Abstract
An understanding of the development of emotional knowledge can help us determine how children perceive and interpret their surroundings and color-emotion associations are one measure of the expression of a child’s emotional interpretations. Emotional understanding and color-emotion associations were examined in a sample of UK school children, aged 7-8 years. Forty primary school children (mean age = 7.38; SD = 0.49) were administered color assessment and emotional understanding tasks, and an expressive vocabulary test. Results identified significant gender differences with girls providing more appropriate and higher quality expressions of emotional understanding than boys. Children were more able to link color to positive rather than negative emotions and significant gender differences in specific color preferences were observed. The implications of adult misinterpretations of color-emotion associations in young children are discussed.
Highlights
An understanding of the development of emotional knowledge and an awareness of age-appropriate effective milestones are essential for professionals working closely with children [1]
This study investigated emotional understanding and coloremotion associations in boys and girls, aged 7-8 years
When comparing emotion groupings as negative and positive or basic and complex, both boys and girls were able to produce more appropriate and better quality responses for basic emotions when compared to complex emotions, but there were no overall differences in the children’s ability to produce appropriate and high quality responses for positive as compared to negative emotions
Summary
An understanding of the development of emotional knowledge and an awareness of age-appropriate effective milestones are essential for professionals working closely with children [1]. How children develop and achieve their emotional knowledge can help professionals understand how children perceive and interpret their environment, and how they respond, manage, and organise their own feelings in emotive situations [2, 3]. Through such intelligence, effective programmes of learning and treatment can be put in place within educational and clinical settings to provide the opportunity for children to explore their emotional relationships and help achieve their developmental milestones [4, 5]. In February 2009, the UK Departments of Health (DH) and Children, Schools, and Families (DCSF) issued a joint Departmental Strategic Objective outlining future plans to promote the emotional health and well-being of children [8] and, following recommendations by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), a National Advisory Council was established for children’s mental health and psychological well-being [9]
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