This article explores the possibility that romantic love is an attachment process--a biosocial process by which affectional bonds are formed between adult lovers, just as affectional bonds are formed earlier in life between human infants and their parents. Key components of attachment theory, developed by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others to explain the development of affectional bonds in infancy, were translated into terms appropriate to adult romantic love. The translation centered on the three major styles of attachment in infancy--secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent--and on the notion that continuity of relationship style is due in part to mental models (Bowlby's "inner working models") of self and social life. These models, and hence a person's attachment style, are seen as determined in part by childhood relationships with parents. Two questionnaire studies indicated that relative prevalence of the three attachment styles is roughly the same in adulthood as in infancy, the three kinds of adults differ predictably in the way they experience romantic love, and attachment style is related in theoretically meaningful ways to mental models of self and social relationships and to relationship experiences with parents. Implications for theories of romantic love are discussed, as are measurement problems and other issues related to future tests of the attachment perspective.

/pdf/romantic-love-conceptualized-as-an-attachment-process-1v0qssoz83.pdf

Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process

The emerging field of emotion regulation studies how individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them. This review takes an evolutionary perspective and characterizes emotion in terms of response tendencies. Emotion regulation is denned and distinguished from coping, mood regulation, defense, and affect regulation. In the increasingly specialized discipline of psychology, the field of emotion regulation cuts across traditional boundaries and provides common ground. According to a process model of emotion regulation, emotion may be regulated at five points in the emotion generative process: (a) selection of the situation, (b) modification of the situation, (c) deployment of attention, (d) change of cognitions, and (e) modulation of responses. The field of emotion regulation promises new insights into age-old questions about how people manage their emotions.

http://www.elaborer.org/cours/A13/lectures/Gross1998.pdf

The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review.

Given recent attention to emotion regulation as a potentially unifying function of diverse symptom presentations, there is a need for comprehensive measures that adequately assess difficulties in emotion regulation among adults. This paper (a) proposes an integrative conceptualization of emotion regulation as involving not just the modulation of emotional arousal, but also the awareness, understanding, and acceptance of emotions, and the ability to act in desired ways regardless of emotional state; and (b) begins to explore the factor structure and psychometric properties of a new measure, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Two samples of undergraduate students completed questionnaire packets. Preliminary findings suggest that the DERS has high internal consistency, good test–retest reliability, and adequate construct and predictive validity.

/pdf/multidimensional-assessment-of-emotion-regulation-and-xwrpw05nqr.pdf

Multidimensional Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation: Development, Factor Structure, and Initial Validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale

Psychology has long been enamored of the dark side of human existence, rarely exploring a more positive view of the mind. What has psychology contributed, for example, to our understanding of the various human virtues? Regrettably, not much. The last decade, however, has witnessed a growing movement to abandon the exclusive focus on the negative. Psychologists from several subdisciplines are now asking an intriguing question: "What strengths does a person employ to deal effectively with life?" The Handbook of Positive Psychology provides a forum for a more positive view of the human condition. In its pages, readers are treated to an analysis of what the foremost experts believe to be the fundamental strengths of humankind. Both seasoned professionals and students just entering the field are eager to grasp the power and vitality of the human spirit as it faces a multitude of life challenges. The Handbook is the first systematic attempt to bring together leading scholars to give voice to the emerging field of positive psychology.

Handbook of positive psychology

There is disagreement in the literature about the exact nature of the phenomenon of empathy. There are emotional, cogni- tive, and conditioning views, applying in varying degrees across species. An adequate description of the ultimate and proximate mecha- nism can integrate these views. Proximately, the perception of an object's state activates the subject's corresponding representations, which in turn activate somatic and autonomic responses. This mechanism supports basic behaviors (e.g., alarm, social facilitation, vicar- iousness of emotions, mother-infant responsiveness, and the modeling of competitors and predators) that are crucial for the reproduc- tive success of animals living in groups. The Perception-Action Model (PAM), together with an understanding of how representations change with experience, can explain the major empirical effects in the literature (similarity, familiarity, past experience, explicit teach- ing, and salience). It can also predict a variety of empathy disorders. The interaction between the PAM and prefrontal functioning can also explain different levels of empathy across species and age groups. This view can advance our evolutionary understanding of empa- thy beyond inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism and can explain different levels of empathy across individuals, species, stages of de- velopment, and situations.

/pdf/empathy-its-ultimate-and-proximate-bases-3gnr9okjki.pdf

Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases.

Prologue: What Is Emotional Competence? 1. The Inseparability of Emotional and Social Development 2. The Role of the Self in Emotional Competence 3. How We Become Emotionally Competent 4. Skill 1: Awareness of One's Own Emotions 5. Skill 2: The Ability to Discern and Understand Others' Emotions 6. Skill 3: The Ability to Use the Vocabulary of Emotion and Expression 7. Skill 4: Capacity for Empathic Involvement 8. Skill 5: The Ability to Differentiate Internal Subjective Emotional Experience from External Emotional Expression 9. Skill 6: Capacity for Adaptive Coping with Aversive Emotions and Distressing Circumstances 10. Skill 7: Awareness of Emotional Communication within Relationships 11. Skill 8: Capacity for Emotional Self-Efficacy 12. Emotional Incompetence and Dysfunction

The Development of Emotional Competence

The chapter begins by addressing the theoretical platform endorsed by the authors that consists of an integration of functionalist perspectives with dynamic systems and social contextualism. This integrated perspective entails a flexible approach to emotional behavior: Expressive behavior, action tendencies, and cultural influence on emotion meaning all have their place in understanding emotional development. The chapter goes on to examine early emotional development, highlighting the importance of emotion communication as evidenced in infants through their emotional signaling to caregivers, their social referencing to significant others, and their growing skills at affective sharing with others. The final half of the chapter examines the development of eight specific skills of emotional competence, emphasizing their social effectiveness and individual adaptiveness. We conclude with a discussion of future research directions, including what may be the relational limits of emotion, individual differences in emotional responsiveness to contextual cues, attention processes, and emotion-related goals, some of which may become interiorized with development.


Keywords:

adolescent development;
childhood development;
emotion;
emotional competence;
functionalism;
infanct development;
social context;
social effectiveness

Emotional Development: Action, Communication, and Understanding

Part 1 Children's understanding of emotion - an introduction, Paul L.Harris and Carolyn Saarni. Part 2 Early understanding of emotion - young children's acquisition of emotion concepts, Patricia Smiley and Janellen Huttenlocher children's understanding of emotional state changes, Nancy L.Stein and Tom Trabasso. Part 3 Developmental change in understanding emotion developmental changes in children's understanding of single, multiple, and blended emotion concepts, Susan Harter and Nancy Rumbaugh Whitesell causal attributions and children's emotional understanding, Ross A.Thompson children's use of personal information to understand other people's feelings, Jackie Gnepp Part 4 The control of emotion: children's understanding of strategic control of emotional expression in social transactions, Carolyn Saarni awareness and self-regulation of emotion in young children, Mark Meerum Terwogt and Tjeert Olthop. Part 5 Emotion, empathy, and experience: understanding emotion and experiencing emotion, Paul L.Harris and Mark S.Lipian what children know and feel in response to witnessing affective events, Janet Strayer. Part 6 The role of culture and socialization practices culture, scripts, and children's understanding of emotion, James A. Russell the socialization of emotions - emotional culture, competence, and exposure, Steven L. Gordon cultural differences in children's knowledge of emotional scripts, Michael Lewis.

Children's understanding of emotion

Emotional competence: how emotions and relationships become integrated.

1. Deceit and Illusion in Human Affairs, Saarni and Lewis 2. What a Tangled Web: Deception and Self-Deception in Philosophy, Solomon 3. Animals as Liars: The Human Face of Nonhuman Duplicity, Mitchell 4. The Development of Deception, Lewis 5. The Socialization of Emotional Dissemblance, Saarni & von Salisch 6. Sex Differences in Lying: How Women and Men Deal with the Dilemma of Deceit, DePaulo, Epstein, & Wyer 7. Looking at Oneself in a Rose-Colored Mirror: The Role of Excuses in the Negotiation of a Personal Reality, Sigmon & Snyder 8. Lying to Yourself: The Enigma of Self-Deception, Baumeister 9. Lies that Fail, Ekman & Frank 10. Understanding Malingering: Motivation, Method, and Detection, Kropp & Rogers

Carolyn Saarni

Papers

The Development of Emotional Competence

Emotional Development: Action, Communication, and Understanding

Children's understanding of emotion

Emotional competence: how emotions and relationships become integrated.

Lying and deception in everyday life