Children's Emotional Expressions Research Articles

Relations Between Parental Emotion Talk and Preschoolers' Emotion Expressions in Low-Income Chinese American and Mexican American Families.

Background/Objectives: Preschool children learn to express emotions in accordance with sociocultural norms. Parental emotion talk (ET) has been theorized to shape these processes. Limited research has examined preschoolers' observed emotion expressions and emotion-related behaviors in culturally diverse samples. We sought to explore the following: (1) cultural group differences and similarities in observed emotion expressions (anger, sadness, and positive emotions) and emotion-related behaviors between Chinese American and Mexican American preschoolers, and (2) the concurrent links between parental ET and children's emotion expressions. Methods: In a sample of 86 children (age range = 38 to 70 months, 62% girls) from low-income immigrant families (Mexican Americans/MA = 43 and Chinese Americans/CA = 43), the observed children's emotion expressions and emotion-related behaviors were coded based on a frustration-eliciting task. Parental ET quality and quantity were coded from transcripts of a parent-child shared reading task. Results: MA children expressed more anger and sadness, but the two groups did not differ on positive emotions or emotion-related behaviors. Multiple regressions showed that children whose parents engaged in more ET expressed higher levels of anger and sadness and used more non-feeling state languages than children whose parents engaged in less ET. Conclusions: The results revealed cultural variations in preschool-age children's emotion expressions and provided support for associations between parental ET and children's emotion expressions.

The Influence of Family Environment on Children's Mental Health

The influence of the family environment on children's physical and mental development has been widely discussed, but the degree of children's mental health is still insufficient, and many children fail to achieve a good mental state. If the parents create a warm family atmosphere, create a safe and warm physical environment, and let the child grow up in a relaxed and pleasant family, then the child will become very confident and cheerful. In stark contrast, children who grow up in an oppressive home are more likely to be isolated and more afraid to speak up. The analysis of this paper shows that in the process of children's physical and mental development, the role of the family environment is huge. Family environment factors are the basis of children's health psychology, and establishing a harmonious and good family environment is an important condition for cultivating children's health psychology. Based on this, this paper puts forward the following suggestions. Parents should strengthen their learning, create a harmonious family atmosphere, attach importance to frustration education, and cultivate children's emotional expression ability.

Pupillary Responses to Dynamic Negative Versus Positive Facial Expressions of Emotion in Children and Parents: Links to Depression and Anxiety.

Witnessing emotional expressions in others triggers physiological arousal in humans. The current study focused on pupil responses to emotional expressions in a community sample as a physiologicalindex of arousal and attention. We explored the associations between parents' and offspring's responses to dynamic facial expressions of emotion, as well as the links between pupil responses and anxiety/depression. Children (N=90, MAge=10.13, range=7.21-12.94, 47 girls) participated in this lab study with one of their parents (47 mothers). Pupil responses were assessed in a computer task with dynamic happy, angry, fearful, and sad expressions, while participants verbally labeled the emotion displayed on the screen as quickly as possible. Parents and children reported anxiety and depression symptoms in questionnaires. Both parents and children showed stronger pupillary responses to negative versus positive expressions, and children's responses were overall stronger than those of parents. We also found links between the pupil responses of parents and children to negative, especially to angry faces. Child pupil responses were related to their own and their parents' anxiety levels and to their parents' (but not their own) depression. We conclude that child pupils are sensitive to individual differences in parents' pupils and emotional dispositions in community samples.

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.

The Role of Emotions in The Formation of Social Relationships in Primary School-Age Children: A Psychological and Educational Approach

The present study aims to examine the influence of emotions on the formation of social interactions among primary school-aged children in Malang City. The research sample consisted of two hundred children selected randomly from ten public or private elementary schools. The frequency and intensity of children's emotional expressions and emotional management abilities were primarily assessed through questionnaires and observation guides. Diverse aspects of social interactions and emotions were evaluated using a Likert scale ranging from "very rarely" to "very often" on a scale of 1 to 5. Multiple linear regression was utilized to examine the relationship between emotional regulation and relationship quality, and the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Algorithm was implemented to assess the validity of the instruments. Significant positive correlations were observed between the number of peers one has and the degree of happiness expressed. However, no observable correlation was found between the number of acquaintances or social interactions and emotions of sadness or rage.

Maternal childhood emotional abuse increases cardiovascular responses to children's emotional facial expressions.

Parents with a history of childhood maltreatment may be more likely to respond inadequately to their child's emotional cues, such as crying or screaming, due to previous exposure to prolonged stress. While studies have investigated parents' physiological reactions to their children's vocal expressions of emotions, less attention has been given to their responses when perceiving children's facial expressions of emotions. The present study aimed to determine if viewing facial expressions of emotions in children induces cardiovascular changes in mothers (hypo- or hyper-arousal) and whether these differ as a function of childhood maltreatment. A total of 104 mothers took part in this study. Their experiences of childhood maltreatment were measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Participants' electrocardiogram signals were recorded during a task in which they viewed a landscape video (baseline) and images of children's faces expressing different intensities of emotion. Heart rate variability (HRV) was extracted from the recordings as an indicator of parasympathetic reactivity. Participants presented two profiles: one group of mothers had a decreased HRV when presented with images of children's facial expressions of emotions, while the other group's HRV increased. However, HRV change was not significantly different between the two groups. The interaction between HRV groups and the severity of maltreatment experienced was marginal. Results suggested that experiences of childhood emotional abuse were more common in mothers whose HRV increased during the task. Therefore, more severe childhood experiences of emotional abuse could be associated with mothers' cardiovascular hyperreactivity. Maladaptive cardiovascular responses could have a ripple effect, influencing how mothers react to their children's facial expressions of emotions. That reaction could affect the quality of their interaction with their child. Providing interventions that help parents regulate their physiological and behavioral responses to stress might be helpful, especially if they have experienced childhood maltreatment.

Exploring Emotions Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic through Death Education: A Qualitative Study at Italian Primary Schools.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of individuals, families, and children worldwide. In Italy, the implementation of measures such as lockdowns and distance learning in schools affected the mental health of children and families. This article employs a qualitative method to explore the efficacy of a death education project that aimed to help primary school children process the emotions and losses that they experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study encompassed both the children who took part in the death education project and their teachers and parents to investigate their perspectives on the emotions of the minors and the effectiveness of the project. Distance learning posed challenges for the learning process and exacerbated social inequalities. The children suffered from limited social contact with their friends and experienced negative emotions, including anger, fear, and concern for the health of their loved ones. The death education project provided a safe space for children's emotional expression and facilitated their acquisition of coping strategies. Open communication between adults and children about illness and death proved effective in mitigating the psychological impacts of loss and preventing traumatic bereavement. The findings highlight the utility of death education in enhancing children's ability to express their emotions and approach the topic of death more frankly.

Emotion regulation as a complex system: A multi-contextual and multi- level approach to understanding emotion expression and cortisol reactivity among Chinese and US preschoolers.

Are children from "Eastern" cultures less emotionally expressive and reactive than children from "Western" cultures? To answer this, we used a multi-level and multi-contextual approach to understand variations in emotion displays and cortisol reactivity among preschoolers living in China and the United States. One hundred two preschoolers from China (N=58; 55% males) and the United States (N=44, 48% males) completed three (i.e., control, interpersonal-related, and achievement-related) emotion-challenging paradigms over 3 days. Behavioral emotion expressions were coded, and salivary cortisol was sampled 30minutes before and across 90minutes post-task. Without considering context, Chinese preschoolers displayed fewer levels of positive and negative emotion expressions relative to their United States counterparts. However, Chinese preschoolers displayed similar levels of expressions as their United States counterparts during an achievement-related challenge that is more salient to their sociocultural emphases and showed higher negative emotion expressions in this challenge, relative to other contexts. Moreover, only the achievement-related challenge elicited increased cortisol levels among Chinese preschoolers, and this was correlated with higher levels of negative expressions. For US preschoolers, no cortisol increase was observed in any challenging paradigms, nor was cortisol associated with emotional expressions. Findings counter prior notions that East Asian children are generally less emotionally expressive. Instead, an achievement-related challenge elicited higher emotion expression and cortisol reactivity among Chinese preschoolers, suggesting that children's emotion expression and biological reactivity may be most responsive to contexts salient to their socio-cultural environments. We discuss the importance of considering cultural contexts when studying emotion regulation. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Chinese preschoolers displayed lower overall positive and negative expressions relative to their US counterparts without considering situational contexts. Chinese preschoolers displayed similar levels of emotion expressions as their US counterparts during an achievement-related challenge salient to their social-cultural environment. Chinese preschoolers are particularly responsive to achievement-related challenges, relative to other emotion-challenging situations that are less culturally salient. No cortisol increase was observed in any of the emotion-challenging paradigms among US preschoolers. Children's emotion expression and biological reactivity may be most responsive to challenges relevant to their socio-cultural environments.

Body-oriented interventions to promote preschoolers' social-emotional competence: a quasi-experimental study.

Social-emotional competence is foundational to children's health and well-being. Body-oriented interventions, such as relaxation or play based interventions, have been shown to promote social-emotional competence, however more studies are needed to better understand the specific benefits of each type of body-oriented approach. The present study aimed to examine the chronic and the acute effects of three body-oriented intervention programs (loose parts play, relaxation and combining loose parts play and relaxation) on preschoolers' social-emotional competence. A quasi-experimental study was carried out, including 62 preschoolers (4.44 ± 0.93 years) that were allocated into 4 groups: Loose Parts Play program (n = 17); Relaxation program (n = 17); Combined program (n = 13); and Waitlist Control Group (no intervention; n = 15). All three intervention programs had a 12-week duration, with biweekly sessions of 30-min, implemented in the preschool outdoors. To examine the chronic effects of the intervention programs, all instruments (parents' and preschool teacher's questionnaires, tasks and saliva) were collected at baseline and after the 12-week period. To examine the acute effects, saliva samples were collected immediately before and after the 1st and the 24th sessions, with a total of 4 collections per child. Both loose parts play and relaxation interventions significantly improved (p < 0.05) children's positive emotion expression. Several within-groups changes were found for the Loose parts play, Relaxation and Combined programs. Body-oriented interventions effectively promote preschoolers' social-emotional competence.

Validation of the Edited Tromsø Infant Faces Database (E-TIF): A study on differences in the processing of children's emotional expressions

Images of emotional facial expressions are often used in emotion research, which has promoted the development of different databases. However, most of these standardized sets of images do not include images from infants under 2 years of age, which is relevant for psychology research, especially for perinatal psychology. The present study aims to validate the edited version of the Tromsø Infant Faces Database (E-TIF) in a large sample of participants. The original set of 119 pictures was edited. The pictures were cropped to remove nonrelevant information, fitted in an oval window, and converted to grayscale. Four hundred and eighty participants (72.9% women) took part in the study, rating the images on five dimensions: depicted emotion, clarity, intensity, valence, and genuineness. Valence scores were useful for discriminating between positive, negative, and neutral facial expressions. Results revealed that women were more accurate at recognizing emotions in children. Regarding parental status, parents, in comparison with nonparents, rated neutral expressions as more intense and genuine. They also rated sad, angry, disgusted, and fearful faces as less negative, and happy expressions as less positive. The editing and validation of the E-TIF database offers a useful tool for basic and experimental research in psychology.

Parents' emotion socialization behaviors in response to preschool-aged children's justified and unjustified negative emotions.

Parental socialization of children's negative emotions is believed to contribute to children's emotional development, with supportive, process-oriented responses (e.g., explicit acknowledgment of emotional expression and emotion processing) providing opportunities for children to experience and develop adaptive emotion regulation strategies for negative emotions. On the other hand, non-supportive, outcome-oriented responses (e.g., minimizing or punishing children for negative emotional expressions) tend to undermine such opportunities. Less clear, however, is the degree to which parents' own emotional and cognitive processes influence their emotion socialization behaviors. In particular, the perceived justifiability of children's negative emotions may be an important factor for parents' socialization behaviors as parents may only attend to emotional displays that they feel are reasonable. Using a sample of 234 mothers and fathers (parents of 146 unique preschool aged children), we examined the degree to which parents reported: (1) feeling specific emotions as a function of whether they viewed children's negative emotional expressions; (2) engaging in emotion socialization behaviors as a function of whether they viewed children's negative emotions. Last, we examined whether parents' reported emotions were related to their behaviors. For caregivers' emotions and behaviors, we examined whether patterns differed as a function of whether the children's emotions were perceived as justified or unjustified. Parents were more likely to report feeling emotions such as anger and frustration when they viewed children's negative emotions as unjustified relative to justified, and for these unjustified negative emotions, anger and frustration were related to more outcome-oriented behaviors. Emotions such as sadness and guilt, however, were related to more process-oriented behaviors, regardless of whether parents felt children's negative emotions were justified or unjustified. Findings highlight the interrelatedness of emotional and cognitive processes within the parenting context and their potential influence on emotion socialization behaviors.

Emotion transmission in peer dyads in middle childhood.

This study investigated emotion transmission among peers during middle childhood. Participants included 202 children (111 males; race: 58% African American, 20% European American, 16% Mixed race, 1% Asian American, and 5% Other; ethnicity: 23% Latino(a) and 77% Not Latino(a); Mincome =$42,183, SDincome =$43,889; Mage =9.49; English-speaking; from urban and suburban areas of a mid-Atlantic state in the United States). Groups of four same-sex children interacted in round-robin dyads in 5-min tasks during 2015-2017. Emotions (happy, sad, angry, anxious, and neutral) were coded and represented as percentages of 30-s intervals. Analyses assessed whether children's emotion expression in one interval predicted change in partners' emotion expression in the next interval. Findings suggested: (a) escalation of positive and negative emotion [children's positive (negative) emotion predicts an increase in partners' positive (negative) emotion], and (b) de-escalation of positive and negative emotion (children's neutral emotion predicts a decrease in partners' positive or negative emotion). Importantly, de-escalation involved children's display of neutral emotion and not oppositely valenced emotion.

Dynamic associations between emotion expressions and strategy use in Chinese American and Mexican American preschoolers.

Previous studies of emotion regulation in young children commonly used between-person approaches, which limit our understanding of dynamic and temporal relations between emotion expressions and strategy use. Further, previous work has mainly focused on temperamental reactivity among White children, and it is unclear whether these findings can generalize to children of Asian and Latinx origins. In the current study, we examined the within-person temporal associations between emotion expressions and strategy use among 3- to 5-year-old children in low-income Chinese American (CA) and Mexican American (MA) families. Children's emotion expressions (positive and negative) and strategy use (gaze aversion, self-soothing, fidgeting, and language) during an unfair social interaction task were coded by 10-s epoch. Executive functions were examined as between-person level predictors of strategy use. Multilevel modeling was conducted to examine whether positive and negative emotion expressions at one epoch (t-1) predicted strategy use at the following epoch (t). The results indicate that positive emotion expressions predicted an increase in fidgeting at the next epoch (β = .34, p < .01). Executive functions were unrelated to strategy use. Cultural group differences were found: CA children displayed lower intensity of positive emotion and fewer strategy use compared with MA children. The present findings inform theories on the dynamics of emotion regulation in young children and have implications for interventions with underrepresented immigrant populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effectiveness of a Training Program Based on Theory of Mind in Developing of Emotional Discrimination among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Weakness in the skill of Emotional Discrimination is one of the obstacles that stand in the way of interaction and social communication of children with autism spectrum disorder, and for its development, it is necessary to prepare a program that helps improve deficiencies and gives good indicators of program performance. This study explored the effectiveness of a training program based on a theory of mind on the development of deficiencies in the skill of emotional discrimination. The study is consistent with previous studies and adds to the limited literature on the experience of developing emotional discrimination in children with autism spectrum disorder. The results could be useful in improving social interaction and supporting children's expression and emotional expression needs, which in turn reduces their social and communication deficits.

The Effectiveness of a Training Program Based on Theory of Mind in Developing of Emotional Discrimination among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Weakness in the skill of Emotional Discrimination is one of the obstacles that stand in the way of interaction and social communication of children with autism spectrum disorder, and for its development, it is necessary to prepare a program that helps improve deficiencies and gives good indicators of program performance. This study explored the effectiveness of a training program based on a theory of mind on the development of deficiencies in the skill of emotional discrimination. The study is consistent with previous studies and adds to the limited literature on the experience of developing emotional discrimination in children with autism spectrum disorder. The results could be useful in improving social interaction and supporting children's expression and emotional expression needs, which in turn reduces their social and communication deficits.

Emotional valence and the types of information provided by children in forensic interviews

BackgroundEmotions can powerfully affect memory retrieval although this effect has seldom been studied in everyday contexts. ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the association between children's verbal emotional expressions and the type of information reported during forensic interviews. Participants and settingThe sample included 198 interviews with 4- to 14-year-old (M = 9.36, SD = 2.37) alleged victims of repeated physical abuse perpetrated by family members conducted using the Revised NICHD Protocol which emphasizes a supportive interviewing style. MethodsInterview videos were transcribed and each conversational turn was coded to reflect the amount and type of children's verbal emotional expressions, forensic information provided, interviewers' demeanor, and type of question asked. ResultsThe verbal expression of negative emotions was positively associated with the production of more central details (β = 0.29, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001) and peripheral details (β = 0.66, SE = 0.07, p < 0.001), while the verbal expression of positive emotions was correlated with peripheral details (β = 0.29, SE = 0.15, p = 0.047). The verbal expression of negative emotions was associated with the production of more specific details (β = 0.73, SE = 0.06, p < 0.001]) and less generic information (β = −0.39, SE = 0.18, p = 0.029) whereas positive emotions were associated only with increased specific information (β = 0.28, SE = 0.12, p = 0.025). ConclusionsThese findings highlight how emotional expression, especially of negative emotions, enhances the quantity and quality of children's reports in forensic contexts.

Secure attachment in infancy predicts context-dependent emotion expression in middle childhood.

Attachment security has been linked to healthy socioemotional development, but less is known about how secure attachment in infancy relates to emotional functioning in middle childhood, particularly across multiple contexts. The present study examined associations between secure attachment in infancy and children's context-dependent emotion expression during a parent-child interaction at age 9 (N = 78) among families with Child Protective Services involvement (i.e., children at risk for emotion dysregulation). The results indicated that children classified as securely attached in infancy exhibited less task-incongruent affect (i.e., less positive affect during a distressing discussion, less negative affect during a positive discussion) and a greater decrease in negative affect from a distressing discussion to a positive discussion than children classified as insecurely attached. In addition, secure children were rated as more appropriate in their emotion expression than insecure children. The present study highlights attachment as a promising intervention target for children at risk for emotion dysregulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Screen-play: An observational study of the effect of screen media on Children's play in a museum setting

Research suggests that young children develop and learn primarily through play. Children play in a large number of settings, one of particular interest are interactive children's museums. These museums provide optimal places to observe social play processes for young children. Another context to children's play is media use, which has been linked to a wide variety of outcomes depending on the context of the media use. This paper utilizes observational micro-longitudinal methods to examine the effect of media on the play processes in a children's museum in a sample of 150 children (a total of 1500 min of observation). Overall, we found that first, children did not use personal screens (tablets, smartphones, etc.) while in the museum setting. Second, we found that screens built into the exhibits played little role in children's social and emotional expression while playing at children's museums, with one exception. Children struggled to transition out of media use well, and thus had a decrease in positive social interactions after playing at an exhibit with some form of media or screen. These findings and implications for children's social and emotional development are discussed.

How being observed influences preschoolers’ emotions following (less) deserving help

AbstractChildren sometimes show positive emotions in response to seeing others being helped, yet it remains poorly understood whether there is a strategic value to such emotional expressions. Here, we investigated the influence seeing a peer receive deserving help or not on children's emotions, which were assessed while the peer was present or not. To measure children's emotional expression, we used a motion depth sensor imaging camera, which recorded children's body posture. Five‐year‐old children (N = 122) worked on a task which yielded greater rewards for them compared to their peer, rendering the peer to be in greater need of help. An adult—who was unaware of the different levels of neediness—then either helped the child who had a lesser need for help (less deserving outcome) or helped the needier peer (deserving outcome). Overall, both children showed a lowered body posture, a more negative emotional expression, after not being helped and an elevated body posture, a more positive emotional expression, after being helped. Seeing their peer (less deservedly) not receive help, and to a lesser extent being observed, blunted children's otherwise positive emotions in response to receiving help. These results are discussed in the broader theoretical context of how children's emotions sometimes reflect their commitment to cooperative relationships with peers.

Technique of Collecting Results when Using the Serious Game JESTIMULE Dedicated to Helping Autistic Children to Recognize Emotional Facial Expressions

Autism is a set of disorders that affect communication, sensorimotor and social integration, thus it leads the autistic individual to have repetitive movements, restricted interests and in addition deviations in language. Studies and research have found that education and remediation for autism can be innovative and personalized. Since then a call for learning through games has arisen. Our article is a major compliment to an electronic serious game: JESTIMULE dedicated to teaching autistic children emotional facial expressions, and as it is in use we value the idea of sharing our special technique of collecting results after the passing of the sessions