Summary:

This section describes how emotion, thoughts, and behaviors are acquired during childhood.

Background information needed for this section

Information in the following sections is needed to understand the ideas below: Overview, Emotion, Category 1 and 2 Emotions, Imprinted Faces.

Baseline Emotions and Behaviors

The following types of parent-child interactions evoke emotions in the child that become part of that child's baseline emotions.

1. Mimicking. 

    * When a child sees an imprinted parent doing something and the imprinted parent is not interacting with the child directly, the child mimics both the imprinted parent's emotion and behavior. For example, a child who sees an imprinted parent express anger toward a pet learns to react with anger toward the pet. A child who watches an imprinted parent treat a pet kindly learns to act kindly toward it. 

    * When an imprinted parent interacts with a child in a positive way, the child mimics those positive emotions. For example, if an imprinted parent smiles at a child, the child mimics that by smiling back.

    * When an imprinted parent consoles a child, the child mimics the imprinted parent’s emotion. For example, if a child stumbles and hits their head on a chair, an imprinted parent might express sadness while consoling the child. The child will mimic the sadness.

2. Category 1 emotion directed at a child evokes fear in the child. For example, if an imprinted parent scolds a child for doing something wrong, the child feels fear. 

3. Category 2 emotion directed at a child evokes category 1 emotion in the child. For example, if an imprinted parent ignores a child who is showing them a new toy, the child will experience a category 1 emotion such as irritation or anger.

If a child cannot engage an imprinted parent who is disengaged (i.e. the imprinted parent is directing category 2 emotion at the child), the child will eventually stop trying to engage the imprinted parent and will instead mimic the imprinted parent's category 2 emotion.

Older children may seem to react to their imprinted parent's expressed emotion differently than described above. That's because their reaction to the imprinted parent's current emotion combines with their baseline emotions acquired during prior interactions. For example, a child who typically feels happy around an imprinted parent still experiences fear if that imprinted parent suddenly expresses anger toward them. However, their response is now a mix of their happy feelings and their immediate fear reaction.

Beliefs

Children acquire beliefs in several ways.

1. Children generally believe whatever an imprinted parent tells them.

2. Children acquire beliefs about both themselves and their imprinted parents according to how their imprinted parents treat them. 

* Positive emotion directed toward a child produce positive beliefs about the imprinted parent and themself.

* Directing category 1 emotion at a child (e.g. punishing a child) evokes contradictory beliefs characterized by "I did nothing wrong, I don't deserve this," and "I must have done something wrong, I'm a bad person."

* Directing category 2 emotion at a child also evokes contradictory beliefs characterized by "there must be something wrong with me or you would pay attention to me," and "something must be wrong with you because you don't pay attention to me!"

3. Children acquire beliefs about things they experience outside of their relationship with their imprinted parents. Children are constantly taking in their environment and forming beliefs about how it works according to their experience. For example, if they have very negative experiences at school, they might learn that teachers are mean or bad and schools are worthless. If they have a very positive experience with a person from a different race, they might learn that people of that race are generally very nice. 

Baseline emotions and acquired beliefs become permanent when adolescence is completed.