Abstract

Socioemotional style (SES) refers to individual differences in emotional reactivity, self-regulation, and affective/cognitive dispositions toward interpersonal environment. SES is the result of developmental integration of psychobiological preparedness (i.e., temperament) with progressive accumulation of experiences (attachment patterns, among others). Scientific evidence converge in the existence of at least two predominant tendencies in SES, the cautious style and the curious style. This chapter describes the developmental trajectories of different socioemotional styles and how these psychobiological dispositions, based on specific emotional sensitivities, organize learning. The resulting proposal offers a theoretical integration of developmental psychology, social neuroscience, and affective sciences for understanding human behavior and, in particular, how affective style biases learning. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.