Preliminary findings on associations between moral emotions and social behavior in young children with normal hearing and with cochlear implants

Abstract

Moral emotions such as shame, guilt and pride are the result of an evaluation of the own behavior as (morally) right or wrong. The capacity to experience moral emotions is thought to be an important driving force behind socially appropriate behavior. The relationship between moral emotions and social behavior in young children has not been studied extensively in normally hearing (NH) children, let alone in those with a hearing impairment. This study compared young children with hearing impairments who have a cochlear implant (CI) to NH peers regarding the extent to which they display moral emotions, and how this relates to their social functioning and language skills. Responses of 184 NH children and 60 children with CI (14–61 months old) to shame-/guilt- and pride-inducing events were observed. Parents reported on their children’s social competence and externalizing behavior, and experimenters observed children’s cooperative behavior. To examine the role of communication in the development of moral emotions and social behavior, children’s language skills were assessed. Results show that children with CI displayed moral emotions to a lesser degree than NH children. An association between moral emotions and social functioning was found in the NH group, but not in the CI group. General language skills were unrelated to moral emotions in the CI group, yet emotion vocabulary was related to social functioning in both groups of children. We conclude that facilitating emotion language skills has the potential to promote children’s social functioning, and could contribute to a decrease in behavioral problems in children with CI specifically. Future studies should examine in greater detail which factors are associated with the development of moral emotions, particularly in children with CI. Some possible directions for future research are discussed.

Vocal Emotion Identification by Children Using Cochlear Implants, Relations to Voice Quality, and Musical Interests

“…According to the researchers, better social skills are related to more frequent expressions of positive emotions (Wiefferink et al 2012). Ketelaar and Wiefferink (2015) observed a poorer understanding of moral emotions, such as shame and guilt, and poorer ability to relate them to social functioning in children with HI when compared with NH children. Wiefferink et al (2012) stated that if emotion-regulation strategies do not develop well in the early years of life, optimal strategies cannot be learned later in life.…”

“…A lack of caretaker support may also affect the development of the child's sense of security: An inability to tolerate stress may lead to a sense of insecurity and the withdrawal from social situations (Fox & Calkins, 2000). Caretakers can support the development of their children's emotions by validating and labelling the emotions, teach coping strategies, and helping them to improve their regulatory skills (Eisenberg et al, 2010;Ketelaar & Wiefferink, 2015). Selfawareness develops by the age of two, and starting from the age of three, children with normal hearing (NH) begin to internalize moral standards and to channel their emotional behavior without their caretakers' guidance (Ketelaar & Wiefferink, 2015).…”

The role of motion and intensity in deaf children’s recognition of real human facial expressions of emotion

“…It is plausible that improvements in cognitive skills, such as perspective taking, could aid the development of understanding the meaning of subtle emotion expressions (Choudhury, Blakemore, & Charman, 2006). For example, in a recent study, Ketelaar, Wiefferink, Frijns, Broekhof, and Rieffe (2015) found that 4-5-year-old deaf children with CIs displayed moral emotions (shame, guilt and surprise) to a lesser degree than hearing children. Therefore, future studies could explore the role that intensity plays in the recognition of these more complex emotions.…”

Emotional functioning and the development of internalizing and externalizing problems in young boys with and without autism spectrum disorder

“…Emotion vocabulary. The Emotion Vocabulary Questionnaire is a parent report that measures children's knowledge of emotional words (Ketelaar et al, 2015). Parents rated whether their child knew and used 20 emotion and mental state words (0 = no/1 = yes).…”