Emotion Understanding and Emotion Regulation: Twin Keys to Preschool Sel

Abstract

Preschoolers express emotions vividly and frequently. Emotions, whether their own or others’, are central experiences in their lives--immediate, salient, and important in their social transactions. Not surprisingly, their most important social tasks include managing emotional arousal, so that coordination of play is possible (Gottman & Mettetal, 1986). Succeeding at this social task calls for emotion knowledge, the second key aspect of emotional competence. As active participants in the social world, preschoolers continually make interpretations and attributions about their own and others’ emotional behaviors (Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey, & Brown, 1986; Miller & Aloise, 1989).