Does the child’s actual participation make a difference? Positive and negative emotion states mentioned by mothers of young children during narrative construction

Abstract

The study examined the rate that mothers mentioned positive and negative emotion states and emotion calls during narrative construction from a text-free children’s picture book illustrating happy and emotionally charged situations. Ninety-three mothers of 3- to 4-year-old kibbutz children were divided into three groups: (1) the child was not present and not mentioned; (2) the child was not present, but was mentioned by the experimenter; and (3) the child co-constructed the narrative with his/her mother. Mothers mentioned significantly more negative emotion states in the co-construction group than in the two other groups; no difference was found for positive emotion states. Findings for emotion calls differed: mothers used more positive emotion calls in the second group than in the other groups, and they used more negative emotion calls in the second and third group than in the first group.