Background: Psychopathy is characterised by profound deficits in the human tendency to feel and care about what other people feel, often known as "affective empathy". On the other hand, the psychopath often has intact "cognitive" empathy skills, that is, he is able to describe what and why other people feel, even if he does not share or care about…

Results indicated that the more frequently the children studied expressed emotion, the older the age of language achievements; and the more time spent in neutral affect, the younger the age of language achievements. (PCB)

Connects the imagination with one's affective states as related to 8- to 15-year-old students' engagement in a story or narrative. Discusses particular characteristics of narratives that engage students' imagination during these years and characteristics that are imaginatively engaging but in which the narrative component is less prominent. (BB)

Two studies investigated two and four to five year olds' conversations to determine whether discussions about preferences differ from discussions about emotions and whether developmental differences exist in descriptions of affect. Found that children were more likely to discuss causes and consequences for emotions than for preferences. (MM)

Examined developmental changes and individual variations in the ways children use expressive information from others. Concluded that processing deficits are more probable for younger children or for children with low perceived control than for other children. (BB)

Infants' orienting of attention undergoes marked development in the first six months of life. Changes in attentional control appear to be related to infants' susceptibility to distress. (Author)

A study found that differences in children's ability to regulate their emotional responses, and in their social and cognitive development, are implicated in developmental differences in children's strategies for influencing others' mood states. (BB)

Four studies revealed that (1) children judged a wrongdoer in a story to feel happy; (2) the incidence of happy judgments did not decline with age; (3) the presence of their teacher had an effect on children's judgments; and (4) some children judged the wrongdoer to feel sad rather than scared. (BB)

Reviews research on the determinants and the effects of parents' attributions. The evidence suggests that parents do form attributions for their children's behavior; these attributions vary in predictable ways across judges (mothers versus fathers), targets (age or sex of child), and behavior outcomes (positive or negative); and attributions…

Compared Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles of 1- to 6-month olds during weekly videotapes of mother/infant interaction for clues regarding emotional significance. Correlated levels of Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiling within sessions; found that they had similar developmental trajectories. Duchenne smiles were typically preceded by non-Duchenne…

Used the rational facet approach to examine the relationship between age and perceptions of subconstructs of prosocial behavior on the part of second, fourth, sixth, and eighth graders and adult teachers. Differentiation of subconstructs of prosocial behavior increased with age. (Author/BB)

It is difficult to make progress in the study of emotions and emotional development if the meanings assigned to central constructs vary widely across investigators. This book clarifies and synthesizes the different ways in which emotion researchers approach fundamental questions about the nature of emotion and emotional development. Theorist and…