Evidence for similar conceptual progress across diverse cultures in children’s understanding of emotion

Abstract

Research with adults has increasingly moved beyond the focus on a small set of allegedly basic emotions, each associated with a signature facial expression. That expansion has been accompanied by a greater emphasis on the potential variability of emotion concepts across different cultural settings. In this conceptual review of children’s understanding of emotion, we argue that it is also important in developmental research to look beyond the small set of emotions associated with distinctive facial expressions. At the same time, we caution against any premature rejection of a universalist approach to children’s understanding of emotion. We review three different lines of evidence in support of this stance: (1) children’s ability to appropriately cite situational elicitors for emotions beyond the basic set; (2) their developing understanding of the relations between emotions and other mental processes; and (3) their realization that a person’s facially expressed emotion may not indicate their felt emotion. In each of these three domains, we target studies that have included children from a variety of cultures to assess how far they respond similarly or differently. We conclude that there is robust evidence for similar conceptual progress in children’s understanding of emotion across a range of cultural settings.

Children’s understanding of mixed emotions across cultures

“…In conclusion, the findings of this study show that in important respects children’s understanding of mixed emotions develops in a similar way in the United States and China. This study, along with previous research (Harris & Cheng, 2022; Molina et al, 2014; Pons et al, 2004; Tang et al, 2018), provides further support for a similar development of emotion understanding. In particular, the findings show a notable dissociation between recall and agreement.…”

Hearing about a story character's negative emotional reaction to having been dishonest causes young children to cheat less

“…It is unclear as to whether the present findings can be generalized to older children. As reviewed by Harris and Cheng (2022), children's understanding of emotions become increasingly sophisticated as they age. They become able to appreciate more complex emotions (e.g., guilt or shame after wrongdoings and pride after acting morally or prosocially).…”

“…It is possible that by telling older children stories about a character's complex emotions such as guilt, shame, or pride in reaction to honesty or dishonesty may be particularly honesty‐promoting. Furthermore, after the kindergarten years, children also become increasingly capable of considering mixed emotions (Harris & Cheng, 2022). Given that the stories used in the present study always entailed two emotional consequences, they could be used in future studies to investigate the effects of stories with mixed emotional consequences on older children's honesty.…”