. A., Lambrecht, L., & Michel, G. F. (1996). Infant “surprise” expressions as coordinative motor structures. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 20, 183–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02281955

Charles, S. T., & Carstensen, L. L. (2010). Social and emotional aging. Annual review of psychology, 61, 383–409. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100448

Consedine, N. S., & Magai, C. (2006). Emotion development in adulthood: A developmental functionalist review and critique. The Oxford handbook of adult development and learning, 209–244. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nathan-Consedine/publication/220017889_Emotion/links/54dd140c0cf25b09b912ecdc/Emotion.pdf

Denham, S., von Salisch, M., Olthof, T., Kochanoff, A., & Caverly, S. (2002). Emotional and social development in childhood. Blackwell handbook of childhood social development, 307–328. https://gacbe.ac.in/images/E%20books/Blackwell%20Handbook%20of%20Childhood%20Social%20Development.pdf#page=324

Kagan, J. (2001). Emotional development and psychiatry. Biological Psychiatry, 49(12), 973–979. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3223(01)01115-5

Lewis, M. (2010). The euman emergence of emotions. Handbook of emotions. https://my.slc.edu/reservesfs/3210c8df-de0c-4ac1-b020-92a09cd11ea8/lewis_emergence.pdf

Mather, M., & Knight, M. (2005). Goal-directed memory: the role of cognitive control in older adults' emotional memory. Psychology and aging, 20(4), 554. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0882-7974.20.4.554

McLaughlin, K. A., Garrad, M. C., & Somerville, L. H. (2022). What develops during emotional development? A component process approach to identifying sources of psychopathology risk in adolescence. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2015.17.4/kmclaughlin

Riediger, M., & Freund, A. M. (2008). Me against myself: motivational conflicts and emotional development in adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 23(3), 479.  https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0013302

Riediger, M., Schmiedek, F., Wagner, G. G., & Lindenberger, U. (2009). Seeking pleasure and seeking pain: Differences in prohedonic and contra-hedonic motivation from adolescence to old age. Psychological Science, 20(12), 1529–1535. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02473.x

Scheibe, S., & Carstensen, L. L. (2010). Emotional aging: secent findings and future trends. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological sciences and social sciences, 65(2), 135–144. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbp132

Sigelman, C. K., De George, L. & Cunial, K. (2019). Life Span Human Development. (3rd ed.). Cengage Learning AUS. https://cengage.com.au/sem121/life-span-human-development-3rd-edition-sigelman

Susman, E. J., Nottelmann, E. D., Dorn, L. D., Inoff-Germain, G., & Chrousos, G. P. (1988). Physiological and behavioral aspects of stress in adolescence. Mechanisms of physical and emotional stress, 341-352. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-2064-5_27

Wagers, K. B., & Kiel, E. J. (2019). The influence of parenting and temperament on empathy development in toddlers. Journal of Family Psychology, 33(4), 391. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/fam0000505

External links

• Emotional development (Beyou)
• Emotional development (Office of population affairs)
• Ageing and Emotions (Psychology today)
• Understanding the Stages of Emotional Development in Children (Rasmussen university)
• Understanding and managing emotions: children and teenagers (Raising children)
• What are the emotional needs of the elderly? (Griswold)