ABSTRACT

Infancy is defined by dependency. The dependency evokes relationships with carers' and it is through these relationships that development, including emotional development, occurs. Infant development covers the first year of life and is the basis on which a child's future emotional, social and intellectual progress is founded. Children are born with basic primary emotions but development of the social, secondary emotions is founded in infancy from non-emotional antecedents called proto-emotions. The proto-emotions of satisfaction and frustration and the infant's perception of change are precursors to the development of secondary emotions. The coding of mental experience as pleasurable, or neutral, or unpleasant, which occurs when awareness has reached a critical level, sets the scene for future emotional development. Carer's effectiveness in meeting infant's dependency needs through attachment influences the development of the first secondary emotions. Secondary emotions are usually classified as positive, and related to pleasurable pleasant feelings, or as negative, and related to unpleasant, sometimes noxious, feelings.