Abstract
In past research, emotion has been classified as basic, self-conscious or self-conscious evaluative, with each type of emotion being progressively more difficult for children to understand (Lewis, M. (2000a). In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp. 265–280), New York, NY: The Guilford Press). Although researchers have examined children’s understanding of individual emotions (e.g., guilt), researchers have not assessed children’s understanding and memory for emotions based on this classification. In the present research, 6-, 8- and 10-year-old children’s memory and understanding of basic, self-conscious and self-conscious evaluative emotions were examined. Although a memory advantage was found for emotions, this effect was less so for the younger children and less so for non-basic emotions. In fact, 6-year-old children and, to a lesser extent 8-year-old children, were more likely than older children to recall self-conscious and self-conscious evaluative emotions with basic emotion labels, and were more likely to explain them using basic emotion labels. Overall, negative emotions (e.g., mad, guilt) were better recalled than positive emotions (e.g., happy, pride), regardless of type of emotion. Gender differences were found as girls were more likely to remember emotion than boys, especially when the emotion action was specifically labeled and a female character experienced it.
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Acknowledgments
I wish to thank all the graduate and undergraduate students who assisted in data collecting, including Mariah Graca Ugarte, Christopher Stanley, and Dina Tell. I also wish to thank the principals, teachers, parents and children at the Loyola University Chicago Preschool, the University of Chicago Lab School, St. Bartholomew School, St. Andrew School, St. Phillip Lutheran School and St. Pascal School.
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Proportions of this research were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (2005), Atlanta, Georgia and the meeting of the Cognitive Development Society (2005), San Diego, CA.
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Davidson, D. The Role of Basic, Self-Conscious and Self-Conscious Evaluative Emotions in Children’s Memory and Understanding of Emotion. Motiv Emot 30, 232–242 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9037-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9037-6