Continuities in Emotion Understanding from Three to Six Years

Abstract

As part of a longitudinal study, 47 children who were tested on their understanding of basic emotions when they were 3 years old were tested again at 6 on their understanding of conflicting emotions. Significant stability in individual differences was found over this 3-year period. Antecedents to emotion understanding at 3 continued to be significantly related to children's understanding at 6, including participation in discourse about causality, positive interaction with older siblings, and language ability. Girls outperformed boys, and there was a suggestion that the girls' understanding of emotions was more closely associated than the boys' with the quality of their sibling relationships. Children's concurrent reports of negative experiences at home and at school were related to their sensitivity to the experience of ambivalent emotions. The results are discussed with respect to the social origins and implications of this core aspect of children's social-cognitive development.

Depressive symptoms and emotion regulation strategies in children with and without developmental language disorder: a longitudinal study

“…2016). Social rules and expectations about how to regulate and express emotions are usually not made explicit, but rather ‘go without saying,’ and children typically learn a great deal through the observation of others and through overhearing others’ conversations (Brown and Dunn 1996, Denham and Auerbach 1995). However, it is much more difficult to pick up on implicit rules when children struggle to follow the conversations of others, and have less access to the social world around them.…”

“…2016). When children grow older, they continue to learn from their social environment, through interactions with friends and incidental exposure to others’ interactions, such as overhearing and observation (Brown and Dunn 1996). For children with DLD, communication problems limit interaction with others from an early age (Andrés‐Roqueta et al ., 2016).…”

Can Emotional Language Skills be Taught During Parent Training for Conduct Problem Children?

“…This conclusion is drawn from at least two bodies of research. First, Dunn and colleagues have shown that family discussion of emotions has a powerful socialising influence on children's emotion talk and their emotion understanding [17]. For example, family talk about feelings during the preschool years predicts children's ability to make judgments about the emotions of unfamiliar adults at age 6 years, over and above the child's language ability and socio-economic status [11,17].…”

“…First, Dunn and colleagues have shown that family discussion of emotions has a powerful socialising influence on children's emotion talk and their emotion understanding [17]. For example, family talk about feelings during the preschool years predicts children's ability to make judgments about the emotions of unfamiliar adults at age 6 years, over and above the child's language ability and socio-economic status [11,17]. Moreover, whether or not mothers explain the causes of emotions is a stronger predictor of emotion knowledge than sheer frequency of emotion talk or general talkativeness [17].…”

Gender Differences in Perceptive Emotional Adjustment of Parents on Their Children’s Emotional Intelligence

“…The socialization pathways of EI can be direct or indirect (Zeidner et al, 2003): a) Direct effect route: research has shown that explicit rules given by the parents to their children about how they should express and regulate emotions are important factors for the emotional development of children and their relationships with peers (Gottman, 1997;Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981;Thompson, 1998). In the same way, it is confirmed that the existence of frequent dialogues between mothers and children about emotions, improves knowledge and emotional understanding of children (Brown & Dunn, 1996;Denham, 1998;Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994;Shipman & Zeman, 1999). b) Indirect effect route: On the other hand, studies report that children can learn these emotional skills from their parents indirectly, observing and imitating their behavior in an unconscious way (Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002;Zeidner et al, 2003).…”