Abstract
Although current emotion theories emphasize the importance of contextual factors for emotional expressive behavior, developmental studies that examine such factors are currently thin on the ground. In this research, we studied the course of emotional expressions of 8- and 11-year-old children after winning a (large) first prize or a (substantially smaller) consolation prize, while playing a game competing against the computer or a physically co-present peer. We analyzed their emotional reactions by conducting two perception tests in which participants rated children’s level of happiness. Results showed that co-presence positively affected children’s happiness only when receiving the first prize. Moreover, for children who were in the presence of a peer, we found that eye contact affected children’s expressions of happiness, but that the effect was different for different age groups: 8-year-old children were negatively affected, and 11-year-old children positively. Overall, we can conclude that as children grow older and their social awareness increases, the presence of a peer affects their non-verbal expressions, regardless of their appreciation of their prize.
Highlights
In December 2011, an enormous hit on YouTube followed when an American talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, asked members of his audience to film their kids when they were given a Christmas present their parents were sure they would not like (Jimmy Kimmel Live! ABC 2011)
When Jimmy Kimmel asked parents to give their offspring disappointing Christmas presents, this set-up led to interesting reactions of children, which appeared to be in line with what could be predicted based on recent emotional theories that suggest that a variety of social factors are likely to affect emotional expressive behavior (e.g., Manstead and Fischer, 2001; Scherer and Ellgring, 2007; Mumenthaler and Sander, 2012; Fernández-Dols and Crivelli, 2013)
The first research question we tried to answer in this study related to how different contextual factors would affect children’s emotional expressions
Summary
In December 2011, an enormous hit on YouTube followed when an American talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, asked members of his audience to film their kids when they were given a Christmas present their parents were sure they would not like (Jimmy Kimmel Live! ABC 2011). While unwrapping their brand new onion or deodorant stick, most children screamed, got rather upset and eventually threw the unwanted gift away When they were in the company of a sibling, the children’s reactions tended to alter considerably, in that, depending on the context, the presence of the other child occasionally seemed to increase the level of frustration, or, interestingly enough, turn the child’s initial disappointment into a more positive feeling. Discrete emotion theories suggest that children learn to express their emotions through affect programs (Ekman, 1992) These programs are directly linked to the motivational cognitive system and provide people with the ability to experience six prototypical emotions, or a combination of those, which may be accompanied by specific facial expressions (Tomkins, 1962). Emotions are supposed to vary on a continuum of two factors, arousal (passiveness to activeness) and valence (unpleasantness to pleasantness)
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