Socialization of preschoolers' emotion understanding.

Abstract

Contributions to individual differences in preschoolers' identification of basic emotional expressions and situations, emotion language, and their self-generated causes for basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, and afraid) were investigated across parts of 2 preschool years (N = 47; initial M age = 41 months). An aggregate of preschool emotion understanding was predicted by the intrapersonal predictors, child age and overall cognitive-language ability. Observed socialization, including explanations about emotions, and positive and negative responsiveness to child emotions predicted the aggregate of emotion understanding, even with age and cognitive-language ability partialed. The contribution of socialization predictors to emotion understanding was moderated by sex only for negative emotional responsiveness, and children with the lowest emotion understanding scores had mothers who showed more anger. Emotions function as vital regulators of children's intra- and interpersonal behavior (Barrett & Campos, 1987; Bretherton, Fritz, Zahn-Waxier, & Ridgeway, 1986; Campos & Barrett, 1984). Young children's understanding of emotion constitutes a key early component of their social cognition, because they so frequently draw on this understanding in the course of social interaction. During their preschool years, children become increasingly adept at identifying emotion expressions and situations; they also become able to verbalize coherently and fluently about the causes of their own and others' emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, and anger; see Bretherton et al., 1986; Denham, 1986; Denham & Couchoud, 1990; Dunn, Bretherton, & Munn, 1987; Fabes, Eisenberg, McCormick, & Wilson, 1988;