Manfred Holodynski

The Miniaturization of Expression in the Development of Emotional Self-Regulation.

This study tested an internalization model of emotional development proposing that emotional expression decreases during childhood in situations in which emotions serve only self-regulation. This model was tested by inducing joy and disappointment in solitary versus interpersonal conditions in 3 gender-matched, 20-member groups of 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds. Results supported the model: Expression--but not self-reported feeling--decreased in solitary conditions as a function of increasing age, whereas both expression and feeling remained stable in the interpersonal condition. This effect also correlated positively with the ability to discriminate between expression and feeling on a conceptual level. Results are discussed in relation to the major developmental trend toward creating a mental level of self-regulation--first described by Vygotsky.

A cross-cultural comparison of the development of the social smile A longitudinal study of maternal and infant imitation in 6- and 12-week-old infants

Social smiling is universally regarded as being an infants first facial expression of pleasure. Underlying co-constructivist emotion theories are the assumptions that the emergence of social smiling is bound to experiences of face-to-face interactions with caregivers and the impact of two developmental mechanisms--maternal and infant imitation. We analyzed mother-infant interactions from two different socio-cultural contexts and hypothesized that cross-cultural differences in face-to-face interactions determine the occurrence of both of these mechanisms and of the frequency of social smiling by 12-week-old infants. Twenty mother-infant dyads from a socio-cultural community with many face-to-face interactions (German families, Münster) were compared with 24 mother-infant dyads from a socio-cultural community with few such interactions (rural Nso families, Cameroon) when the infants were aged 6 and 12 weeks. When infants were 6 weeks old, mothers and their infants from both cultural communities smiled at each other for similar (albeit very short) amounts of time and used imitated each others smiling similarly rarely. In contrast, when infants were 12 weeks old, mothers and their infants from Münster smiled at and imitated each other more often than did Nso mothers and their infants.

The Internalization Theory of Emotions: A Cultural Historical Approach to the Development of Emotions

Starting with an overview of theoretical approaches to emotion from an activity-oriented stance, this article applies Vygotskys three general principles of development, sign mediation, and internalization to the development of emotional expressions as a culturally evolved sign system. The possible twofold function of expression signs as a means of interpersonal regulation and intrapersonal regulation predestines them to be a mediator between sociocultural and psychological processes in the domain of emotions. The proposed internalization theory of emotional development transfers Vygotskys theory of the development of speech and thinking to the development of expression and feeling. Three stages of emotional development are described and underpinned by empirical studies: (a) the emergence of enculturated expression signs and related emotions from precursor emotions of newborns in the interpersonal regulation between caregivers and children during early childhood, (b) the emergence of intrapersonal regulation of emotions out of their interpersonal regulation by using expression signs as internal mediators that starts from preschool age onward, and (c) the internalization of emotional expression signs and the emergence of a mental plane of emotional processing.

Socializing Emotions in Childhood: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between the Bara in Madagascar and the Minangkabau in Indonesia

This article addresses the interdependency between child-rearing goals and values, emotionally arousing child-rearing practices, and the socialization and development of so-called socializing emotions. The latter are assigned a general psychological control function that enables children to adjust their behavior and emotions to the normative prescriptions of their culture. It is assumed that they are inculcated by means of emotionally arousing strategies such as frightening, corporal punishment, mocking, shaming but also praising, encouraging, or cherishing (Quinn, 2005) and that—in line with Vygotskys genetic law of development—they become internalized so effectively that they can exert their control function already without prior disciplining.

Emotions as Bio-cultural Processes: Disciplinary Debates and an Interdisciplinary Outlook

This chapter develops a theoretical framework that is capable of integrating the biological foundations of emotions with their cultural and semantic formation. It starts by investigating two leading scientific theories about emotions: one that is dominant in biology and a second one that is dominant in psychology. In biology, we consider the theory of basic emotions that focuses on innate biological emotional mechanisms. Using this approach, we can take physiological states into account. In psychology, we take a closer look at theories focusing on appraisals—the so-called appraisal theories—because these can be brought in to explain the cultural and semantic modification of biological emotional processes. Our examination of the major factors and elements of appraisal processes, which is also an examination of the internal processing of an emotional episode, discriminates unconscious from conscious processes and mental from nonmental processes. The next step is to integrate the two theories—the theory of basic emotions and appraisal theory—to couple emotional sensations with emotional concepts (semanticization). We clarify how basic innate emotional processes and complex learned ones are related to each other. We assume that cognition, feeling, and consciousness gradually become more differentiated in single species and organisms (phylogeny). Correspondingly, one possible hypothesis is that this differentiation process runs parallel on all levels, meaning that these domains can be assumed to be closely linked or even interdependent.

Milestones and Mechanisms of Emotional Development

This chapter describes central stages in the development of emotions and emotion regulation. A developmental theory is proposed that focuses on the complex interaction of emotions and social interactions. Expression signs for emotions in caregiver–child interaction are seen as an important mediating factor that serves as the critical means of communication, particularly during early ontogenesis, and through which culture enters emotion. The growing ability to regulate emotions intrapersonally becomes increasingly important for a socially coordinated and adequate regulation of actions. Based on recent empirical evidence, three of the five stages of emotional development are described: (1) The stereotypical precursor emotions of newborns are followed by sign-mediated emotion systems in the toddler that are based on caregiver–child interactions. These are mediated by expression signs modulated, and in part created, by the cultural context. Their purpose is to influence the caregiver’s behavior in terms of caring for the child; that is, they serve an interpersonal regulation function. (2) Starting at toddler’s age, emotions begin to serve an intrapersonal regulation function; that is, they direct the child’s behavior toward his or her own motives. Thus children actively learn to control their emotions. (3) During school age, the increasing internalization of emotional expression signs (making them “invisible” to an observer) is associated with adherence to cultural rules as well as with the possibility of deception. The ability to regulate emotions becomes more efficient owing to more flexible social coordination of motive satisfaction.

Development and Construct Validation of a Situational Judgment Test of Strategic Knowledge of Classroom Management in Elementary Schools

The current study describes the development and construct validation of a situational judgment test for assessing the strategic knowledge of classroom management in elementary schools. Classroom scenarios and accompanying courses of action were constructed, of which 17 experts confirmed the content validity. A pilot study and a cross-validation with preservice teachers and inservice teachers revealed the assumed factor structure and sensitivity of the test to differences in expertise. The results indicate that the situational judgment test for assessing strategic knowledge of classroom management in elementary schools is a valid assessment tool for investigating the acquisition and promotion of classroom management knowledge during teacher education.

Felt or False Smiles? Volitional Regulation of Emotional Expression in 4-, 6-, and 8-Year-Old Children

The development of volitional emotion regulation of expression was examined with a modified disappointing gift paradigm and strategy for coding childrens expressions. Forty-nine boys and 49 girls aged 4, 6, and 8 were motivated to volitionally deceive an observer by false smiling, regardless of whether they received an attractive, unattractive, or no gift. Ten naïve observers watched childrens videotaped behavior in random order and judged the quality of emotion and type of gift. This impression analysis indicated that childrens competence to volitionally regulate their expressions increased with age. In addition, this ability was positively associated with childrens emotion understanding of how to differentiate between emotion and expression. Unexpectedly, girls did not display a superior volitional regulation of expression than boys.

The Emergence of Social Smiling The Interplay of Maternal and Infant Imitation During the First Three Months in Cross-Cultural Comparison

The study addresses the emergence of the social smile in two different sociocultural contexts during the first 12 postnatal weeks. We examined different eliciting mechanisms like mutual gazing, maternal smile during mutual gazing, and reciprocal maternal and infant imitation of smiling. In co-constructivist theories of emotional development, all of them are considered social mechanisms that foster the emergence of social smile in early infancy around the 2-month shift. During the 6th postnatal week, we assumed that mutual gazing and the accompanying maternal smiles are the primary mechanisms that correspond with first infants’ social smile. From the 2-month shift onward, thus during the 8th, 10th, and 12th postnatal weeks, we assumed maternal imitation of infant smile moderates the positive relationship between infant imitation of maternal smile and the duration of infant social smile. We compared face-to-face interactions between 20 mother–child dyads from an independent sociocultural context (urban middle-class families from Münster, Germany) and 24 mother–child dyads from an interdependent sociocultural context (rural Nso families, Cameroon) when the infants were 6, 8, 10, and 12 weeks old. The first hypothesis could be corroborated for both cultural contexts, the second hypothesis only partly for the independent cultural contexts and staggered for the interdependent context. The consequences of culture-specific developmental pathways of social smile are discussed.

Using digital video to measure the professional vision of elementary classroom management: Test validation and methodological challenges

Abstract Using videos to improve teaching is becoming increasingly popular. Classroom videos help teachers to gain professional vision; that is, the ability to connect theory with practice and possess the necessary situated knowledge to recognize and interpret events that are crucial for learning. However, assessing the effects of such video-based learning environments on such situated knowledge requires valid instruments that are able to represent the complexity of teaching. The main aim of this study was to develop a standardized, video-based test for assessing the professional vision of one of the main dimensions of teaching quality: classroom management. We investigated the internal structure of our test, its sensitivity to differences in expertise, and its discriminant validity. A further problem with such video-cued testing is the item dependence that arises from items being nested within video clips. Therefore, a second aim of this study was to determine whether a bifactor modeling approach could counter the item dependence of video-based measurements and produce more accurate reliability and validity estimates for video-based tests.