Ruth Fuller Comm 211 - Manning 3/28/08 &quot;What do the Experts Say&quot; Paper Topic How do children's <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> and childrens reactions to <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> affect a situation? People often speak of the maternal bond between a mother and child in instinctual protection, love and understanding of the child's needs. Understanding and needs in the first years of a child is communicated not just with the mother instinctually but with non-verbal communication to the rest of the world. This is how the rest of the population looks to interpret and understand a child's problems and needs, one important feature is <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> due to children's inability to always communicate well and articulatly verbally. Annotated Bibliography Badzinski, D. &amp; Hoffner, C. (Apr., 1989). Children's Integration of Facial and Situational Cues to Emotion. Child Development, Vol. 60 (2), 411-422. Retreived March 28, 2008, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00093920%28198904%2960%3A2%3C411%3ACIOFAS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G The authors, Badzinski and Hoffner, used groups of children at four different age levels between 3 and 12 showing them pictures dealing with facial and situational cues to test what level of emotions they thought each character felt. The researches tested the developmental changes in the children using Anderson's informational integration approach. The study showed that children depend on situational cues more and more with age, as they depend on facial cues less with age. Interestingly the study also showed that all age levels of children used the same types of problem solving. Age level x Situation &amp; Age Level x Expression Interactions P415 table 1 shows... The mean difference scores in the upper portion of Table 1 show that the influence of situation on subjects' ratings of emotion increased with age. The mean difference scores in the lower portion of Table 1 indicate, the influence of <a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> on subjects' emotion ratings decreased with age. P417 table 2 shows... percentage of subjects who relied on <a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> decreased across age levels tD=7.72, p&lt;.001 percentage of subjects making use of both cues increased with age tD= 4.98, p&lt;.01 no difference to rely on situation only 89% of the 3-5 year olds relied solely on <a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> when making their ratings In contrast two-thirds of the subjects in the two oldest groups made use of both cues. P419 6-7 year olds were also more likely to rely on <a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> than to utilize both facial and situational cues. Not until 8-9 years of age did the majority of subjects show effects of both types of cues. Overall the use of Anderson's (1981) approach to information integration revealed a developmental shift from reliance on <a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> to the simultaneous use of both situation and <a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> to arrive at integrated judgments of others emotional states. The observed developmental differences in the use of facial and situational cues may be due to several factors. First, there are fundamental differences in the characteristics of the emotional information conveyed by <a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> and situation. Each emotion is characterized by a unique pattern of facial movements. Evidence indicates that children understand the association between <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> and common emotions, such as happy and say, at a very young age, and even infants are responsive to the affective meaning of <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> . ......a Second contributing factor may be children's developing and understanding of display rules, which leads to increased awareness that <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> (p420) may not accurately reflect others' internal emotional states. Finally, perceptual, social, and affective characteristics of people tend to make them stand out relative to inanimate aspects of the environment. Hubbard, J. (Sep. - Oct., 2001). Emotion Expression Processes in Children's Peer Interaction: The Role of Peer Rejection, Aggression, and Gender (in Empirical Articles; Personality and Social Development). Child Development, Vol. 72 (5), 1426-1438. Retrieved March 27, 2008, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00093920%28200109%2F10%2972%3A5%3C1426%3AEEPICP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6 The author, Julie A. Hubard, used a group of 111 second grade African American students pitting them in competitive game scenarios to test her hypothesis that peer rejected children, aggressive children, or those who were both would express more anger, sadness, and less happiness than their nonaggressive peers. She found her hypothesis supported strongly more in peer rejected males than in peer rejected females. As expected both groups displayed more facial and nonverbal anger than their counterparts. However peer rejected children displayed more nonverbal happiness than average children perhaps due to when they were winning in the competitive games. 111 Second Grade African American students were pitted in competitive game scenario - peer rejected/aggressive males especially showed more anger, sadness, and less happiness than nonaggressive children - peer rejected/aggressive children in general displayed more nonverbal anger than nonaggressive - peer rejected/aggressive children also displayed more nonverbal happiness it is suspected due to when winning in the competitive games Masters, J. &amp; Reichenbach, L. (Aug., 1983). Children's Use of Expressive and Contextual Cues in Judgments of Emotion. Child Development, Vol. 54 (4), 993-1004. Retrieved March 28, 2008, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00093920%28198308%2954%3A4%3C993%3ACUOEAC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 The authors, Masters &amp; Reichenbach, used two experiments' one involving preschool and the other involving third-graders judging other children's emotional states. They were to judge based off of slides of other children's <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> , and or descriptions of emotionally triggered experiences. The experiments found that both groups identified emotions better when given the description of the experiment or the contextual cues. However when there was more than one cue used to identify the emotions and they were inconsistent the preschoolers relied on the picture or expressive cues and the third-graders relied on the contextual cue or the description. Interestingly children from separated families were less accurate on judging others emotions often time assuming they were more angry than happy. Masters &amp; Reichenbach used two experiments groups, testing based off slides of other children's <a href="/keyword/facial-expressions/" ><a href="/keyword/facial-expression/" >facial expression</a> s</a> , and or descriptions of emotionally triggered experiences, also known as expressive cues and contextual cues. Preschoolers relied more on expressive cues or the picture when multiple cues used to ID emotions Third-Graders relied more on contextual cue or a description when multiple cues used to ID emotions When only one cue both groups ID emotions better with contextual cues *Factoid! Children from separated families specifically were less accurate on judging others emotions, assuming they were more angry than happy. Tronick, E. &amp; Weinberg, M. (Jun., 1996). Infant Affective Reactions to the Resumption of Maternal Interaction after the Still-Face. Child Development, Vol. 67 (3), 905-914. Retreived March 28, 2008, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00093920%28199606%2967%3A3%3C905%3AIARTTR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z The authors, Tronick &amp; Weinberg, set out to explore the reactions of infants to the test known as the Face-to-Face Still-Face Paradigm in a selection of 60 six month old infants with repeated episodes. They reacted negatively to the still-face, while reacting both positively and negatively to the repeat episode.