NOVA explores the incredibly complex emotional development of infants and examines the current theory that early childhood psychological intervention can head off emotional problems later in life.
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00:00That babies are capable of a wide range of feelings may come as no surprise to parents.
00:17But only recently has science turned its attention to the emotional lives of children.
00:23And in the past few years, new techniques have emerged that open a window onto infant
00:28emotions and which allow scientists to probe the nature of the child's inner world.
00:35Evidence is growing that emotions serve important biological and social functions in the development
00:40of a child's personality.
00:44But will this new understanding change the way we raise our children?
00:48Tonight on NOVA, joint psychologist Tom Cottle as we embark on a quest to understand life's
00:54first feelings.
01:03Major funding for NOVA is provided by this station and other public television stations
01:07nationwide.
01:10Additional funding was provided by the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, supplying health
01:14care products worldwide.
01:19And by Allied Signal, a technology leader in aerospace, electronics, automotive products,
01:24and engineered materials.
01:44Open your eyes, see the world, you're a dream come true.
01:57Beautiful baby, look at me, let me look at you.
02:04Can you see your mother's face smiling down above?
02:12Can you hear the melody of this song of love?
02:19So long, so long, we've waited for this day.
02:26Dreaming of someone just like you to remind us how to play.
02:35When a mother greets a newborn child, the joy fills her face.
02:40Yet before long, the reality sets in that parenting can also be a confusing and difficult
02:45experience.
02:49I've been a house mother all summer long, and it's kind of neat because I get to see
02:52all this stuff every day, and he does it.
02:55You're not allowed to play with the TV, no.
02:57You can't stand up on the chair, you can't stand up on the table, you don't hit the chandelier,
03:01you don't dump the sugar bowl, you don't play with the lights on the Betamax, you don't
03:05turn the radio on and off, you don't play in the toilet, you don't get your dirty diapers
03:11out of your diaper pail.
03:13He would not go to nobody but me, so I had to start working everything, because I used
03:17to leave and he used to throw tantrums.
03:19There wasn't nobody else he wanted to keep.
03:22I actually found her cringing in her crib when her older brother would go in and he
03:26would push her down when she stands up in it.
03:28My husband has no concept of parent burnout because he's burning out at work and I'm at
03:35home going, oh.
03:38When parents meet, they inevitably find themselves sharing questions about the emotional difficulties
03:44of parenting.
03:45They're concerned with how to do their best at what probably is the most important challenge
03:50they'll ever face, raising happy, healthy children.
03:53Can science contribute to this quest?
03:56I'm Dr. Tom Cottle.
03:58In the past 15 years, there's been an explosion of interest in the emotional development of
04:02children.
04:03This represents an enormous change, for historically, the field of psychology has viewed children
04:08in very limited ways.
04:10They've been described as a cauldron of seething drives, as a blank slate to be written on
04:15by the environment, and even as unfeeling learning machines.
04:18Some schools of thought have regarded the behavior of young children as simply a mechanistic
04:22reaction to rewards and punishments.
04:25Overall, most 20th century psychologists consider childhood emotion outside the pale of science
04:31an unworthy of serious study.
04:34Now, the climate has changed.
04:36Today, most researchers believe that the child brings into the world a rich tapestry of emotional
04:41potential.
04:42The study of the interplay between this inner world and the outer forces of the environment
04:47makes a fascinating story, one which may just help parents with their job, and which can
04:52enrich our understanding of the very young.
04:55I'll go get you.
05:00I'll go get you.
05:03A newborn is bombarded with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches.
05:11One of the infant's first jobs is to develop a way of handling all these new experiences.
05:16He's looking at her, but he's much...
05:18Professor Edward Tronick of the University of Massachusetts began his work in the early
05:231970s.
05:24The emphasis in child psychology then was on how children learn, but his early studies
05:30suggested a dramatic new direction.
05:33When I first started working on this, I was working at an infant daycare center, and I
05:38felt like, gee, you know, I'm a real hot shot at this, so I'm going to do this kind of curriculum
05:44for these kids, and these kids are going to be really smart.
05:47And then as soon as I got there, I saw six or seven infants out there being played with
05:53by different caretakers, and each of the teachers had to find a different rhythm, if you will,
05:59in themselves to fit to the different babies.
06:03Tronick believes that emotions come first.
06:06If a baby fusses all the time, it can't begin to learn about the world.
06:11It's the emotional dialogue between parent and child which enables the infant to begin
06:16to control its emotions, and at the same time, lets the parents know how much stimulation
06:21the baby can handle.
06:24What she's doing is she comes in really close, and so there's all this stimulation now coming
06:30from the outside.
06:32Now in a way, that gets his attention, but at the same time, again, he has to be able
06:37to deal with that.
06:39So what he starts to do, he decreases the stimulation, he looks away, helps to get himself
06:45back under control, and then he can come back and now re-engage with the mother.
06:55She does that hand movement, she smiles, he says, oh, I need a little break again, so
07:00he disengages.
07:04And then he smiles, and she comes back in, so that they're really in sync with one another.
07:10But if they do get out of sync, he knows that if he then smiles, that she'll come back.
07:15And what you're seeing is almost a perfect dance between them.
07:22After studying hundreds of infants and mothers, Tronick became convinced that this dance between
07:28parent and child is characteristic of most normal interactions.
07:33He believes this wordless dialogue initiates a bond of mutual expectation and trust.
07:41But what happens if that bond of expectations is interrupted?
07:46And the procedure that we thought about was to ask the mothers to not respond to what
07:51the infants were doing.
07:55He looks at her, he smiles, big, full smile.
08:00Big, full smile.
08:03Realizes right there that she's not doing what he expects.
08:10So what he does now is something we saw him doing in the normal interaction.
08:13He looks away, he disengages.
08:15He's saying, something's wrong, I'm getting a little upset, this isn't exactly right.
08:19So I'll look over here.
08:22Right now he's saying, this doesn't feel real good.
08:25And I'm going to try again.
08:27And looking at my hands, I'll calm down a little.
08:30It's kind of self-comforting.
08:32Comes back here, looks at her, but there's no smile.
08:41There you see him drool.
08:43And this is a baby who wasn't drooling before.
08:46Didn't have any signs of even losing a little bodily control.
08:52He starts tonguing, another sign of being upset.
08:56And now he's hiccuping.
08:58And his whole body, if you will, is getting, to some extent, unregulated.
09:03If this response occurs in the laboratory,
09:06what happens when infants are emotionally deprived over long periods of time?
09:11Tronick discovered similar kinds of behavior in the babies of chronically depressed mothers.
09:16The infants of depressed mothers have been experiencing this kind of interaction on a regular basis
09:23and develop a pattern of being disengaged from their mothers.
09:31Tronick's findings about the role of strong emotional ties in the life of the baby
09:36echo the research of psychiatrist Rene Spitz in the 1940s.
09:41Capturing a much more extreme situation,
09:44Spitz filmed infants who were institutionalized when their mothers were jailed.
09:50Many of the children he studied became apathetic, cried continuously, and lost weight.
09:57Their natural resistance was lowered, and some died.
10:03Dr. Robert Emdy, an infant researcher at the University of Colorado Medical School, was a student of Spitz.
10:09Rene Spitz really shocked the world with very painful, dramatic pictures of children
10:18who looked so painfully sad and devastated.
10:26And although their physical needs were being attended to,
10:29they lacked the emotional availability of caregivers.
10:34These infants looked horrifically sad, in a strict analogy to grief in an older child or adult.
10:44Infants also can be grieved.
10:48And people couldn't bear to look at those films. It's very hard to look at them today.
10:52Some of the extreme situations may look very unusual and abnormal,
10:59and you might say, well, that doesn't exist today.
11:03Unfortunately, these awful, pained, emotionally starved expressions are seen today.
11:10There is an epidemic of child abuse and neglect, and it's a very serious problem.
11:17And in fact, when we see this expression, we teach clinicians to explore further,
11:24because intervention and help needs to be on the way.
11:30These films presented persuasive evidence that a strong tie with a caring adult
11:35is crucial to the infant's emotional and physical well-being.
11:39They had an extraordinary impact on the study of infant emotions
11:42and the treatment of emotional disorders.
11:46Hi, sweetheart. How are you doing? Hi, I'm Dr. Greenspan.
11:51Dr. Stanley Greenspan, a psychiatrist with the Public Health Service, is on the firing line daily.
11:59He works with disturbed children, like those in the Spitz footage,
12:02and with more children who are in critical condition.
12:05He works with disturbed children, like those in the Spitz footage,
12:08and with more common childhood problems.
12:12His starting point is an appreciation of individual patterns of emotional development.
12:18Each baby will experience sound, touch, visual experiences,
12:22their own movement patterns, quite differently.
12:25And as a baby progresses up his own maturation ladder and through the emotional milestones,
12:31they organize experience differently based on what they're blessed with when they come into the world.
12:37It's very, very important for parents to have tools to help the baby master their new emotional milestones.
12:44A pioneer of early intervention, Greenspan believes emotional problems
12:48can be treated in babies as young as two months.
12:54This mother is concerned about her son's fussiness.
12:58In the past, treatment would have focused mainly on the parent's role.
13:03Greenspan's team pays equal attention to what the child brings to the relationship.
13:10Here, at the Maryland Regional Center for Infants,
13:13they look for areas where a baby may be overly sensitive to sights, sounds, or touch.
13:20These may interfere with his critical ability to calm down and explore the world.
13:25This sensory evaluation, for example, tests this baby's tolerance for different kinds of movement.
13:38During the workup, the team confirms what the mother has suspected.
13:43He is especially sensitive to touch.
13:46His arched back indicates that he finds pressure there unbearable.
13:51A baby's aversion to touch could make a mother feel rejected
13:54and set the stage for future emotional problems.
14:04It was clear to me that I wasn't getting the real cuddly baby that I...
14:10You know, I always sort of dreamed I would have a baby that I would be, you know,
14:14half sleeping on my belly and carrying around in a snuggly and this and that.
14:19You know, it was clear that he wasn't that kind of baby.
14:21It was, on the other hand, sort of exciting that he was so interested in things.
14:26He was alert from the time he was born.
14:32The team's strategy is to help this mother adjust her parenting style
14:36to reflect the special care her child requires.
14:48If you can make it be a game, like the kissing,
14:51then they can really enjoy it and not know that they're getting touched.
14:55So that's the way to sneak it in on me.
14:59Is this unusual?
15:00Yes.
15:01Use that alertness and interest by giving him visual and auditory support.
15:06When you're holding him in the position like you're doing now
15:08and you gently put your hand on his back,
15:10allows him to begin using his strength, which is his great attentiveness,
15:14his great interest in things.
15:18His first laugh was when I was doing that.
15:21Oh, he loves that. He loves that.
15:23In this case, early recognition of a child's special constitutional needs
15:27has helped maintain the critical dance between mother and child.
15:31Oh, that's nice.
15:32But other types of problems demand a different approach.
15:36We have a comprehensive model where we pay equal respect
15:39to what the baby brings into the world and how the baby matures,
15:44what the parents bring in in terms of their character structure,
15:46their past history.
15:48We also pay attention to the larger cultural context
15:51that the family operates in.
15:53Remember, she's just little.
15:58David.
16:01That wasn't nice.
16:03This mother is worried about how to handle the developing rivalry
16:07between her son and daughter.
16:09He'll get a running start from across the room
16:13right in her face.
16:14He'll just push as hard as he can.
16:17And then the next minute he'll turn around and kiss her.
16:19He's just very changeable with it.
16:23I'm afraid, I guess the worst problem is I'm afraid he's going to hurt her,
16:27not intentionally, but I guess she'll crawl,
16:30he'll try and get on her and just sit down on her,
16:32and I'm afraid it's really going to hurt her one day.
16:35Greenspan believes some families need help
16:38even with common problems such as sibling rivalry.
16:41It's his conviction that early intervention
16:43can head off more serious problems later on.
16:47This little baby girl, she has a big brother,
16:50and he tyrannizes his little sister.
16:53Mommy's got to figure out now
16:55how do I balance the needs of my little girl,
16:57who's a wonderful, loving little girl,
17:00but who's also very, very sensitive
17:02and easily gets offended and hurt and upset,
17:04and the needs of my assertive big boy.
17:07And if this continued brother might feel that the way to deal with
17:10having to share a mommy is to beat up the kid who's less strong than me,
17:14then this little girl could be scared of the world generally.
17:20Greenspan's goal in therapy is to find positive ways
17:24to get a family back on track,
17:26so he proposes techniques to alter the way
17:29family members relate to one another.
17:32David is going to be a giver and a helper,
17:36a mommy's partner.
17:38Come take these rings from Heather and see if she'll come back and get them.
17:41Take those.
17:43Hold them out to her. Hold them out and see if she'll come get them.
17:47Here, Heather.
17:49Until recently, most therapists would have considered
17:52this kind of early intervention strictly experimental.
17:56Children were not usually treated until more obvious problems emerged,
18:00such as extremes of destructive behavior.
18:03Even today, this comprehensive approach
18:05is available in only a handful of clinics across the country.
18:10Here. Here.
18:14Yes, she got him back. Very good.
18:17Now we're cooking, huh?
18:19By working with him, he'll get to do that.
18:23And also, at the same time,
18:25you'll be helping him learn to share more with Heather.
18:28You'll be helping Heather learn to be more assertive.
18:30And he'll feel good because he'll be a partner to you.
18:33Did I get a shake? Thanks.
18:36Are you going to be a partner now?
18:39The question comes down to,
18:41does intervention really work when you're studying babies?
18:44Can family patterns be changed
18:46so that the family and the baby can negotiate
18:49their own emotional growth together?
18:51In our clinical experiences, yes.
18:53Looking at all studies ever done,
18:55preventive intervention approaches for a variety of problems tend to work.
18:59What the studies did not answer is
19:01how long will these interventions last once they stop?
19:05And that's future challenges.
19:07So we have many refined questions to pursue,
19:10but I think we're building on a very, very strong foundation.
19:15A firm foundation for early intervention, however,
19:18isn't built on clinical experience alone.
19:21It also depends on a solid theoretical foundation
19:24based on the steps science has taken towards understanding emotions.
19:28It's easy to see why emotional development
19:31has always presented a problem for science,
19:34particularly in young children who are not yet able to talk.
19:37After all, what is an emotion?
19:39To most of us, it's simply a sensation we call a feeling.
19:43But that sort of definition is too elusive for scientists.
19:46Other components of emotion, such as physical and behavioral changes,
19:50lend themselves more easily to scientific study
19:53because they can be observed and measured.
19:56So in the past few years,
19:58the emphasis has been on developing new research techniques
20:01that are both objective and useful in exploring the inner world of children.
20:05And what has come out of this work
20:07is a view of emotions as an intrinsic part of our biological heritage.
20:16Unraveling the mysteries of emotions
20:18has been the life work of Professor Carol Izzard
20:21at the University of Delaware.
20:24A very interesting expression. Very attentive.
20:29Izzard believes that facial expressions are a window into emotions.
20:33He studies small children to capture their expressions
20:36before they learn to hide their feelings.
20:39How are you? Huh? Are you okay today?
20:42Would you say hello to me?
20:44Are you all right?
20:46Oh, you look like a real cute girl to me.
20:49Oh, yes, you are. Yes, you do.
20:52The response we see here in Ashley
20:55as I approached her and tried to strike a little conversation,
20:59just a nice, normal, shy response,
21:02is so frequently observed in children
21:05that we think it has something to do with caution
21:08built into the youngster
21:10that keeps them from becoming too quickly involved with a stranger.
21:17Izzard's research grew out of observations made by Charles Darwin
21:21which were ignored for almost a century.
21:24Charles Darwin, in 1872, published a landmark volume
21:29in which he presented the theoretical notions
21:34as well as a considerable amount of interesting empirical data
21:38showing that there were some emotions that were innate and universal.
21:42Darwin theorized that these innate emotions
21:45are linked to specific facial expressions
21:48which evolved as a means for the helpless infant
21:51to communicate its needs.
21:53Izzard set out to see if Darwin was right.
21:58He was looking for a group of facial expressions
22:01that communicate the same feelings to people everywhere.
22:05One logical candidate was distress,
22:07so he went to clinics to study how babies react to pain.
22:13In these early immunizations,
22:15you're likely to see mainly the physical distress response
22:18which is the all-out emergency cry for help,
22:21come change what's happening.
22:32This child had the typical physical distress reaction
22:36showing the tightly closed eyes
22:39and sort of a squarish, angular mouth.
22:42It's a peremptory signal.
22:44It just commands attention on the part of caregivers.
22:48Izzard studied hundreds of babies,
22:51and they all reacted to pain with the same facial pattern.
22:55This evidence convinced him that distress
22:58is a universal, innate emotional expression essential to survival.
23:04He wondered what other emotions
23:06might be part of the inborn human repertoire.
23:10To find out, Izzard and his colleagues
23:12made use of a group of innovative experiments
23:15to provoke infants into showing their feelings.
23:18Hi, baby.
23:19Is everybody ready?
23:21We're going to try to attract Sheena's attention
23:24up toward the black curtain, and we're ready to go.
23:28This is an infant of about seven months of age.
23:31It's in what we call a little baby infant theater.
23:34A three-dimensional mask will be brought up for the baby to see.
23:38These unusual masks stimulate children
23:41to display a variety of facial expressions
23:44that are recorded on videotape for frame-by-frame analysis.
23:48I hear the baby sees an eyeless face.
23:52The baby lifts the brows, greeting this object,
23:56and shows intense interest.
23:58Interest was another of the fundamental expressions
24:01Izzard was able to uncover.
24:04But identifying these expressions was just the first step.
24:09My early work as a clinical psychologist
24:12led me to the conclusion
24:14that virtually all human problems involved emotions.
24:18But in those days, in the 1950s,
24:21there was very little objective or scientific information
24:25about the emotions of human experience.
24:28Scientists had not studied emotions
24:31because of the need for objectivity.
24:34To satisfy this need, Izzard developed a coding system
24:38that researchers everywhere could use
24:41to classify facial expressions.
24:43His coding system divides the face into three regions
24:47corresponding to the nerves and muscle groups
24:50that control expression.
24:52The neutral face, showing no emotions, is the starting point.
24:56When the brows are obliquely raised and drawn together,
25:00the eyes slightly squinted,
25:02and the corners of the mouth pulled down,
25:05the combination equals sadness.
25:08We think that this expression on the face of the infant,
25:12even in the first half year of life,
25:14is matched internally by a motivational state
25:17on the part of the infant.
25:19This is a sad feeling that accompanies this expression.
25:23The buildup of another expression
25:25begins again with the neutral face.
25:28First, a squarish, angular mouth is added,
25:31then the eyes are slightly squinted and staring,
25:35and the brow is arched
25:37in an expression that is easily recognized as anger.
25:46Izzard believes that there is an innate timetable
25:49for the emergence of emotional expression.
25:52At birth, a child reacts to pain and discomfort with distress.
25:58The expression of anger emerges later
26:01and is linked to the child's ability
26:03to perform aggressive or defensive actions.
26:16Izzard has encoded seven facial expressions
26:19that researchers all over the world now use.
26:22He believes that these expressions
26:24represent a set of fundamental human emotions
26:27that are innate and universal.
26:30We think these emotions are serving
26:32important biological and social functions
26:35in the establishing of the first social bond
26:38and in the development of the ultimate personality
26:41in each individual.
26:44We have excellent data to show
26:46that facial expression is not just skin deep.
26:49When the infant shows an interest expression,
26:53we have a heart rate deceleration.
26:55We have changes in the autonomic nervous system.
26:58And when the child looks sad,
27:00the child behaves like a sad child.
27:03Parents see a sad infant or a sad child,
27:07and they try to change the sad expression.
27:10If they change the sad expression on the child's face
27:13to a happy one,
27:15they are also controlling the patterns and flow
27:18of emotional experiences
27:20that make up the child's emotional life.
27:26In addition to facial expressions,
27:29what other aspects of emotional behavior
27:32might be influenced by inborn tendencies?
27:36When Professor Jerome Kagan at Harvard University
27:39began his studies,
27:41he, like most of his colleagues,
27:43believed that all differences in behavior among children
27:46were caused by environmental factors.
27:48But new observations changed his focus.
27:51In 1969 and 70,
27:53we were studying some children
27:55in the South and the Boston,
27:57and we saw that some children
27:59were just very, very cautious,
28:01whether they were raised in a daycare center or at home.
28:05And now I was more perceptive.
28:07And the zeitgeist had changed,
28:09and I realized that maybe this was a temperamental quality.
28:13And so we began the research
28:15that we've been doing for the last 6 or 7 years.
28:19Three children and their mothers
28:21enter a room full of enticing toys.
28:24Kagan and his associates Steve Resnick and Jane Gibbons
28:28watch on a TV monitor.
28:30They're looking for differences in behavior
28:33among these 2-year-olds.
28:35Some children seem comfortable in this situation,
28:39while others are more timid.
28:43The cautious child is just standing there
28:46studying the other children.
28:48She's not close to her mother,
28:50but she is fixed and just watching what's happening.
28:54She is the only child who's not yet touched a toy in this playroom.
28:58The other 2 have explored things and manipulated things.
29:02She is still staring.
29:12She'll note a very important difference.
29:15The cautious child is staring at the other.
29:18Well, you'll see our child with the drum is not,
29:22and moments ago we saw the child at the sink
29:25who was preoccupied with her own work.
29:28Because it's typical that these cautious children
29:32will be casing the place and studying the other children.
29:36These children were tested 8 months earlier.
29:39The results were the same.
29:41This little girl was as timid then as she is now.
29:45In other studies of timid and bold children,
29:48Kagan has found variations in heart rate and hormone levels.
29:52Such results have led him to conclude
29:55that the differences he's observed
29:57are in fact an outward manifestation of inborn temperament.
30:01Our general view is this,
30:03that a small proportion of children,
30:06we think maybe 10-15%, but no more,
30:10are born with a slight push from nature
30:13to be either very outgoing,
30:15the way that child with the drum is,
30:18or with a slight bias to be fearful,
30:21vigilant, apprehensive, cautious.
30:28Although there are other temperamental variables,
30:31it just could be that we stumbled on this so easily
30:36and found such robust evidence
30:39because it might be that this is
30:42the most salient temperamental quality in mammals.
30:46That's just a possibility.
30:50Kagan has followed some children for years
30:53and has found that many of them
30:55maintain their timid and bold behavior
30:58well into their school years.
31:00He has come to see these temperamental qualities
31:03as biologically determined.
31:05But what does this mean to parents?
31:08There are parents, a small group,
31:11who have a very cautious child,
31:13one of the type that we think is biologically influenced,
31:17and they believe that they did something to the child
31:20to make this child so cautious, shy, and vigilant.
31:23In this case, when they realize that, no,
31:26their child began life with this disposition,
31:29that knowledge is very reassuring
31:31and in many cases reduces some guilt or sense of responsibility.
31:38We know from our work with parents
31:40that many parents believe that a cautious child
31:43is somewhat at risk.
31:45But if this is a child with this biological surface,
31:49the parents may be better off reexamining
31:52their bias against the cautious children
31:54and thinking through,
31:56how do I learn to live with a cautious child?
31:58How does my child learn to handle his or her caution?
32:01I think that's an important message that comes out of our work.
32:04On the other hand,
32:06none of us believes parents should be fatalists.
32:09That is to say, we have many cases of parents
32:12who nature gave them a cautious child,
32:15and through gentle handling,
32:17introduction of their child to other peers,
32:20a gentle persuasion of their child
32:22to try to conquer their apprehensions,
32:24we have seen these children change.
32:26And therefore, there's no need to say,
32:28there's nothing I can do,
32:30just because their child happened to begin life
32:32with a slight push in this direction.
32:38This line of research does not imply that biology is destiny,
32:43as a look at the accomplishments of children of school age and beyond confirms.
32:50It's important to point out that
32:52the children who have this cautious profile
32:55are not necessarily smarter or dumber,
32:58more or less creative.
33:00There's no doubt that the two groups are equal in intelligence,
33:03and we suspect will be equal in their grade profile
33:06in both elementary and high school and college.
33:08So there's no fundamental difference
33:10in intellectual ability or abilities
33:12between the two groups.
33:16The evidence is growing
33:18that not only timidity and boldness,
33:20but also mood, activity level, and emotional intensity
33:24are all biologically influenced
33:26and provide a strong inborn basis for personality development.
33:36In Denver, professors Joseph Campos and Robert Emde
33:39are also probing the relationship between biological factors
33:43and environmental influences
33:45in the development of early emotions.
33:48The apparatus is called a visual cliff.
33:51One side of a plexiglass sheet is painted.
33:54The other side is transparent,
33:56creating the illusion of a big drop.
34:00Researchers have been working with the cliff
34:02to explore whether parents,
34:04by facial expression alone,
34:06can change the behavior of their children.
34:09Joseph Campos began by trying to determine
34:11if one type of fear,
34:13namely fear of heights, is innate.
34:16With the underneath illumination,
34:18the child cannot see any reflection of himself.
34:21The glass surface is invisible.
34:25Come here, Cameron.
34:28Look.
34:30Look.
34:32Come here.
34:34He doesn't seem to show any facial expressions of fear.
34:37Come on.
34:39Come here, look.
34:41Oh, what a good boy you are.
34:44Here he comes.
34:46Come on.
34:48Come here.
34:50In this baby, as you can see,
34:52he shows very little wariness of heights
34:55as he crosses the deep side of the cliff to his father.
35:00As with more than 300 other babies that Campos has tested,
35:04this infant, who has just begun to crawl,
35:07crosses unafraid over the drop,
35:09suggesting that fear of heights is not innate,
35:12at least in children of this age.
35:16Oh, what a good baby.
35:19Oh, what a good boy you are.
35:22But after a child has been crawling for about a month,
35:25a change occurs.
35:27Katie, what are you doing?
35:29You can crawl. Come here.
35:31This baby, called by her mother,
35:33would like to cross over,
35:36but she can't seem to make herself do it.
35:39A fear of heights has developed.
35:42Campos speculates that a biological switch
35:45is thrown after the child starts crawling.
35:48Until then, the child does not show any fear of heights.
35:52The typical baby from 8 1⁄2 months of age on
35:55won't cross that if you give them a million bucks.
35:58It's the same for animals.
36:01Kittens, dogs.
36:04The only exception to the rule is turtles,
36:08who think that it's a swimming pool,
36:11and they kind of prepare to jump into the water
36:14and get a surprise when their shell
36:17hits the hard surface of the glass.
36:20So when the child first begins to crawl,
36:23it exhibits no fear of heights.
36:26Yet a month later, the same child clearly acts afraid.
36:30The experimenters wondered, how does the fear develop?
36:34Another experiment was suggested by Dr. Mary Klinert.
36:38The purpose of the experiment is to put the baby
36:41in an ambiguous situation where they don't quite know
36:45whether they dare go down this much depth or not.
36:48Since no accomplished crawler would cross the deep drop,
36:52she raised the bottom so that the drop
36:55appears to the infant only about a step high.
36:58The question is, can the baby be influenced to cross or not,
37:02solely by the parent's expression?
37:05What happens is they start out across,
37:08and they get to, there's kind of a white border.
37:11Klinert teaches a mother to put on a fear face
37:14by suggesting components from Mizard's coded expressions.
37:17And then he looks up at you.
37:20That's when we want you to look scared.
37:23Imagine being just horrified.
37:25He's coming to the edge of a cliff and he's going to drop you.
37:30Up as far as you can get him.
37:33Now, can you open your eyes a little bit wider?
37:36Okay, good.
37:38Now, can you get the mouth a little bit?
37:44Okay, that's good, that's good.
37:47Typically in this situation,
37:49the baby will check with her facial expression,
37:52and then what we do is have the mom either smile,
37:56in which case the babies tend to go across or look afraid,
38:00and that affects the babies and they stay back.
38:04The baby looks at the drop, then checks with his mother.
38:13The baby drops down and backs away.
38:19So even when the drop is shallow,
38:21the baby won't cross when warned off
38:24by his mother's facial expression.
38:27Now, what will happen if the mother smiles?
38:34Okay, then I'll come.
38:38Once she smiled, he picked up on that
38:41and was trying to come across.
38:43He turned around and started treating this like a step,
38:47but he was definitely trying, and his behavior changed
38:50when she smiled and let him know it was okay.
38:53There are a variety of situations
38:55that babies want to understand rules about what's okay or not,
39:01certainly after 12 months of age, this is the case.
39:05In fact, from our studies in the home,
39:07there's reason to believe that it happens more often
39:09with the voice than with the face,
39:11with mom in another part of the room
39:13or possibly even in another room,
39:15and indicating to the child
39:17her emotional evaluation about a certain situation.
39:22We think one of the most important mechanisms
39:25for emotional development
39:28involves the child's catching fears from the parent
39:32so that if the child is approaching the edge of a staircase
39:36and the mother notices the child,
39:38she swoops down and says, Johnny, you're about to fall.
39:41The baby's in a position to learn,
39:44not through hard knocks, as it were,
39:47but through the vicarious experience
39:50created by the mother's affect
39:52that this is a dangerous situation.
39:56What these experiments seem to show
39:58is that in the development of fear of heights,
40:01there is a definite biological mechanism at work,
40:04but one that is strongly influenced
40:06by emotional messages from the caregivers.
40:13As the baby grows older and develops intellectually,
40:16the social influences on emotional development increase.
40:20At about 18 months, a new set of emotions emerges.
40:25Embarrassment, shame, guilt, sympathy, and pride.
40:29These emotions help the child function in society.
40:33But how and why do these emotions arise?
40:36According to one line of research,
40:38they appear only after children recognize themselves as individuals.
40:44Dr. Michael Lewis of Rutgers University Medical School
40:48studies the social emotions.
40:50He has devised a very simple experiment
40:53that identifies a watershed
40:55in the development of the child's sensibilities.
40:58A spot of rouge is put on this 16-month-old boy's nose,
41:02and he is placed before a mirror.
41:04Beep, beep.
41:06Beep, beep.
41:08Joy, all right.
41:10There we go.
41:12Lala.
41:14Lala.
41:16Lala.
41:18Lala.
41:20Lala, Jordan says, but that's his sister's name.
41:24Who is that?
41:26Jordan, who's that?
41:28Lala.
41:32He doesn't seem to recognize himself,
41:34and there is no sign of embarrassment.
41:39The embarrassed expression is a sort of a looking, smiling,
41:43and then gaze avert, and then looking back.
41:47He did not show this embarrassed expression in the mirror.
41:52In fact, we would not have expected him to do so
41:55because he was not able to recognize himself in the mirror.
42:00Bobby is just two months older,
42:03an age at which he may have passed a crucial milestone,
42:06the development of a sense of self.
42:10The experimenters place Bobby before the mirror,
42:14but it's unclear whether or not he recognizes himself.
42:19Continuing with the experiment, they put rouge on his nose.
42:23If he has developed a sense of self
42:26and a standard about how he ought to look,
42:28he will show it with an unmistakable expression.
42:32And the way we can tell the child recognizes itself
42:36is to see whether or not the child touches its finger to its nose.
42:43Go over here.
42:45Notice that after recognizing himself,
42:50smiles, turns his head down, and avoids looking in the mirror.
42:57Those behaviors reflect the emotion of embarrassment.
43:03By the advent of a sense of self,
43:06the child now possesses the tools
43:09to add what we call the social emotions to its repertoire.
43:15It is these emotions
43:17which allow the child commerce with its social environment.
43:24The child now can feel guilty or ashamed of transgressing a rule.
43:31The child can feel empathetic to another's distress.
43:36And the child can feel pride at succeeding in others' rules.
43:43With the addition of the social emotions,
43:46the child is well on the way
43:48to acquiring the basic tools of emotional life.
43:51But new feelings continue to develop
43:54as the child draws closer to others
43:56with emotions of sympathy and empathy,
43:59which can be seen as the rudiments of morality.
44:04At the National Institute of Mental Health,
44:07Dr. Marion Yarrow and Dr. Carolyn Waxler
44:10believe that children can show early indications
44:13of sympathy and empathy even as newborns.
44:16They observe mothers and children in experimental situations
44:20to find out how these civilizing emotions develop.
44:23I think there were many motivations
44:26for beginning this research in the 1970s.
44:29At that time, there was a lot of interest
44:32in the moral development of children or in conscience,
44:35but much of the emphasis was on the guilt that the child had
44:39or the transgressions that the child got into.
44:42And very little attention was being paid then
44:45to the kind of positive, outgoing behavior of very young children.
44:51These poor people got hurt really badly. It's really sad.
44:55In this experimental situation with a 2-year-old boy,
44:59a stranger pretends to be upset by pictures in a magazine.
45:04Why?
45:06Because somebody wasn't very nice to him.
45:09A child of this age, concerned at another's distress,
45:13yet not knowing how to help,
45:15will often try to get its mother to intervene.
45:22In taking action to help another person,
45:25Jeffrey shows he has reached an important stage
45:28in emotional development.
45:30Yarrow and Waxler try to identify the factors
45:33that bring out this caring behavior.
45:36We're very much concerned about is the child empathic,
45:40is the child sympathetic,
45:42and what kinds of actions follow from those feelings.
45:47Are they interpreting the other person's feelings
45:51or reacting in terms of those feelings?
45:59In a follow-up experiment,
46:01Jeffrey's mother will pretend to be hurt.
46:04The researchers want to know how the child will react.
46:08Okay, on this one.
46:13Ooh, ow! Hurt!
46:15Ooh, you hurt my thumb, Jeffrey!
46:18Ooh, ouch!
46:22Oh!
46:24Oh, you're hurting, Jeffrey!
46:27Hurt!
46:29Oh, thank you, thank you.
46:32Kiss it for Mommy?
46:34Jeffrey reacts with mixed emotions to his mother's distress,
46:38and that's not unusual for a child of this age.
46:42When a child is confronted with some kind of distress,
46:46yes, they may show an empathic response,
46:49but yes, they may show some anger and aggression as well.
46:53Distress is a very complex stimulus for a child,
46:57and it elicits similar kind of complexity in the child.
47:02This ambiguous reaction presents the experimenters
47:06with a puzzling question.
47:08How does a child eventually choose
47:11between aggressive and empathic behavior?
47:15As it happens, somewhat later,
47:17the mother accidentally hurts her child.
47:20What does this baby look like?
47:22This time, the message to the scientists is clear.
47:25Please, honey, sit down.
47:28Oh!
47:30Oh, there, did I hurt you?
47:33I'm sorry.
47:35Where does it hurt?
47:37Right here.
47:39Should I touch it?
47:41Her empathic caregiving seems to come out so clearly
47:45when her child experiences distress.
47:48And in some of our earlier studies,
47:51there were several different aspects of mothering
47:54that seemed to be particularly related
47:57to high levels of empathy in children,
48:00and that was one of them.
48:02The mother's empathic caregiving of her own child
48:05was more likely to produce a child
48:08who was very empathic to other people in distress.
48:14So the emotions of sympathy and empathy,
48:17which begin as confused,
48:19often inappropriate responses to distress,
48:22can gain focus from the interaction
48:25between parent and child.
48:27Again, we see the inextricable influences
48:30of upbringing and inborn tendencies.
48:34I think we're going to have to do it this way, okay?
48:37As researchers round out the picture of childhood emotions,
48:41they have begun to attempt a synthesis,
48:44a theory of how emotional development progresses.
48:47Scientists have long recognized distinct stages
48:50in physical and intellectual growth,
48:52but only recently have researchers and clinicians
48:55like Stanley Greenspan attempted to lay out
48:58the stages of emotional development.
49:01We now know the series of emotional stages,
49:04the feelings a child goes through from infancy
49:07up through 3 or 4,
49:09that determine how well they establish
49:12these fundamental personality characteristics
49:15that are essential for healthy childhood and adult functioning.
49:19Zero to two months, a child is learning to calm down and relax.
49:23This is the process known as self-regulation,
49:26an essential step that allows the infant to take in
49:29and make sense of the outside world.
49:32It's the first of what Greenspan sees as a six-stage process.
49:36There she is.
49:38As the baby moves beyond its second month,
49:41it enters a stage that Greenspan calls falling in love.
49:44Mommy gets Lisa to give her a big smile.
49:47Smile.
49:49Oh, look at that joyful expression.
49:52Lisa's at stage two, falling in love.
49:55In stage two,
49:57children begin to form crucial ties
50:00with important people in their world.
50:03In the third stage, which starts at around 4 months,
50:06the baby begins purposeful communication.
50:09By 4 to 8 months, the child is going beyond
50:12feeling secure and falling in love
50:15and now learning how to have an emotional dialogue,
50:18learning how to communicate intentionally.
50:21This is the beginning of knowing that the world is an orderly place.
50:25Knowing that when they smile, a smile comes back.
50:28When they talk, some sounds come back.
50:31When they reach out, some reaching out comes back to them.
50:34Ooh, that's your hand.
50:37The senses contribute both to falling in love and communication.
50:41The baby senses as part of their emotional development
50:44because if a baby enjoys touch,
50:47obviously it's that much easier for them to fall in love with the world
50:51and to use that love as a way to begin communicating with the world.
50:55That's the stage she's at now, which is having impact,
50:58communicating with the world that she's already fallen in love with.
51:02In the third stage, a child becomes aware
51:05that her smile makes people happy.
51:08Her sadness brings comforting from adults.
51:11Trust and confidence develop.
51:16In stage four, children satisfy their emotional needs
51:19by more complex interactions with people and objects.
51:22By 10, 12 months to 18 months,
51:25a complex sense of self is forming as a child is stringing together
51:28these little units of interaction into more orchestrated patterns.
51:31So the child takes mother's hands and walks into the refrigerator
51:34and points to the food they want.
51:37That's a purposeful, organized little self expressing its needs and desires.
51:40In their enjoyment of games and toys,
51:43children just under a year show their capacity
51:46for initiative, independence, and purpose.
51:49But in the next stage,
51:52the child makes a creative and intellectual leap.
51:55And then by 18 to 24 months, we see a marvelous transformation.
51:58This organized sense of self
52:01now gets organized at a higher level,
52:04what we call the creation of emotional ideas
52:07and the beginning of emotional thinking.
52:10In the fifth stage, children can create an image of loved ones,
52:14mother and father, for example, in their mind's eye.
52:17They can do the same for favorite toys.
52:20This means that make-believe is possible
52:23with children acting out their own and other people's feelings,
52:26setting the stage for genuine understanding
52:29of how the world works.
52:32And then between about 24 to 30 months
52:35and up through 48 months, we see these emotional symbols
52:38or ideas coalescing into organized units.
52:41Now we have a higher-level sense of self
52:44and a high-level sense of the other
52:47in one's own mind, so to speak.
52:50Mastery of these skills is reflected
52:53in a 3-year-old's elaborate games of fantasy.
52:56You're gonna have to go longer for lunch.
52:59All right, that sounds good.
53:02See how organized the pretend is?
53:05It's not just a little tea party lasting 2 seconds,
53:08but if you start with beans and lunch,
53:11then tea is the final course.
53:14Now what does this mean in terms of the child's mental health?
53:17When they can do this, it sets a basis for being able
53:20to figure out how the world works.
53:23They can begin anticipating, if I do this, it'll mean that.
53:26If I am nice to my mommy, my mommy might be nice back to me.
53:29There she is, say mommy.
53:32So in short, the basic personality functions
53:35of healthy adult functioning are all learned
53:38for the first time in the first 3 to 3 1⁄2 years of life.
53:41So according to Greenspan, the progression works this way.
53:44An infant's initial interest in the world,
53:47in sights, sounds, and feelings,
53:50broadens to become an interest in people
53:53that grows into love.
53:56Love becomes the need to communicate,
53:59to engage in an emotional dialogue
54:02that allows the child to interact in ever more elaborate ways,
54:05to understand other people,
54:08and to understand the world.
54:13Greenspan believes his stages can help parents and pediatricians
54:16by giving them guidelines to judge
54:19whether children are on track emotionally.
54:22However, some researchers question
54:25whether the field is sufficiently advanced
54:28to define these specific emotional stages.
54:32Still, most researchers do agree
54:35that even very young children have richer emotional lives
54:38than ever before imagined.
54:41We begin life with a set of survival-oriented emotions.
54:48As we acquire social emotions,
54:51we become social beings.
54:54And as childhood progresses,
54:57we take on the ever more complicated emotional patterns
55:00that define us as human beings.
55:03As scientists understand childhood emotions better,
55:06we come to understand human nature better.
55:12In this sense, the child is parent to us all.
55:30In this sense, the child is parent to us all.
56:00In this sense, the child is parent to us all.
56:31Additional funding for this program
56:34was provided by the National Science Foundation.
56:42Major funding for NOVA is provided by this station
56:45and other public television stations nationwide,
56:48and by Allied Signal,
56:51a technology leader in aerospace, electronics,
56:54automotive products, and engineered materials.
57:01And the Johnson & Johnson family of companies,
57:04supplying health care products worldwide.