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Beyond Bad Behavior: Understanding Developmental Change · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

0:09
Okay, so our goal for tonight is to start our discussion on human
0:13
growth and development, and we're going to naturally lead
0:17
from kind of the topic we were talking about last week
0:21
with emotions and, uh, feelings and, and, and those
0:25
topics and get into thinking and emotions from
0:29
a developmental perspective.
0:32
And what I would encourage you to do is throughout tonight,
0:35
I am going to ask some questions. You do not have to put them
0:39
in the chat or let us know what you think unless
0:43
you want to. That is perfectly okay. But just
0:47
for your own personal reflection. Okay?
0:50
And that will be kind of the way we'll handle
0:54
tonight. So as I mentioned,
0:58
we're going to explore 2 things. They are central to human development,
1:02
and it's how we learn to think and how we learn to understand
1:06
and manage our emotions. Now,
1:10
to kind of start, I want to start with kind of an example.
1:14
Okay? And I want you to imagine a 4-year-old child
1:18
who becomes extremely upset because
1:21
something doesn't go their way. Maybe playtime
1:26
ended, maybe their favorite toy isn't available,
1:30
or maybe something changed the plans. And I'd
1:34
like you to think about what your first response would be.
1:40
Do you think the child is misbehaving,
1:43
being stubborn, or something else
1:47
happening? And that's really going to be the central question we're
1:52
going to explore tonight, because one of
1:56
the most important things about developmental psychology that
2:00
teaches us is that behavior doesn't always tell us
2:04
what a person is capable of, or even if
2:08
it's congruent with what they're experiencing. Sometimes it
2:12
tells us what they're still learning as well.
2:17
And that distinction is going to be important throughout
2:22
tonight's class. All right, so we have some learning
2:26
objectives. By the end of tonight,
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uh, what I want you to be able to do is 3 things.
2:34
First is to explain why development is not simply
2:38
a biological process. Our development reflects
2:42
in an ongoing interaction between who we are and
2:46
the environment which we live. The second thing,
2:50
I want you to recognize the difference between what someone
2:54
understands and what they can demonstrate in
2:58
a particular situation.
3:01
And the third thing is we're going to look
3:05
at emotional regulation. How is— how
3:09
does it develop? Why in some situations making
3:13
regulation more difficult and what people can do
3:16
to support individuals in that process.
3:22
As we move through this, I want you
3:26
to consider how these ideas might apply to your own field of study,
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whether the— whether that's education,
3:35
social work, psychology, business, or just
3:39
working with families, your own family or other families.
3:43
And for tonight, we're not going to memorize every
3:47
developmental stage tonight. Instead, what we're going to
3:50
focus on is understanding the processes behind those developments.
3:54
Okay? And on Wednesday,
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we'll get deeper into, uh, some of these models.
4:01
But for tonight, I kind of want to introduce the ideas
4:06
of them and how they apply to what
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we want to study when we're really looking at how people change
4:15
over the lifespan.
4:20
So probably we should start here with one of the first misconceptions
4:25
we need to address is the idea that development is
4:28
something that happens primarily during childhood.
4:31
Okay, now certainly childhood is extraordinary
4:35
period of development, but development doesn't suddenly
4:39
stop when we become adults. And we can
4:43
think back to differences between learning to speak
4:47
as a toddler, learning to manage a career as an adult,
4:52
or even adapting to retirement in later life.
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All 3 involve a growth and a development
5:00
for the person to really engage in those different
5:04
areas of life.
5:07
Another important point is that people do
5:11
not develop in exactly the same way or exactly
5:16
at the same rate. 2 individuals can be the
5:20
same age and have very different abilities,
5:23
experiences, and opportunities to them.
5:29
Let me ask you again to kind of think of something.
5:32
If we have 2 16-year-olds and
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one demonstrates greater emotional maturity than the
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other, what might explain that?
5:43
Why, why are those differences if development should
5:47
be occurring at a same rate according to age?
5:54
And in this answer, we might consider family experience,
5:57
culture, relationships, and opportunities to practice
6:01
independence, or individual differences such as personality
6:06
differences. Age provides us useful information,
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but it never tells us the entire developmental story.
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And that's why contemporary developmental psychology
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emphasizes, emphasizes both the individual and the context
6:23
in which they're developing.
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So let's look at another example.
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Imagine a child entering a new classroom for the first time.
6:37
The teacher asks the child a question and the child refuses
6:41
to answer. What might you conclude, or the
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teacher conclude, about that child's behavior?
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Perhaps the child is shy, so dispositional
6:54
or individual difference or personality.
6:58
Perhaps they are anxious, or maybe
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they're just uncooperative.
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But let's for a minute consider what we actually
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know. We know that the child didn't answer
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questions. That's an observation. Everything else is
7:17
an interpretation. Maybe the classroom is
7:21
unfamiliar. Maybe the child doesn't fully understand the language
7:25
being used. Perhaps the room is noisy,
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or the child simply needs more time to be comfortable.
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Okay, now think about what might happen
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next in that situation if the teacher becomes
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impatient. The child may withdraw even further. But if the
7:47
teacher creates a supportive environment, the child may gradually become
7:51
more willing to participate. Notice that interaction
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and the difference between those interactions. The child's
7:59
behavior influences the teacher, and the teacher's response
8:04
influences the child.
8:07
Development occurs through these ongoing reciprocal
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interactions. This is why we have to be careful about
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labeling.
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Hold on, just lost my train of thought. We need to be careful
8:24
about labeling people based on isolated behaviors.
8:30
Our behaviors in one situation is not enough
8:33
to explain the entire person when we interact with
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So let's talk about what a study can tell
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you. And in this section, I'm going to kind of go over some of the
8:49
different ways developmental psychologists go about studying
8:54
human behavior. Now,
8:57
as a psychologist, we have to ask an important question:
9:01
how do we actually know what we think we know
9:05
about development. Let's consider these
9:08
3 approaches that are used. The first one is
9:12
what we call cross-sectional studies. So imagine
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we want to know whether emotional vocabulary changes with
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age. We might compare a group of 5-year-olds,
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10-year-olds, and 15-year-olds.
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That gives us information about difference between age groups,
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But this is important. It doesn't necessarily tell us how a particular
9:38
individual developed. The 2nd
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approach in psychology is what's known as longitudinal
9:46
studies. And this is when we follow the same
9:50
individuals over time. We might begin with
9:54
studying children at the age of 5 and continue to examine
9:58
how, for example, their emotional development occurs into
10:02
adolescence. In these kinds of studies,
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it allows us to observe patterns of change,
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although people may drop out of the studies. That's one
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of the big drawbacks of a longitudinal study,
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and repeated testing can influence their performance
10:21
as well. Okay, and then the last one
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that is commonly used is what's called an experimental study.
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Suppose we want to know whether we, uh,
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whether the way a phrase, uh,
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a question influences how a child responses, the type
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of question and the way it's asked. We could randomly
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assign children to different instructions and
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compare their responses.
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Experiments provide us strong evidence for cause and
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effect. Provided that the design adequately
11:00
controls for alternative
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explanations. All right,
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and here's something I want you to remember throughout this course
11:13
and these lectures. We can also do what
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is known as correlational studies. This is commonly
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done in longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.
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And this is where we compare 2 variables to see if
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one increases, does the other increase? Or when one
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increases, does the other decrease? Okay,
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but that doesn't establish causation,
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and that's an important aspect of most of the studies
11:44
done in psychology because we can't necessarily
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manipulate, for example, 2, 3-year-olds and put
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them in separate conditions to see if a
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child will develop healthier in an enriched environment
12:02
versus an impoverished environment. Okay, that'd be a little unethical,
12:07
I think. And I think I used an example earlier
12:11
in the course where behaviorists at one time wanted to
12:15
put children in a box And control every
12:19
environment like they do with pigeons and rats.
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And that's that again, if you just think about being able
12:27
to actually do cause and effect
12:31
relationships with it, especially in
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development and those kinds of things, we really can't
12:39
do that. So we rely heavily on what are known as correlational studies.
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But the one thing, the mantra I want you to always remember
12:49
is that even when 2 things are associated with each
12:52
other, that doesn't mean that one causes the other.
12:56
We can't state that. So good
12:59
developmental research asks not only what changes,
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but how confident we are in explaining why we
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change, why that change occurs, and the limitations
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of the studies that we do.
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So, but let's do take a minute,
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and I believe we'll get really more detailed in these
13:24
theories, uh, this coming Wednesday. But I
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do just want to bring up 3 very, uh,
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common theories in human development.
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Uh, the first one is Sigmund Freud.
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Uh, the unconscious guy where it's our aggression
13:42
and sexual drive that actually drive all of our behaviors
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from this internal unconscious world we exist in.
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And we got to give Freud some, uh,
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credit because he was the first one to kind
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of establish that early childhood and
14:01
interaction between the child and their environment
14:05
is important. Okay, but we'll kind of look at his
14:09
theory a little bit closer, and we'll see that
14:13
it probably— it's, it's not really a
14:17
scientifically valid, um,
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uh, test. But Freud emphasized
14:24
the importance of early experience. His work influenced
14:29
how psychologists thought about childhood. Although, as we'll get
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into them on Wednesday, his psychosexual stages do
14:38
not have really good empirical support. And so we
14:41
treat them as established developmental timelines.
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Um, and so we got to remember
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things in a historical context. The next
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state— the next theorist that we'll use quite
14:58
a bit throughout these lectures is Jean Piaget's approaches
15:02
to development, and he did it different than Freud because
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what he was interested in is how children construct the
15:10
understanding of their world.
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His contribution was recognizing
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that children are not simply adults who
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know less, that in fact they actively
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organize information and develop increasingly complex
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ways of reasoning. All right, so we have that
15:34
cognitive theory, as you would say. With Erikson,
15:38
we'll look at his work, uh, because he
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encouraged us to think about the questions that involve things like trust,
15:47
autonomy, identity,
15:49
relationships, and the meaning throughout life.
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One of the examples from his theory is that he often associated
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adolescence with identity exploration,
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where young people begin to question, asking questions about
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who they are, where they belong, and how they relate
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to others. But to kind of
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bring this full circle, the thing that this theory does
16:20
deny is that people, we You know,
16:24
we shouldn't assume that identity development suddenly
16:28
ends in adolescence. Okay? In fact, we have
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a lot of good evidence that identity development starts much
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younger, around the age of 3, 4 years of
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And,
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and here's kind of a question to kind of think about this. If a teenager
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begins changing friendship groups, Which of these
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theoretical perspectives might help understand what is happening?
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And this brings up the reason why we need
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multiple theories, okay? Because Erikson might
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help us consider identity exploration.
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Piaget might encourage questions about changes
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in their reasoning and perspective-taking.
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While Freud might lead us to consider the influences of
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those 2 individuals' earlier experiences.
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So the point being is that each of these different theories
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generate different kind of questions.
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The important thing is, is that in modern developmental psychology,
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we evaluate those questions using more empirical
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research. Rather than assuming that the
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entire historical theory must be correct.
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And we'll— we will start with some important
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things that Piaget really talked about in
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his theory. So let's spend a little
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bit more time for tonight talking about Piaget, because 2
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of his concepts are especially useful in understanding
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how we learn. The first
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is assimilation. So this is— imagine a young child who
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has learned what a dog is, and the child sees
18:24
another 4-legged animal and instantly
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calls it a dog. Okay,
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however, well, and what we're saying for this is a
18:34
child is taking in new information and they're fitting it
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into a mental category, the dog.
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The child— so in this case, the child recognizes
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different— so let's take another one. Say, but someone explains
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that this particular animal— let's say the child puts it in the dog
19:01
category, but then someone comes along and says that particular
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animal is a cat. At that point, the child
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begins to recognize the difference between dogs and cats,
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and they have to modify their understanding through something Piaget
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called accommodation. This is putting
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a new category or new information in its own place.
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So assimilation involves using what we already
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know, and accommodation involves changing what
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we know to incorporate new information.
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And we should note that this does not stop in childhood.
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Sometimes— I'll give an example first,
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but think about learning a new technology.
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When we get it, maybe it's a new app for our phone.
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I would Be willing to bet that many of us would
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try to understand using that app using
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what we already know about the apps we've been using for a
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long time.
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Okay, however,
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contemporary research reminds us that changes don't always occur
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according to rigid boundaries. Okay,
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because Piaget also proposed a progression
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from things like sensory motor reasoning through
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symbolic and concrete reasonings to towards abstract
20:39
reasoning, from a simple sensory interaction world
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to the complex world of abstraction.
20:48
Okay, and I do want to just give a moment really quick.
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What is you know, the difference between sensory
20:56
motor, uh, pre, uh,
21:00
pre-concrete and concrete learning and abstraction.
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Okay, in the sensory motor phase,
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we're just trying to learn our body interacting
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with our environment. In the pre-concrete
21:17
phase, we're symbolizing all of this mass
21:21
amount of information in our environment. And then in the concrete
21:25
phase, we're putting that information into more manageable
21:30
chunks. Okay. The reason
21:34
this is called the concrete stage is
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that children, children during this time period have
21:42
a hard time with overlapping categories.
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So, uh, a cop is a cop, a robber is a
21:50
robber. There's good guys, there's bad guys. Um,
21:55
there's a mom, there's a dad. Um,
22:01
so just, it's, it's very concrete and
22:05
it really makes sense because these children at this age
22:08
have grown a mass amount of information.
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I've said this time and time and again through this class.
22:15
We learned somewhere between 30,000 to 60,000
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different words by about the age of 6,
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and we have to do something with that massive information
22:27
and make it controllable for us. All right,
22:32
but as our cognition and our experiences get more complex,
22:36
we start to see the abstractions in the world.
22:40
Okay, and what I mean by abstraction is
22:44
that let us take the good guy, bad guy scenario.
22:47
So, we have the, the police
22:51
officer and we have the felon. Where abstraction
22:56
comes into play, for example,
23:00
when I worked with survivors of domestic violence,
23:04
at least once a week, a couple times a month,
23:07
the survivor's partner would be a police
23:11
officer. Okay,
23:14
so the perpetrator is the symbol of a good
23:18
guy. The same thing,
23:21
my experience working with felons in the prison system.
23:26
They certainly did bad things to be there,
23:30
but when you looked at their whole person, they often
23:34
had a lot of qualities. I had some
23:38
that were able to help other inmates create businesses.
23:44
Others, such as moms, when they did visitations,
23:47
they were very compassionate and loving and
23:51
understanding with their children. Some were
23:54
very talented with knitting and
23:59
making things. And so
24:03
they were not, they were not always doing bad things.
24:08
So abstraction is the recognition that good people can
24:12
do bad things, and quote unquote bad people
24:16
have good qualities and also do positive things instead
24:21
of having those rigid categories. And that is what we mean by abstraction.
24:27
All right, so the central idea is the development
24:31
involves more than accumulating information.
24:34
Sometimes we have to recognize how we are understanding
24:38
the world to really, um,
24:43
come to a good conclusion. Okay.
24:52
One of the— probably continuing this conversation
24:56
about Piaget is one of his more interesting
24:59
experiments that does have
25:04
some kind of cross-cultural and cross-situation
25:07
evidence is what is known as conservation tasks.
25:13
All right, so if we go back up here to
25:18
this, these 2 slides right here,
25:21
What Piaget would do is he'd have 2
25:24
equal cups, A and B,
25:27
and they're the same size and have equal amounts of
25:32
water or, or colored dyed water,
25:35
whatever it may be. And Piaget
25:39
would ask the child, is there the same amount in both cups?
25:44
And, you know, children even as young as 3 would shake
25:47
their head yes, of Yeah, yeah, they're the same. The interesting
25:51
part is he would pour then, let's say, B into
25:55
C, which is in this case a different size,
25:59
a different length, and it's thinner. And he would ask
26:03
the children, now are they the same?
26:07
And what he found is, is that children under
26:11
about the age of 6 to 7 Uh,
26:15
said yes, it has changed amount. Either there's more or
26:19
now there's less. It wasn't until after
26:23
about the age of 6 to 7 that the child would recognize
26:27
that the amount of fluid didn't change,
26:30
just its shape. And this is what's known as conservation
26:34
of mass and energy, that mass remains
26:38
the same amount But it can take different shapes,
26:42
but it's still the same mass. Okay,
26:47
and so this is where he put the transition between
26:52
that pre-sensory observation mode into
26:56
the categorization mode, because if you see kind
27:00
of the idea behind the conservation task is it's
27:04
recognizing that categories can change,
27:08
but the category doesn't change. So you may interact
27:14
with someone that is different, but you may keep them in that same category.
27:20
All right. So that
27:25
is a task of conservation. And one
27:30
question we might ask in this journey is,
27:35
uh, what might explain the judgments when children didn't
27:40
see more? And this is really a qualitative kind
27:45
of, uh, experience for children. A child
27:49
may be focusing on height without adequate— adequately—
27:53
I can't talk tonight— coordinating height and width.
27:58
But let's think about this more carefully. Did they actually add
28:02
any water? The answer is usually no,
28:05
so the quantity remains unchanged.
28:09
Now here's where contemporary psychology becomes especially
28:14
interesting. What if the child interprets
28:19
our repeated question and suggesting that
28:23
the answer should have changed? What if a
28:26
child doesn't fully understand what they're being asked?
28:30
The task itself can influence
28:34
a child's performance. And what brings us back
28:38
to one of tonight's kind of objectives is we need to
28:42
distinguish what someone understands
28:45
from what they demonstrate under a particular condition.
28:50
One incorrect answer doesn't establish everything a
28:54
child does or does not understand.
28:58
And that's one of the fallbacks about this conservation task,
29:02
because we can get younger children to answer the question
29:05
correctly by the way we ask the
29:09
child. All right, and so,
29:13
and we can get older children to get the
29:17
problem wrong just based upon the way
29:21
the question is asked. Or if we do repeated demonstrations
29:27
with them and they keep giving a different answer, and then we say, okay,
29:30
let's do it again, eventually they're going to question whether
29:34
they should say yes or no. And then they
29:37
might start giving either the incorrect answer or the correct answer,
29:41
not based upon what they're experiencing, but because
29:45
they're constantly having to do this task over and
29:50
over, right?
29:53
Another concept that is kind of— while it's
29:56
really important to introduce tonight,
30:00
is something known as theory of mind. All right,
30:05
for many individuals who have been tested Um,
30:10
theory of mind tends to develop between about 24
30:14
to 36 months of age.
30:18
So we should go from— we're going
30:22
to stop kind of looking at understanding physical objects like we saw with Piaget's
30:27
example to understanding people's
30:31
minds. This is an important
30:35
developmental achievement. Uh, we don't have much evidence
30:39
that other species actually develop this notion of theory of mind,
30:43
because what theory of mind refers to is our ability to
30:47
recognize that others have thoughts, beliefs, desires, and knowledge
30:51
that might be different from our own. So let
30:55
me give you an example of this. Imagine that
31:00
Maya places her favorite toy inside a
31:04
bag and then she leaves the room.
31:07
While Maya is gone, Leo takes a toy out of the
31:11
bag and places it inside a box.
31:14
Now, when Maya returns,
31:18
we might ask a child the question that was there watching,
31:22
where should Maya look for her toy first?
31:27
And if a child has developed this theory of mind,
31:31
they will correctly say that Maya should look in her bag because
31:36
they realize that Maya's last experience
31:40
with her first— her favorite toy was
31:44
when she put it in the bag and left.
31:49
However, there's children who then will, will kind of get defiant
31:53
and they'll say, well, she should look in the box because that's where I know
31:57
that toy is. It's in the box. So she would be um,
32:01
um, dumb to look in her bag because
32:05
that's— it's in the box. And so we
32:10
find that children start to make these mental
32:14
adjustments again around 24
32:18
to 36 months of age. And the task
32:22
I just described is what's called a false belief task.
32:26
And it's one of several that we use to test
32:30
theory of mind in children. Okay,
32:33
so what we do know is that many children become
32:38
increasingly successful at answering the explicit
32:41
false belief question, especially when we get
32:46
into the preschool years. But I do want to make one caution:
32:50
performance can depend on things like language,
32:53
memory, and how the question is presented to the child.
32:59
Researchers also continue to debate that certain infant experiments
33:04
reveal about understanding of a belief
33:08
as well. And one final point is understanding
33:12
what another person's belief isn't the same thing
33:16
as being empathetic or morally considerate.
33:19
Because our beliefs about someone else, our theory
33:23
of someone else's mind, can be latent with
33:28
our own biases, our own experiences with children
33:32
like that person. And so,
33:35
one, uh, theory of mind is not always correct,
33:41
um, and it does not say anything about
33:45
the— whether the child, if they have a high level of theory
33:50
of mind, that they become increasingly empathetic and morally
33:53
considerate of others. That takes a different process
33:58
that we'll talk about more in social psychology,
34:02
which deals with what's known as the mentalizing system.
34:06
So theory of mind, we build what we think that person is
34:10
thinking. Okay,
34:13
in, in social psychology, we will talk about
34:18
what then am I experiencing,
34:21
and is this a situation in which I should help or
34:25
freeze or flee? Okay,
34:29
and so, but this kind of starts the cascade
34:34
towards more empathetic or less empathetic
34:38
behaviors. But it doesn't determine it.
34:50
All right, so let's talk about emotions in everyday life.
34:54
Now let's shift our attention to emotional development.
34:59
I want you to imagine that you're sitting in the class minding your own
35:02
business when suddenly your professor calls your
35:06
name and asks you to explain something.
35:10
I would ask to put yourself in that position and ask yourself,
35:14
what might have you physically experienced then?
35:18
If I were to take a wild guess, I would
35:22
argue that your heart rate might have increased.
35:26
You might feel a little bit warm. Perhaps your muscles become tense.
35:31
But here's the interesting question.
35:34
While we might all experience that,
35:37
are those physical changes necessarily signs
35:41
of fear? And what we have found is not
35:45
at all. One child might feel nervous because they were worried about giving the wrong
35:49
answer. Another might feel excited because
35:53
they know the material and enjoy participating.
35:57
Similarly, bodily changes can accompany different
36:01
emotional experiences. Emotions involve the interaction
36:05
process, including those physiological activities
36:09
and interpretation of the events and tendencies towards
36:13
a particular action. And we spent a lot of time
36:17
last week talking about how those different systems bring
36:21
out what's our subjective experience. But we
36:25
also need to notice that emotions involve those cognitions,
36:29
those feelings. So how we interpret a
36:32
situation can influence our emotional response,
36:36
and our emotional state can influence how we think about a situation.
36:41
And just a couple more examples, we can
36:45
take anxiety. Maybe difficult— a
36:50
difficult assignment seems even more overwhelming,
36:54
but excitement may motivate someone to approach that as
36:58
a challenge. But the important point is
37:01
that emotions aren't simply interruptions or rational
37:06
thinking. Emotions, emotions are part of
37:09
who, how we interpret and respond to our environment.
37:14
And throughout development, we learn increasingly
37:17
complex ways to understand and manage these
37:22
experiences. So We
37:26
need to face the context.
37:29
So let's try a little experiment.
37:33
If someone smiles at you, what emotions are
37:38
they experiencing? Are they experiencing happiness?
37:43
Possibly. But what else may they be experiencing?
37:50
Someone might smile because they're nervous.
37:54
They might smile because they're embarrassed.
37:58
They might smile simply because they're polite and
38:01
to reassure another person, or even because they're feeling uncomfortable.
38:07
So does a smile always mean happiness?
38:11
We need to come to the complex world and
38:15
really answer that question as no.
38:18
And this is an important point in contemporary emotional research.
38:23
For many years, popular discussion of psychology
38:27
suggests that specific facial expressions reliably
38:31
correspond to specific internal emotional states.
38:36
But research, including especially a major review
38:39
in 2019, challenges this
38:43
idea that we can consistently determine a person's
38:47
emotional experience from facial movement alone.
38:51
Context matters, culture matters, the person's
38:55
circumstances definitely matter, and sometimes
38:59
the most useful way to understand what another person is feeling
39:03
is simply to ask them. Here's my question:
39:07
what information would you want to interpret about a smile to be
39:11
more accurate? Would it be their tone of voice, the situation,
39:16
your previous interaction with them? I would be
39:20
willing to guess so. So as psychologists, we can
39:24
make reasonable interpretations of behavior,
39:28
but we need to recognize the limits of the interpretation.
39:33
We should particularly be careful when working with
39:37
children whose emotional vocabulary and communication
39:41
abilities are still developing.
39:44
Um, I did a podcast with my wife about
39:48
early childhood and whatnot, and we brought up the idea of the bad
39:52
child and a child's
39:56
ability to self-regulate. Uh, and,
40:00
you know, we need to realize that children at
40:04
the age of 3 or 4, uh, need to borrow
40:09
someone's prefrontal cortex in order
40:13
to get through difficult situations. And what I mean by that is
40:17
they need someone that is there,
40:20
gets down to their level, talks to them at their
40:23
level, and helps them go through their experience
40:28
so that their limbic system, that rapid
40:32
emotional system in that child, can slow
40:36
down and they can start sending more blood
40:40
flow and energy to their pre— their developing
40:44
prefrontal cortex. And so the way we interpret
40:48
behavior needs to be done on a developmental
40:53
way,
40:58
and we have to realize that emotions develop is
41:01
gradual. Okay, now let's consider how emotional abilities
41:06
develop during infancy. Caregivers play an important
41:11
role in helping infants manage distress and maintain
41:14
engagement with their surroundings.
41:18
An infant may become overwhelmed by noise, hunger,
41:22
unfamiliar stimulations. The infant
41:26
has some way of responding, such as turning away or
41:30
crying. But often relies on another person to assist
41:34
them. A child— as children
41:37
develop language, they can't get— they gain additional
41:41
options. A young child might
41:45
eventually be able to say, I'm frustrated, or I need a break.
41:49
That's a significant developmental achievement instead
41:54
of entirely relying on behaviors to communicate
41:58
distress. The child can begin describing
42:01
their internal experiences. And then when
42:06
we fast forward into adolescence, emotional regulation continues
42:10
to be developing. Remember, the prefrontal cortex
42:15
isn't going to be fully developed into the mid-20s,
42:20
but they are also dealing with
42:24
a more complex social world and,
42:28
uh, dealing with things such as intimate relationships,
42:33
uh, either the pressure or the desire for sexuality,
42:38
uh, trying to fit in so that they're not isolated
42:42
from the rest of the world. Okay,
42:45
so a teenager might recognize that
42:49
they're upset with friends but decide to wait until they're
42:52
calmer Um, they become calmer before discussing
42:57
their disagreement. So you see this more complex kind
43:01
of thing that is occurring. They're making a conscious choice
43:04
to step back and start regulating themselves.
43:09
But I just imagine what's involved
43:14
in that kind of decision. They have to recognize the
43:18
emotion, consider possible consequences,
43:21
and select a response. But these abilities don't
43:25
appear all at once, and we need to distinguish
43:29
between expressing an emotion, recognizing it,
43:33
understanding it, and regulating it. Those are,
43:37
are different abilities that can develop
43:40
at different rates. That's an important
43:44
takeaway in that emotional development involves
43:48
expanding possibilities for responding to experiences,
43:53
not simply becoming less emotional or
43:56
overreactive. And we start
44:01
to develop this through what developmental
44:04
psychologists call social referencing.
44:10
And a good way to illustrate this is this visual
44:13
cliff apparatus that you can kind of see in the slide.
44:19
Because it's a good way to kind of study what is known as social
44:24
referencing. So you'll notice that the child is
44:27
in this little box, and now I
44:31
want you to know that there's, there's a drop-off
44:35
about halfway through the box, but there is a nice
44:40
glass, plexiglass, that can support the child's weight
44:45
that goes all the way across it. So the child,
44:48
if they decide to go over that cliff, are not going to fall to the
44:52
floor. All right. And what
44:56
we find is that even early in infancy, when a child starts
45:00
to crawl, they have this ability to notice
45:04
the difference in their perception. They go to the cliff
45:08
and they become very kind of confused. They're not sure what to
45:12
do. They're scared if they continue they'll fall, but what
45:16
if I don't? And they start to question it. And this
45:21
is where we bring in a mom or a caregiver or
45:25
someone that will either discourage the child
45:29
from going any further, or they will encourage
45:33
the child to continue crawling to the caregiver.
45:37
All right. And this is the interesting thing about the study,
45:42
is the majority of the time when the parent encourages
45:46
the child to stay where they are, they do kind of a panic response.
45:51
The majority of the time, the child will stay there and
45:54
wait for the caregiver to come get them from falling.
46:00
But also what we find is that the majority of the time when
46:03
the parent continues to encourage the
46:07
child to come towards them, the child will.
46:12
And this is a good example of social referencing because here
46:16
we are in a situation where we think
46:21
in our little minds that if we continue, we're gonna fall.
46:25
We can see it visually, we could look at how far
46:29
we're gonna fall, and And
46:41
so here's, here's the interesting thing about social
46:45
referencing is dependent upon
46:48
the caregiver's response, the child
46:53
will either do something that keeps them safe
46:57
Or they'll do something that is risky.
47:01
All right, and this type of social
47:05
referencing doesn't stop in infancy. And I want
47:09
you to think about this as a lot of times, for example, in our teen
47:13
years, we are encouraged to make really
47:17
bad decisions sometimes that
47:21
are counter to our best interests.
47:23
Because people are going, come on, come on, let's go,
47:27
we're gonna have a lot of fun. And sometimes we
47:31
will not engage in something that could be
47:35
possibly good for us because of the social
47:39
referencing of the room. So maybe,
47:43
um, uh, you, you,
47:46
after TOCC, you got this great scholarship
47:51
to an Ivy League university,
47:54
and it's going to set up your career.
47:57
But what if in your family situation,
48:01
they're sitting there saying, no, stay home, we need you here.
48:06
This creates an emotional kind
48:10
of chasm, is you have 2 pressures.
48:15
And no matter how you respond, you're going
48:18
to upset somebody. Either you're going to upset yourself
48:23
for not taking that career opportunity, or you're going to upset the
48:27
people in the room for leaving them.
48:32
And so, but I want you to know how more complex that
48:36
has become. And so this
48:40
is something to kind of think about when we think about decisions Based
48:45
on the social referencing that we're seeing from our external world.
48:50
So we use social referencing, especially in early childhood,
48:54
to determine whether our behavior, what we're about
48:58
to decide, is the right decision or
49:02
the wrong decision. But I want you to keep
49:06
in mind that this is not a cognitive thing at this point.
49:10
For infants, they don't understand language, they understand
49:14
emotions. It's not until we get to that adolescent
49:18
example that we start to see language and
49:22
cognition play a role in our decision-making.
49:26
Okay, so the next thing that we should learn,
49:30
learn about, talk about is learning how
49:34
we regulate our emotions.
49:38
And this brings us to probably one of the most practical concepts
49:42
in tonight's class. When we talk
49:46
about emotional regulation, we are referring to a process
49:49
that influences how we express— experience,
49:53
express, and respond to emotions. But I want
49:57
to emphasize something: emotional regulation
50:01
does not simply mean suppressing an
50:05
emotion. A person can be emotionally regulated
50:09
while experiencing sadness, frustration, and disappointment.
50:15
The question is, is whether the response is appropriate
50:19
for the situation that then can help the person pursue,
50:23
pursue their goal, experience, or going through their
50:28
grief. So to kind of emphasize this, let's go
50:32
through 2 examples. First, we'll start with a
50:36
toddler who becomes overwhelmed because of loud
50:40
noises and a crowded environment, a very overstimulating
50:44
environment. We might ask, what would help
50:49
the child? Would we simply tell the child to calm
50:52
down? Uh, I hope not.
50:56
But I've seen that happen. The child
50:59
may benefit from moving to a quieter space and
51:03
receiving that reassurance from a familiar adult.
51:08
And again, I'm bringing this example back. This is that example of co-regulation,
51:13
or, or, or borrowing an adult's
51:17
calm prefrontal cortex, okay?
51:21
Another person helps a child manage their emotional experience.
51:25
Now imagine an older child who is anxious about an upcoming
51:30
exam. The child might benefit from identifying
51:34
the source of the anxiety, creating a study plan,
51:38
and reconsidering something of their expectations.
51:43
But different situations call for different strategies.
51:47
And here's something that I think is especially important: knowing
51:52
how to regulate an emotion doesn't
51:56
guarantee that someone can use that skill effectively
51:59
in every situation. We always have to
52:03
play the other variables that can influence our behavior, such as stress,
52:08
fatigue, environmental demands,
52:11
social pressure. They all can influence our performance.
52:17
So when we see someone struggling emotionally, an important
52:21
question is not simply whether they possess the necessary
52:25
skills to get through that emotional situation.
52:32
We should also ask, what is the situation that allows
52:36
them to use skills to help manage
52:39
their emotional experience if it needs to be managed.
52:45
All right? And I'll bring up another clinical example
52:49
from my domestic violence years, is that sometimes
52:54
we have to allow someone to
52:59
experience emotions because in
53:02
some cases those people, the individuals have been told
53:06
They're not allowed to cry. They shouldn't be sad.
53:11
They're ridiculous. Oh, there she goes again.
53:15
Or there he goes again. He can't control himself,
53:18
so I have to. And I've heard that time and
53:22
time again. And one thing that I will say is
53:26
that in a safe space, it's important
53:30
for a person to experience their full
53:34
range of emotions. I don't know how
53:37
many times I sat in my office and
53:41
created a safe space for a survivor of abuse,
53:46
and the only thing maybe we got through during
53:50
that whole 50, 60 minutes we were together is
53:53
that they were allowed to cry and just
53:58
let their feelings and emotions be expressed.
54:03
Um, and this is what
54:07
demands of us when we're talking about emotional regulation.
54:11
In some cases, it's important for a person to
54:15
experience their emotions. So what's being asked
54:20
of us is to say,
54:24
what type of space can I create for them to have
54:29
that ability? In some cases,
54:32
it may be a situation in which they need help
54:37
getting through, for example, an exam or a difficult
54:41
situation. And instead of the
54:45
emotion being the primary thing, it's helping them get through that
54:48
situation so that they end up on the safe side of
54:53
it or through the exam or Or whatever it may
54:56
be. Okay.
55:00
And this is where we can talk a little
55:03
bit about adolescence. And adolescence
55:08
is a particularly interesting period of time because
55:12
of our biological changes, our social expectations,
55:16
and new experiences that are occurring together.
55:21
Now I want to challenge the common stereotype we
55:25
often hear adolescents described as
55:28
a period when teenagers are constantly emotional,
55:32
impulsive, or irritable,
55:35
or, and irrational. Okay.
55:47
But I would challenge you on this because that is very
55:51
much an oversimplification. Now I want you to think about why will
55:56
we make those kind of assumptions towards a
56:00
teenager who is struggling with something?
56:03
Because in the end, it makes us feel better.
56:07
And, uh, and that's why I would challenge that kind of idea.
56:12
Adolescents actually demonstrate considerable variation in
56:17
their emotional experience and decision-making ability.
56:21
And so we can let— let us take, consider a teenager who makes
56:25
thoughtful decisions when working independently,
56:29
but acts completely different when
56:32
they are surrounded by their friends. Does that necessarily
56:36
mean the teenager lacks the ability to make good decisions?
56:41
Well, obviously not, because they can prove that when they're not
56:44
in that context. And social context
56:49
may be changing what feelings and rewards are
56:53
important and are acceptable. And especially during
56:57
adolescence, peer relationships can influence
57:01
motivation and behavior dependent upon
57:05
that context. But at the same time,
57:09
adolescence provides opportunities to develop independence,
57:12
practice decision-making, and strengthen
57:16
their regulation strategies through these experiences.
57:21
Indeed, recent developmental research
57:24
emphasizes that development of self-regulation is
57:30
very much determined by experience.
57:35
And while training programs, for example, designed to improve
57:39
regulation show promising, researchers are still examining
57:43
which improvements persist and transfer in
57:47
everyday situations. So we should avoid the idea
57:51
that adolescent behavior can be explained by one brain region,
57:56
or that everyone suddenly achieves complete neurological
58:00
maturity at a particular age.
58:04
Development is much more complex than that.
58:08
And the adolescent brain is developing, but so
58:11
is the adolescent's experience in the world.
58:14
And again, one of the big themes you have
58:19
probably noticed in this class is we just can't
58:23
study the brain and understand a person.
58:26
We have to understand the person interacting with the
58:31
world that they exist in and then look
58:35
at potential neurological change. But we have
58:38
learned over decades that our
58:43
brain responds and is molded by and
58:47
is programmed by our social world,
58:51
not just genetics and not just biology.