Decoding and understanding the causes of emotions

Abstract

An attempt to analyse mental representations of basic emotions – joy and fear – is made in terms of child-parent relations. On the basis of theoretical analysis the possible levels and components in the views of parents about the emotions of preschool children are identified. The importance and significance of parents' knowledge about the causes and patterns of emotional behaviour in children are indicated. The scheme of the pilot study is proposed, the procedure of the survey based on written verbal reports is described. The qualitative-quantitative, comparative analysis of the selected units in the mental representations of parents about the reasons for the demonstration and the basis for their recognition (decoding) is given. The proposed thesaurus of situations that contribute to experiencing emotions of joy, fear. The main patterns in the demonstration of emotional behaviour of children, according to parental representations are revealed. The data obtained correlate with the results of previous studies on problems in the field of child-parent relations, psychology of emotions and can be applied in practice.