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Affect and Child Development (Original Addition)

According to studies done in the late 80's early 90's, infants within their first year of life are not only able to being recognizing affect displays but can begin mimic the displays and also begin developing empathy. A study in 2011 followed up on these earlier studies by testing fifteen 6-12 month old infants' arousal, via pupil dilation, when looking at both positive and negative displays. Results showed that when presented with negative affect, an infant's pupil will dilate and stay dilated for a longer period of time when compared to neutral affect. When presented with positive affect however, the pupil dilation is much larger, but stays dilated for shorter amount of time. While this study does not prove an infant's ability to empathize with others, it does show that infants do recognize and acknowledge both positive and negative displays of emotion.

In the early 2000's over the period of about seven years, a study was done on about 200 children who's mother had " a history of juvenile-onset unipolar depressive disorder" or simply, depression as children themselves. In the cases of unipolar depression, a person generally displays more negative affect and less positive affect than a person without depression. Or, they are more likely to show when they are sad or upset, than when they are excited or happy. This study that was published in 2010 discovered that the children of mothers that suffer from unipolar depression, had lower levels of positive affect when compared to the control group. Even as the children grew older, while the negative affect began to stay the same, the children still showed consistently lower positive affect. This study suggests that "Reduced PA [positive affect] may be one source of developmental vulnerability to familial depression..." meaning that while having family with depression, increases the risk of children developing depression, reduced positive affect increases the risk of this development. But knowing this aspect of depression, might also be able to help prevent the onset of depression in young children well into their adulthood.

Original Intro

In psychology, affect display or affective display is a subject's externally displayed affect. The display can be by facial, vocal, or gestural means [1]. When displayed affect is different from the subjective affect, it is incongruent affect. Affect display may also be referred to as simply "affect".[2]

Affect display refers to the impetus for observable expression of emotion; for the human being that expression or feeling displayed to others through facial expressions, hand gestures, tone of voice and other emotional signs such as laughter or tears is a part of a series of non-conscious or conscious cognitive events. Many aspects of the expressions vary between and within cultures and are displayed in various forms ranging from the most discreet of facial expressions to the most dramatic and prolific gestures [3].

Affect display is also a critical facet of communication in the social domain. Interpersonal communication is colored by displayed affect and there are various theories on affective reactions to stimuli to include conscious and non-conscious reaction and positive or negative affect.

Intro Edit

Affect Displays are the verbal and non-verbal displays of emotion. These displays can be through facial expressions, gestures and body language, volume and tone of voice, laughing, crying, etc. Affect displays can be altered or faked so one may appear one way, when they feel another (i.e. smiling when sad). Affect can be conscious or non-conscious and can be discrete or obvious . The display of positive emotions, such as smiling, laughing, etc, is termed "Positive Affect", while the displays of more negative emotions, such as crying, tense gestures, is respectively termed "Negative Affect".

Affect is important in psychology as well as in communication, mostly when it comes to Interpersonal Communication and non-verbal communication. In both psychology and communication, there are a multitude of theories that explain affect, and it's impact on humans and quality of life.

Original Subsection

Reduced affect

Main article: Reduced affect display

Reduced affect display manifests as a failure to express feelings either verbally or non-verbally, especially when talking about issues that would normally be expected to engage the emotions. Expressive gestures are rare and there is little animation in facial expression or vocal inflection.[2] Reduced affect can be symptomatic of schizophrenia, Asperger syndrome, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, depersonalization disorder,[3][4][5] or brain damage.[6] It may also be a side effect of certain medications (e.g., antipsychotics).[7] Individuals with blunted or flat affect show different regional brain activity when compared with healthy individuals.

My Edit

Disorders and Physical Disabilities

Main article: Reduced affect display

There are some diseases, physical disabilities and mental health disorders that can change the way a person's affect displays are conveyed. Reduced affect is when a person's emotions cannot be properly conveyed or displayed physically. There is no actual change in how intensely they truly feel emotions, there is simply a disparity between emotions felt and how intensely they are conveyed. These disorders can greatly effect a person's quality of life, depending on how intense the disability is.

Flat, Blunted and Restricted Affect

These are symptoms in which an affected person feels an emotion, but does/cannot not display it. Flat being the most severe in where there is very little to absolutely no show of emotions. Restricted and blunted are, respectively, less severe. Disorders involving these reduced affect displays most commonly include schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder, depression, autism and persons with traumatic brain injuries. One study has shown that people with schizophrenia that experience Flat Affect, can also experience difficulty perceiving the emotions of a healthy individual.

Facial Paralysis and Surgery

People who suffer from deformities and facial paralysis are also physically incapable of displaying emotions. This is beginning to be corrected though, through "Facial Reanimation Surgery" which is proving not only to successfully improve a patients affect displays, but also bettering their psychological health. There are multiple types of surgeries that can help fix facial paralysis. Some more popular types include fixing the actual nerve damage, specifically any damage to the "Hypoglossal nerve", facial grafts where they take nerves from a donor's leg and transplant into the patients face, or if there damage is more muscular verses actual nerves, they can transfer/replace muscle into the patients face to help repair damage.