Human Growth and Development

Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence (EQ) is an important concept within developmental psychology, considered a key aspect of personality. It refers to a set of abilities that influence how we perceive, understand, manage, and utilize emotions, both in ourselves and others.

This multifaceted construct can be broken down into several key components:

●​ Self-Awareness: The foundation of emotional intelligence, self-awareness involves recognizing our own emotions and how they impact our thoughts and behaviors. Noticing your emotional triggers, understanding how it affects your body(like a racing heart when scared), and knowing which emotions are harder to handle. ●​ Self-Management: Building upon self-awareness, self-management allows you to control your emotions. This includes the ability to postpone pleasure, cope with frustration, deal with disappointment, and properly adjust when things change. ●​ Social Awareness: Social awareness enables us to recognize the emotions of those around us, understand facial expressions, interpret body language, and understanding the emotional states of others. Social awareness enables us to recognize and consider others' emotions. ●​ Relationship Management: Building on the previous components, building good relationships allows us to leverage our emotional intelligence to build and maintain healthy social connections. This includes talking to others in more effective ways, solving problems effectively, and showing empathy and compassion towards others. Attachment When children are born, they will start learning how to be social and will develop emotions. They feel more comfortable with familiar faces than they would with strangers. Children may also prefer a specific toy or another object that they are familiar with rather than a strange, new object or item. Separation anxiety can occur when a child is separated from a parent or a loved one who is their caregiver. It can happen at various ages, but on average, a child will begin experiencing separation anxiety around 12 through 16 months of age, and it will slowly go away after 16 months. Attachment is how an infant forms close bonds with specific individuals. Mary Ainsworth created a series of experiments that help others have a better understanding of infant attachment. Ainsworth’s most popular study was called The Stranger Situation as discussed in chapter 3. This study looked at the different ways attachment can form between children and their caregivers. This study found that infants/babies could become attached prior to one year of age. When the parent takes care of the child’s needs either physically or emotionally, the child becomes securely attached . Children whose parents were unresponsive to their needs would develop insecure attachments.

© 2025 ACHIEVE ULTIMATE CREDIT-BY-EXAM GUIDE | HUMAN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT