Children's Emotion Research Articles

Facial Expressions of Emotion in Children with Cleft Lip and Palate.

To examine the facial movements children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) employ to express basic emotions. Ability of observers to interpret facial expressions of children with CLP was also considered. Prospective case-control design. Outpatient craniofacial anomalies clinic. Twenty-five children with CLP (age 8 to 12) and 25 age/sex-matched controls. Children were video recorded making facial expressions representing anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Magnitude of children's facial movements was quantified and compared using OpenFace. Subsequently, emotion videos were presented to 19 adults who were asked to identify the emotion conveyed in each facial expression. Accuracy of emotion recognition was compared across groups. Compared with controls, children with CLP employed significantly (P < .05) smaller magnitude superior and lateral perioral movements to express disgust (Cohen's d = .50), happiness (Cohen's d = 1.1), and fear (Cohen's d = .93). For disgust and sadness, children with CLP employed significantly greater magnitude movements of the nose and chin, presumably to compensate for reduced perioral range of motion. For anger, happiness, and sadness, children with CLP employed smaller magnitude movements of the upper face when compared with controls. Observers identified disgust (OR = 1.26), and fear (OR = 2.44) significantly less accurately in children with CLP when compared with controls. Children with CLP employed different facial movements to express certain emotions. Observers less accurately identified some emotions conveyed by facial expressions in children with CLP when compared with controls, likely due in part to differences in facial movements. Future research should explore the implications of these differences for social communication.

Effect of Animal-Assisted Activities on Symptoms and Emotions of Children with Neoplastic Disease: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND: Animal-assisted activities (AAAs) have long been present in pediatric oncology as a nonpharmacological intervention aimed at helping children cope with symptoms and negative emotions during hospitalization and antineoplastic treatment. Among the systematic reviews in the literature, there is a lack of one with meta-analysis that includes only RCTs centered on the effect of the intervention on symptoms and emotions in children with neoplastic disease. OBJECTIVE: To synthesize the effect of AAAs on symptoms and emotions of children with neoplastic disease. METHODS: Studies were searched from biomedical databases Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, AMED, sciELO, LILACS, CNKI, J-GLOBAL, J-STAGE, main trial registries and major sources of grey literature. Searching for useful documents took place from the inception of each resource until April 18, 2024. The risk of bias of included studies was assessed with RoB 2, and the overall effect size of the intervention was calculated by creating random-effects meta-analyses graphically represented by forest plots. The summary of findings was illustrated with a table in accordance with the GRADE method. RESULTS: Three parallel-group randomized controlled trials with low risk of bias were included (N = 151, mean age: 8.5-11.2 years). AAAs are promising for anxiety reduction (N = 134; SMD = -0.07 [95% CI: -0.40, 0.27], p &gt; 0.05) and quality of life improvement (N = 84; SMD = -0.11 [95% CI: -0.53, 0.31], p &gt; 0.05) in children and for anxiety reduction (N = 154; SMD = -0.50 [95% CI: -1.52, 0.52], p &gt; 0.05) in parents/caregivers. The certainty/quality of evidence is low to very low. CONCLUSIONS: The effect of animal-assisted activities to reduce anxiety and improve the quality of life of children with neoplastic disease and to reduce parent/caregiver anxiety is small to moderate; however, the quality/certainty of evidence is very low to low. Therefore, further studies on the topic that overcome the current limitations need to be conducted in order to collect more robust data in favor of implementing the intervention in pediatric oncology.

Bidirectional Relations Among Maternal Positive Emotion, Infant Positive Emotionality, and Infant Physiological Regulation Across the First 18 Months of Life.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a marker of self-regulation, has been linked to developmental outcomes in young children. Although positive emotions may have the potential to facilitate physiological self-regulation, and enhanced self-regulation could underlie the development of positive emotions in early childhood, the relation between positive emotions and physiological self-regulation in infancy has been relatively overlooked. The current study examined the bidirectional associations among maternal positive emotion, infant positive emotionality, and infant resting RSA across the first 18 months of life. We used data from the Longitudinal Attention and Temperament Study (LanTs; N=309 in the current analysis) to test the within- and between-person relations of study variables over time using a random-intercepts cross-lagged panel model. We found that infants with higher overall levels of positive emotionality also displayed greater resting RSA, and their mothers exhibited higher levels of positive emotion. However, there were negative cross-lagged associations within-person; higher than average infant positive emotionality predicted lower levels of infant resting RSA at the subsequent timepoint during early infancy, whereas higher than average infant RSA subsequently predicted decreased levels of infant positive emotionality later in infancy. Results highlight the importance of considering transactional relations between positive emotion and physiological self-regulation in infancy.

Unveiling the Potential of ChatGPT and YOLOv7 for Evaluating Children's Emotions Using Their Artistic Expressions.

Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have sparked considerable interest in their potential applications across various healthcare domains. One promising prospect is leveraging these generative models to accurately predict children's emotions by combining computer vision and natural language processing techniques. However, understanding children's emotional states based on their artistic expressions is equally crucial. To address this challenge, this paper presents a pipelined architecture comprising YOLOv7 and the powerful GPT-3.5 Turbo language model, where YOLOv7 is employed for object detection using art therapy imaging annotations, while GPT-3.5 interprets the sketches. After rigorously evaluating the proposed framework through a series of comprehensive experiments, we observed that our model achieved high confidence scores for both object detection and emotion interpretation. The robust performance of the proposed framework not only aids in explaining children's art but also provides valuable insights for parents and therapists. This capability enables them to better understand children's emotional states based on their artistic expressions, ultimately facilitating improved support and care.

Maternal emotion socialization trajectories in an early-childhood, predominantly White sample.

Several developmental theories identify caregiver emotion socialization (ES) as predicting multiple child psychological outcomes, including anxiety. The present study delineated developmental trajectories of mothers' ES practices, specifically the initial levels and growth across time of their supportive and nonsupportive responses to their young children's emotions. To contextualize the developmental role of these processes, we examined multiple predictors (i.e., maternal emotion dysregulation, child negative emotionality, demographic covariates) and one outcome (i.e., child anxiety) of ES trajectories, as well as how trajectories varied by emotion type-sadness, anger, or worry. We investigated these questions in a community sample of 173 predominantly White, non-Hispanic mother-child dyads who participated at four time points when children were aged 2-5 years, with assessments 1 year apart. Mothers reported on study variables. Results varied by ES type. Mothers' supportive global and emotion-specific ES were highly stable across time and did not relate to predictors, outcomes, or demographic covariates. Mothers endorsed gradual decreases in nonsupportive ES across time, with some variations across emotion type. Nonsupportive responses to worry and sadness each comprised two classes varying by intercept and slope. Nonsupportive worry responses linearly decreased, whereas nonsupportive sadness responses linearly increased. Across global and emotion-specific models, maternal emotion dysregulation, child negative emotionality, and demographic covariates showed unique relations with nonsupportive ES intercept and slope. Trajectories were mostly unrelated to later child anxiety, with the exception of class-specific differences for nonsupportive worry responses. Implications and future directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Development and psychometric evaluation of a new domain-specific coparenting measure: Coparenting Children's Emotion Scale.

Caregivers play an integral role in supporting children's development, not only through their individual parenting practices but also how they work together as coparents. The literature on coparenting is extensive; however, most of the research has relied on global measures to assess the quality and functioning of the coparenting relationship. Examining the coparenting relationship with domain-specific measures enables a deeper understanding of this complex family process. One domain of particular interest is emotion socialization given the vast and long-term consequences emotion socialization has on children's emotional, social, behavioral, and psychological functioning. Emotion socialization literature would benefit from a domain-specific coparenting measure, as researchers have rarely explored how coparents work together when responding to their children's emotions (i.e., coparenting children's emotions). As such, an emotion-focused coparenting measure could address gaps in both coparenting and emotion socialization literature. This study outlines the development and psychometric evaluation of a domain-specific measure of coparenting, the Coparenting Children's Emotion Scale (CCES), which assesses how parents work together when responding to their children's emotions. In the current study, the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the CCES were examined in an Australian sample. Findings from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the CCES comprises two subscales that capture coparents' levels of support/cooperation and undermining. In the current sample, both CCES subscales demonstrated good to excellent internal consistency, and good convergent and concurrent validity. The CCES will provide researchers and practitioners with a domain-specific measure to use in exploratory and intervention research.

Nonlinear associations between cardiovascular stress reactivity and emotional reactivity and emotion regulation among adolescents.

Cardiovascular stress reactivity (CVR) is considered as a physiological pathway linking emotional reactivity and emotion regulation with psychopathology. However, the associations between CVR and emotional reactivity and emotion regulation remain underexplored, with limited evidence showing that either excessive or blunted CVR is associated with emotional reactivity and emotional regulation. Recently, moderate CVR has been theoretically hypothesized to be related to optimal outcomes; however, whether CVR is nonlinearly associated with emotional reactivity and emotion regulation still needs to be investigated. Parents of 341 junior school students reported their children's emotional reactivity and emotion regulation on the Emotion Questionnaire, and the students were invited to participate in a mental arithmetic task with continuous cardiovascular monitoring indexed by heart rate (HR) and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP). Results did not reveal any linear relationships between CVR and emotional reactivity or emotion regulation. However, quadratic associations between HR, SBP reactivity and emotional reactivity and emotion regulation were found even after controlling for sex, age and BMI. Specifically, there was a U-shaped association between HR, SBP reactivity, and emotional reactivity, while there was an inverted U-shaped association between HR, SBP reactivity, and emotion regulation. These findings suggest that moderate to high rather than exaggerated or blunted CVR reflects adaptive emotional reactivity and better emotion regulation among adolescents.

Effect of Animal-Assisted Activities on Symptoms and Emotions of Children with Neoplastic Disease: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND: Animal-assisted activities (AAAs) have long been present in pediatric oncology as a nonpharmacological intervention aimed at helping children cope with symptoms and negative emotions during hospitalization and antineoplastic treatment. Among the systematic reviews in the literature, there is a lack of one with meta-analysis that includes only RCTs centered on the effect of the intervention on symptoms and emotions in children with neoplastic disease. OBJECTIVE: To synthesize the effect of AAAs on symptoms and emotions of children with neoplastic disease. METHODS: Studies were searched from biomedical databases, trial registries, and web resources. The risk of bias of included studies was assessed with RoB 2, and the overall effect size of the intervention was calculated by creating random-effects meta-analyses graphically represented by forest plots. The summary of findings was illustrated with a table in accordance with the GRADE method. RESULTS: Three parallel-group randomized controlled trials with low risk of bias were included (N = 151, mean age: 8.5-11.2 years). AAAs are promising for anxiety reduction (N = 134; SMD = -0.07 [95% CI: -0.40, 0.27], p &gt; 0.05) and quality of life improvement (N = 84; SMD = -0.11 [95% CI: -0.53, 0.31], p &gt; 0.05) in children and for anxiety reduction (N = 154; SMD = -0.50 [95% CI: -1.52, 0.52], p &gt; 0.05) in parents/caregivers. The certainty/quality of evidence is low to very low. CONCLUSIONS: The effect of animal-assisted activities to reduce anxiety and improve the quality of life of children with neoplastic disease and to reduce the anxiety of parents/caregivers is promising. However, more studies need to be conducted on the topic that overcome the important methodological limitations manifested by current research in order to collect more data in favor of implementing the intervention in pediatric oncology.

Development and validation of the short parent–child emotion communication questionnaire

ABSTRACT How parents value and address emotions with their children is essential for children’s emotion socialization. This study developed and validated the short Parent–Child Emotion Communication questionnaire (PEC), which measures the extent to which parents appreciate emotions, consciously discuss their own and their child’s emotions with their children, reflecting on both positive and negative emotions, and address the impact of emotion expression on social relationships. Parents of 316 preschoolers (Mage = 3.86 years) participated. Factor structure, measurement invariance across sex, and internal consistency of the PEC were assessed. Four indices for parents’ talk about a child’s emotional episode, and children’s social-emotional skills are tested for criterion and concurrent validity. The results confirmed the one-factor structure of the 8-item PEC, measurement invariance across boys and girls, and seemed to support the criterion/concurrent validity. The PEC thus may provide a tool to examine parent–child emotion communication in early childhood. Clinical implications of using the PEC are discussed.

Family-level profiles of parental reactions to emotions: Longitudinal associations with multi-informant reports of adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Longitudinal study of associations between family-level emotion socialization and adolescent adjustment is limited. When American children (53.5% girls) were in second grade (N = 213; Mage = 7.98; data collected 2002-2003), mothers and fathers (79.8% of mothers and 74.2% of fathers were White) reported on their reactions to children's emotions; in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade (Mage = 13.03, 14.17, 15.29, respectively; data collected 2007-2010), adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Four family-level profiles of reactions were identified. Profile differences emerged, suggesting that the emotion dismissing profile was longitudinally associated with elevated adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms and that fathering may especially foster child adjustment for families in a divergence profile.

Enhancing Parental Understanding of Emotions in Children with Developmental Language Disorder: An Online Parent-Led Intervention Program.

Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have emotion recognition and regulation difficulties, but there are currently no known interventions enhancing emotional awareness in this population. This study explores the impact of parents' perspectives regarding children with DLD emotional understanding through a parent-led online emotion recognition (ER) intervention. Ten parents of children with DLD aged 6-11 participated in the study. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design was employed, allowing for a rigorous analysis of changes in parental beliefs over time. Weekly data were collected through the Parents' Beliefs About Children's Emotions Questionnaire. Interviews were also conducted to gain deeper insights into parents' perceptions regarding the ER skills of their children. Results indicated that parents' beliefs about the need for guiding and supporting their child's ER skills increased over the intervention. Interviews also supported this, and three main themes were generated. The intervention program increased parents' awareness of (a) the importance of ER for children with DLD, (b) emotion-focused communication and engagement with their child, and (c) the integration of emotions into daily life. This study is the first known study that explores parents' beliefs about children with DLD ER skills, highlighting the importance of supporting parents through accessible interventions.

Emotion socialization in early childhood education and care – How preschool teachers support children's emotion regulation

Children’s emotional experiences during early childhood education and care (ECEC) are important for children’s emotional development and the socialization of this development by teachers. One central goal of emotion socialization is that it should help children acquire reflective regulation of their emotions, resulting in socially acceptable and age-appropriate experience and behavior. The current study is based on emotionally challenging situations of children in ECEC and aims at investigating, first, associations of teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation with children’s self-regulation, and, second, how teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation are linked with characteristics of the specific emotion episode and the involved child. Based on extensive video observations in the preschool setting (N = 19 groups), this study analyzed episodes with teacher interventions (N = 48 teachers) following a negative emotion expression by one or two children (N = 213 children aged 2–6 years old). Multilevel results show, first, that teachers’ initial emotion coaching and co-regulation through meta-cognitive prompts were associated with children’s independent self-regulation. Second, teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation were systematically associated with characteristics of the emotion episode, especially emotion quality and intensity. The findings support the assumption that emotion coaching and co-regulation are especially valuable tools to support self-regulation. However, emotion coaching and the different co-regulation levels and strategies do not turn out to be universal strategies that are used indiscriminately, but teachers use them depending on individual child and situational characteristics.

Penerapan Metode Gerak dan Lagu Untuk Meningkatkan Sosial Emosional Anak Usia 5-6 Tahun di RA Al Fajar Denai

It is very important to implement discipline in early childhood, to train discipline in early childhood in terms of developing social emotions in children. As this research aims to determine the social-emotional development of children aged 5-6 years before the movement and singing methods were implemented at RA Al-Fajar Denai, how the movement and singing methods were implemented at RA al-Fajar Denai to improve the socio-emotive development of children aged 5 -6 years old, and whether movements and singing methods can improve the social emotional development of children aged 5-6 years at RAAl-Fadar Denai. Apart from observations and compilation of supporting materials, this study uses a classroom action research approach. Using a collaboration paradigm that emphasizes cooperation between researchers and teachers, this Classroom Action Study was carried out for two months, from February to March 2024, in Raudhatul Atfhal Al-Fajar Denai, Kec. At RA Al-Fajar Denai, researchers collaborated with group teachers to plan, implement, observe and think about activities during two work cycles. From the research results, which were produced using movement and song as methods, the findings are very relevant to children's social-emotional development. Specifically, the data we obtained showed that 6.7% of children who had previously not progressed and 13.3% of children who had developed as expected had not progressed, and that 20% and 80% of children had developed very well, respectively. achieved the desired category of 65%. We can conclude that the movement and song methods that have been used have a great influence on the social emotional development of children aged 5-6 years. .

"Trying to remain calm…but I do reach my limit sometimes": An exploration of the meaning of gentle parenting.

Raising young children has always been hard, but evidence suggests that it may be getting harder. The isolation of the pandemic, the pressures to fulfill exacting parenting standards, and the explosion of "expert" parenting advice on social media have fueled the rise of "gentle parenting," an approach that pivots away from older, discipline-heavy parenting typologies and which promises the development of happier, healthier children. Despite the popularity of gentle parenting, it has received no empirical scrutiny. The current study represents the first systematic investigation of what gentle parenting entails. Data were gathered from a sample (N = 100) of parents of at least one child between the ages of 2 and 7 from the Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest. Approximately half (n = 49) of the sample identified as "gentle parents." Inductive analyses identified this approach as one that emphasizes high levels of parental affection and parents' and children's emotion regulation. Gentle parenting appears to be distinct from other established measures of parenting approaches in its emphasis on boundaries, yet the enactment of those boundaries is not uniform. Overall, gentle parents reported high levels of parenting satisfaction and efficacy, but a subset of gentle parents who were highly critical of themselves reported significantly lower levels of efficacy than the rest of the sample. Statements of parenting uncertainty and burnout were present in over one-third of the gentle parent sample. Implications are discussed for future research and increased support for those who identify as gentle parents.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of CHRIS'S Birds Assisted Therapy on Dental Anxiety among Pediatric Patients: A Pilot Study.

The heart of childhood nurtures an array of immature emotions. Through this rollercoaster of childhood emotions, from tears to laughter, it is the sole responsibility of a pediatric dentist to help the children navigate through their emotions with their empathetic actions. Whenever a child is anxious or fearful in the dental chair, the child may put forth his emotion through crying or taking up a flight response. Dental caries is a disease that is aggravated when a child refuses to cooperate with dental treatment. The tiny holes in the tooth, when unfilled, may lead to bigger problems, which in turn may lead to tooth loss in future. It is the comprehensive responsibility of the pediatric dentist to support health and emotional development and provide a complete, fulfilling oral rehabilitation to the child patient. The purpose of this study was to determine the anxiety levels of pediatric patients visiting the dental Outpatient Department at a Dental College and Hospital in Kavalkinaru. This study unveils a novel technique wherein birds were used in the form of CHRIS'S Birds Assisted Therapy to reduce anxiety in pediatric dental patients. Results showed that intervention with birds through CHRIS'S Birds Assisted Therapy significantly reduced the anxiety levels in children. Thus, CHRIS'S Birds Assisted Therapy is shown to be a promising method of anxiety control, a key to a successful pediatric dental practice. Joybell C, Kumar K. Evaluating the Effectiveness of CHRIS'S Birds Assisted Therapy on Dental Anxiety among Pediatric Patients: A Pilot Study. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2024;17(S-1):S84-S94.

The socialization of social–emotional behaviour in early childhood classrooms: child outcomes moderated by socioeconomic risk

ABSTRACT Early childhood educator's emotional socialization may contribute crucially to young children's social–emotional competence. Here, we examined the contributions of self-reported reactions to children's emotions and beliefs about emotional socialization of 90 teachers to the social–emotional competence of 334 pre-schoolers. Teacher-reported emotion socialization, especially as moderated by classroom socioeconomic risk, often predicted pre-schoolers’ end-of-year social–emotional behaviours, independent of child covariates, including children's beginning-of-year premeasures. Only three findings resembled the parent emotion socialization literature, however, and two appeared unique to the pre-school environment. Most were specific to classrooms where children experienced socioeconomic risk. The pattern of moderation findings highlights the importance of context in teachers’ emotional socialization. Suggestions are given for expanded research on the topic and potential applications to assist teachers in their role as emotion socializers.

CLEM: A cross-language emotional metanorm in children

The relationship between emotion and language in children is an emerging field of research. To carry out this type of study, researchers need to precisely manipulate the emotional parameters of the words in their experimental material. However, the number of affective norms for words in this population is still limited. To fill this gap, the present report presents a set of 7 norms that measure the emotional parameters (valence, arousal) of words rated by children in French, English, German, Spanish, and Chinese. The high correlations between the valence values and the moderate correlations between arousal values of these norms allow us to determine a cross-language homogeneity of emotional representations in children. Thus, this report introduces a significant metanorm with 508 words characterized by valence and by arousal. This tool is a worthwhile resource for researchers interested in the links between emotion and language, as well as for those interested in cross-language comparisons. The complete database can be downloaded at the following address: https://osf.io/stnbk/

Effect of Clown Therapy on Symptoms and Emotions of Children with Neoplastic Disease: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

INTRODUCTION: Clown therapy is a widely used nonpharmacological intervention for the control and management of symptoms and emotions in pediatric settings. There are some studies evaluating the effect of the intervention on children with neoplastic disease, but a systematic review summarizing the overall benefit is lacking. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of clown therapy on the symptoms and emotions of children with neoplastic pathology. METHODS: Studies (randomized or quasi-randomized parallel-group controlled trials) were searched from biomedical databases, web resources, and trial registries. The intervention was compared with standard care; primary outcomes were pain and anxiety, and secondary outcomes were fear, stress, fatigue, depression, distress, and mood. Risk of bias was assessed with Cochrane Risk of Bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2), and the overall effect size was calculated with variable effects meta-analysis. The summary of results was illustrated in accordance with the GRADE method. RESULTS: Five quasi-randomized parallel-group trials with a high risk of bias were included (N = 376, mean age: 6.9-10.9 years). Children who received clown therapy manifested a reduction in anxiety (N = 181; SMD = -2.17 [95% CI: -4.20, -0.14], p &lt; 0.05) and fatigue (N = 176; SMD = -2.03 [95% CI: -5.39, 1.32], p &gt; 0.05). The certainty/quality of evidence is very low. CONCLUSIONS: Clown therapy appears to be more effective than standard care in reducing anxiety and fatigue in children with neoplastic disease. However, more studies are needed to confirm the results, as the very low certainty/quality of evidence currently does not justify routine implementation of the intervention in pediatric oncology.

Push-Pull Mechanism of Attention and Emotion in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Background/Objectives: While deficits in executive attention and alerting systems in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are well-documented, findings regarding orienting attention in ADHD have been inconsistent. The current study investigated the mechanism of attentional orienting in children with ADHD by examining their attentional bias towards threatening stimuli. Furthermore, we explored the modulating role of anxiety levels in ADHD on this attentional bias. Methods: In Experiment 1, 20 children with ADHD and 26 typically developing children (TDC) performed a continuous performance task that included task-irrelevant distractions consisting of angry faces and neutral places. In Experiment 2, 21 children with ADHD and 25 TDC performed the same task, but with angry and neutral faces as distractors. To measure children's anxiety levels, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered before each experiment. Results: In Experiment 1, results revealed no attentional bias effects in children with ADHD, whereas TDC exhibited attentional capture effects by both types of distractors. However, in Experiment 2, ADHD children demonstrated an attentional bias towards angry faces, which revealed a significant positive correlation with their trait anxiety levels (r = 0.61, p < 0.05). Further analyses combining all ADHD children showed that trait anxiety levels in Experiment 2 were significantly higher than those in Experiment 1. Finally, a significant positive correlation was found between anxiety levels and attentional bias towards angry faces in all ADHD children (r = 0.36, p < 0.01). Conclusions: Children with ADHD exhibited atypical attentional-orienting effects to threats, and their levels of trait anxiety appeared to modulate such attentional-orienting mechanisms.

The MoodWheel app: validation and factor structure of a new tool for the assessment of mood based on the experience sampling method

Background The MoodWheel app is a newly developed tool that uses experience sampling method (ESM) for assessing negative and positive emotions, based on the circumplex model of emotions and the binary model of distress, and including behavioral and heart rate (HR) measurement via photoplethysmography and the possibility to personalize the application with additional measures. Aims: This study was designed to assess the factorial structure, reliability and validity of the MoodWheel (MW) application for evaluating emotions in children, adolescents. Methods A sample of 490 children and adolescents were recruited from the schools. Internal consistency was assessed via Cronbach’s alpha test. Concurrent validity was assessed by evaluating the correlations between MW and Profile of Emotional Distress scale (PED) scores, in terms of functional/dysfunctional negative and positive emotions. Results Results obtained show that MW has good to excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability, while the convergent validity was also adequate. Moreover, we found support for the organization of the MW based on the binary model of distress, given the predictive value found for the irrational and rational beliefs. Conclusions The MW application is a useful and easy to use tool that can be used for the accurate measurement of emotions, which will be complimented in future with additional behavioral parameters to provide a comprehensive and dynamic assessment.