When mothers of 12 infants 10 weeks of age displayed noncontingent, practiced facial and vocal expressions of joy, anger, and sadness, infants responded differently to each expression. Infants' matching responses to maternal affects were only part of complex but predictable behavioral patterns that indicate meaningful affect states and possibly…

Ninety 5- and 6-year-old children equally divided by sex were assigned randomly to one of three emotion-inducing conditions (self-focused happy, other-focused happy, or neutral emotion-inducing) and then given varying numbers of rewards. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive processes initiated by emotional states that may influence…

Happy or sad moods were experimentally induced in elementary-aged children by asking them to reminisce about things that made them happy or sad. Voice affect (with verbal content filtered out) was compared to a baseline neutral condition. (Author/SS)

To determine whether 1 or 2 dimensions of infant emotionality best characterized infant functioning, parental reports (10 months) and elicited emotion (12-13 months) were examined. Found that early positivity (12-13 months) predicted later positivity (18-20 months) better than later negativity, with the reverse being true of early negativity.…

This study examined 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 128; 54% girls) ability to discriminate emotional fantasy and reality. Children viewed images depicting fantastic or real events that elicited several emotions, reported whether each event could occur, and rated their emotional reaction to the image. Children were also administered the Play Behavior…

Attention to task-relevant and task-irrelevant information was compared in high- and low-test-anxious children. Results indicated that high-test anxious persons divide their attention in evaluative situations. It is suggested that providing them with task-relevant strategies helps them to cope with the negative effects of test anxiety. (JMB)

Wernerian developmental theory is used to examine both the kinds of changes in impressions of others that occur with development and the conditions under which relatively immature impressions may be produced by presumably mature individuals. (Authors)

Four studies examined aspects of expressive behavior development in face-to-face mother-infant interactions. Found evidence of the morphological stability of discrete emotion expressions and that young infants respond differentially to positive conditions based on mother's interest and joy expressions and negative conditions based on sadness and…

Sixty-four young children were induced to feel angry, sad, happy, or "just okay" before their exposure to interadult anger. Findings indicated that negative emotions increased children's distress and negative appraisals and expectations in reaction to interadult anger, whereas positive emotions reduced distress reactions and increased children's…

Two studies presented 5- to 6-year-old and 9- to 10-year-old children with videotaped scenarios of interadult conflicts ending in various ways. Study 1 demonstrated that negative effects of adults' disputes on children are reduced even by "resolution behind closed doors," whereas study 2 showed that negative reactions are also reduced by…

Examined the instrumental responses and facial expressions during learning and extinction in a group of 36 cocaine-exposed infants ages 4 to 8 months and an equal number of control subjects. Findings indicated that cocaine-exposed infants expressed less interest and joy during learning and less anger and sadness during extinction than infants who…

Two studies examined messages conveyed in infant-directed lullabies and play songs. Findings indicated that adult raters differentiated audio recordings of mothers' lullaby- and play-song-styles with 100% accuracy and performed at above chance level in identifying which music 6-month olds were hearing on silent videotapes. Infants focused…

Studied 125 mothers and firstborn sons over 11-month period to examine relations between mothers' representations of their relationships with their children, adult representations of attachment, and observed mothering. Findings revealed significant relationship between mothers' representations of relationships with their children and adult…

Previous research using a conditioned-attention paradigm demonstrated that 4-month-old infants of depressed mothers (a) failed to acquire associations when a segment of their mothers' infant-directed (ID) speech signaled the presentation of a smiling face but (b) did acquire associations when a segment of an unfamiliar nondepressed mother's ID…

Previous research has investigated the effect of maternal soothing behaviors on reducing infant reactivity but not the differential effects of specific maternal behaviors on infant stress responses. The present study investigated maternal regulation of 2- and 6-month-olds' responses to an inoculation and found a significant decline with age in…