ABSTRACT
The development of emotions has been described from a general perspective by Fisher, Shaver, and Camochan, who described developmental process as gradually moving from basic to culture-specific, subordinate category emotions; and as developing through stages: three or five. Harris and Whitesell and Harter have also given descriptions of specialized emotion development. Age differences in self-attributed embarrassment were reported in a study by Bennett in which three different situations no audience, a passive audience, or an active audience were described. Gender differences in emotion have also attracted investigators, who seem to have concentrated more of their research on somewhat older children, but gender differences in younger children have also been shown. Birnbaum showed that children 3 to 5 years old believed that adult men showed anger more than adult women and that fear, sadness, and happiness were shown more by women. Higher expressivity of emotions in women was found in a study of sex role orientation using Bern's Sex Role Inventory.
