Margaret Wolan Sullivan

Deception in 3-Year-Olds

Childrens ability to deceive was examined in order to determine whether they are able to hide their emotional expression intentionally. Three-year-oids were instructed not to peek at a toy while the experimenter left the room. When asked, the great majority either denied that they peeked or would not answer the question. Facial and bodily activity did not differentiate the deceivers from the truth tellers. Boys were more likely than girls to admit their transgression. These results indicate that very young children have begun to learn how to mask their emotional expressions and support the role of socialization in this process.

Young children's adjustment as a function of maltreatment, shame, and anger.

Maltreated children are at increased risk for behavior problems. This study examines a model in which shame mediates the potential relation between maltreatment and anger, and anger mediates the potential relation between shame and behavior problems. Participants were 177 children (ages 3 to 7 years) and their mothers, 90 of whom had histories of perpetrating neglect and/or physical abuse. Physical abuse, but not neglect, was related to increased shame during an evaluative task; shame was related to increased anger; and anger to teacher ratings of total behavior problems and externalizing problems. Age moderated the relation between physical abuse and adjustment, as abuse was related to more total problems only among the younger children. Anger was a significant mediator of shame and both behavior problems and externalizing problems. Shame, anger, age, and type of maltreatment appear to be important factors in explaining variance in behavioral adjustment following a history of maltreatment.

Emotional Development in Atypical Children

Contents: Preface. T. Field, Expressivity in Physically and Emotionally Handicapped Children. T. Walden, L. Knieps, Reading and Responding to Social Signals. M. Lewis, M.W. Sullivan, The Role of Situation and Child Status on Emotional Interaction. P. Mundy, J. Willoughby, Nonverbal Communication, Joint Attention, and Early Socioemotional Development. M. Bendersky, S.M. Alessandri, M. Lewis, Emotions in Cocaine-Exposed Infants. C. Kasari, M. Sigman, Expression and Understanding of Emotion in Atypical Development: Autism and Down Syndrome. N.A. Fox, A. Sobel, S. Calkins, P. Cole, Inhibited Children Talk About Themselves: Self-Reflection on Personality Development and Change in 7-Year Olds. L.A. Turner, Attributional Beliefs of Persons with Mild Mental Retardation. R.J. Casey, Emotional Competence in Children with Externalizing and Internalizing Disorders. S.M. Alessandri, M. Lewis, Development of the Self-Conscious Emotions in Maltreated Children. L.A. Camras, E. Sachs-Alter, S.C. Ribordy, Emotion Understanding in Maltreated Children: Recognition of Facial Expressions and Integration with Other Emotion Cues. S.A. Denham, S. Lydick, J. Mitchell-Copeland, Socioemotional Assessment for Atypical Infants and Preschoolers.

A conditioning analysis of infant long-term memory.

The long-term retention of conditioned operant footkicks by 3-month-old infants was assessed in 2 studies. In both, infants were trained in a conjugate reinforcement paradigm in which footkicks produced conjugate activation of the components of an overhead crib mobile. After 2 training sessions, retention (cued recall, savings) was assessed cross-sectionally in a third session scheduled after varying intervals. In experiment 1, 32 infants were tested after intervals of 48, 72, 96, or 120 hours; in experiment 2, 24 infants were tested after 96, 144, 192, or 336 hours. No evidence of forgetting was observed for as long as 192 hours following original training. Although both retention measures indicated a significant memory deficit in the group tested after 336 hours (2 weeks), some individuals continued to exhibit substantial recall and savings after this retention interval. A conditioning analysis was viewed as a logical means by which to bridge the gap between animal and adult human models of memory.

Brief Report: Fostering Environmental Control in a Young Child with Rett Syndrome: A Case Study^

Rett syndrome is a developmental disability resulting in severe mentaland physical deficits in female children. The syndrome results in progressiveloss of cognitive and motor skills including speech and grasping. Skills arereportedly lost after the first 6 to 18 months of life (Van Acker, 1991),although the assumption of early normalcy has been questioned as moredata have become available on the early developmental histories of thesechildren (Perry, 1991). The etiology of Rett syndrome is as yet obscureand no cure is known. The syndrome may afflict as many as 10,000 girlsin the United States based on the European prevalence data, althoughabout 11% of this figure had been identified as of the mid-1980s (Moser& Naidu, 1986), presumably due to the limited awareness of the syndrome.Stereotypic hand movements are a unique characteristic of Rett syn-drome. Hand wringing occurs with high frequency and may be accompaniedby mouthing of the clasped hands or other forms of stereotyped hand action(Van Acker, 1991.) Purposeful hand movements are lacking. Attention toobjects and events in the physical environment is also reportedly poor.Clearly the lack of ability to reach and grasp objects voluntarily and toattend to external stimuli afford the child with Rett syndrome little oppor-

Contextual Determinants of Anger and Other Negative Expressions in Young Infants.

Two experiments examined how different frustration contexts affect the instrumental and emotional responses of 4- to 5-month-old infants. Three different frustrating contexts were investigated: loss of stimulation (extinction), reduction in contingent stimulation (partial reinforcement), and loss of stimulus control (noncontingency). In both experiments, changes in arm activity and facial expressions of anger and sadness coded according to the Maximally Discriminative Facial Movement Coding System (MAX) were the measures of frustration. Both experiments showed that (a) arm responses increased when the contingent stimulus was lost or reduced but decreased when control of the stimulus was lost under noncontingency, (b) MAX-coded anger, but not MAX-coded sad or blends of anger and sad, was associated with frustration, and (c) the pattern of anger and arm responses varied with the frustration context. When contingent stimulation was lost or reduced, both anger and arm responses increased, but when expected control was lost under noncontingency, arm responses decreased while anger increased.

Violation of Expectancy and Frustration in Early Infancy.

This study examines infant instrumental responses during learning and extinction and whether this responses are related to individual differences in temperament as reported by mothers. To explore this problem, a cross-sectional design examining behavioral responding to extinction was initiated. Thre questions were asked: 1) Does a brief period of nonreward following consistent reward lead to an increase in the learned response? 2) Is age an important factor influencing this increased in the learned response? 3) What is the relation between temperament and the infants reactivity to extinction?

Relations of parental report and observation of parenting to maltreatment history

Parenting assessments (the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale, CTSPC; and a mother-child observation) were examined for their ability to identify mothers with a history of physically abusing or neglecting their child. Participants were mothers of 139 children (age 3 to 6 years; 58 with a history of maltreatment). Mothers with a history of maltreatment reported higher scores on the Neglect, Nonviolent Discipline, and Psychological Aggression subscales of the CTSPC. These group differences, however, were limited to mothers who acknowledged a history of maltreatment, as mothers who concealed their maltreatment history rated themselves similar to controls. Observation of parental behaviors during a brief, nonstressful task did not discriminate mothers who maltreated from mothers who did not maltreat. The findings suggest that parental report using the CTSPC may be useful in assessing parenting behaviors among mothers with a history of maltreatment, although socially desirable responding is a significant problem.

Neglected children, shame-proneness, and depressive symptoms.

Neglected children may be at increased risk for depressive symptoms. This study examines shame-proneness as an outcome of child neglect and as a potential explanatory variable in the relation between neglect and depressive symptoms. Participants were 111 children (52 with a Child Protective Services [CPS] allegation of neglect) seen at age 7. Neglected children reported more shame-proneness and more depressive symptoms than comparison children. Guilt-proneness, in contrast, was unrelated to neglect and depressive symptoms, indicating specificity for shame-proneness. The potential role of shame as a process variable that can help explain how some neglected children exhibit depressive symptoms is discussed.

Making Faces: Age and Emotion Differences in the Posing of Emotional Expressions.

Institute for the Study of Child Development University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Preschool children, 2 to 5 years of age, and adults posed the six facial expressions of happiness, surprise, anger, fear, sadness, and disgust before a videotape camera. Their poses were scored subse- quently using the MAX system. The number of poses that included all components of the target expression (complete expressions) as well as the frequency of those that included only some of the components of the target expressions (partial expressions) were analyzed. Results indicated that 2- year-olds as a group failed to pose any face. Three-year-olds were a transitional group, posing happi- ness and surprise expressions but none of the remaining faces to any degree. Four- and 5-year-olds were similar to one another and differed from adults only on surprise and anger expressions. Adults were able to pose both these expressions. No group, including adults, posed fear and disgust well. Posing of happiness showed no change after 3 years of age. Consistent differences between partial and complete poses were observed particularly for the negative expressions of sadness, fear, and disgust. Implications of these results for socialization theories of emotion are discussed. Most recent research efforts in the study of childrens emo- tional development have either traced the developmental time- table of spontaneous facial expressions or documented the abil- ity of infants and children to discriminate and recognize facial expressions. In general, the underlying model of such research has been biological (Darwin, 1872; Ekman, Friesen, & Ells- worth, 1972; Emde, Gaensbauer, & Harmon, 1976; Izard, 1977; Tomkins, 1962, 1963). Consequently, research has fo- cused on the constant, universal, and holistic aspects of sponta- neous facial expression. However, the ability to voluntarily pose facial expressions is important to issues in the socialization of emotion; for example, the issues of when and how well children can modulate and con- trol their emotional expressions (Lewis & Michalson, 1983). Such ability seems to be a basic skill underlying more complex types of emotional management techniques, such as the mask- ing of facial expressions in order to conform to display rules or to practice deception (Ekman, 1985; Saarni, 1985). Develop- mental research on any aspect of expression management is scarce, but it seems likely that developmental differences exist even in the ability to pose faces. It has been shown that some expressions are easier to pose than others, even among adults (Thompson & Meltzer, 1964). Similar, and perhaps other, age- This research was supported by a W. T. Grant Foundation grant to Michael Lewis, National Institute of Child Health and Human Develop- ment Grant 17205 to Margaret Wolan Sullivan, and a Rutgers Medical School Summer Fellowship to Arthur Vasen. We wish to thank Norma Goetz for data collection and Despi Had- zimichalis for general assistance in preparation of the manuscript. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mi- chael Lewis, Institute for the Study of Child Development/Department of Pediatrics, UMDNJ-Rutgers Medical School, Medical Education Building CN19, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. 690 related differences may be observable in children. In this article we are concerned with the production of facial expression (hereinafter referred to as