The New Start

Emotions help individuals survive by signaling physiological needs and psychological moods and by motivating behaviors. For instance, the loud piercing cry of a newborn is a powerful communication that often signals discomfort of distress, and they certainly get the attention of parent or caretakers. The researchers found that newborns had limited repertoires of emotional expression, which included, interest startles, distress, disgust, and neonatal smile.  We have no way of knowing what, if any, inner feelings accompany a newborn’s emotional expressions. Over the next years, infants develop a wide range of emotional expressions and feelings, including social smiling, anger, surprise, and sadness.

The first step involves the biological capacity of infants to produce, imitate, and discriminate among emotional expressions. The second steps involve feedback from the parents’ emotions or moods that influences and alters the infants’ behaviors looks up and sees her father smiling, the infant may continue to explore. On the other hand, if the exploring the infants sees her father frowning; she may stop exploring and return to her father’s side.