M. Smith et T. Walden, DEVELOPMENTAL-TRENDS IN EMOTION UNDERSTANDING AMONG A DIVERSE SAMPLE OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN, Journal of applied developmental psychology, 19(2), 1998, pp. 177-197
The contributions of age and cognitive-language skills to children's e
motion understanding (e.g., recognition of facial expression and under
standing of contextual cues for five basic emotions: happy, sad, mad,
scared, and surprised; as well as children's application of their unde
rstanding of emotions to hypothetical situations requiring them to cop
e with maternal anger) were examined in a sample of 45 preschool-aged
African-American children. These children came from diverse SES and pa
renting backgrounds, with a heavy concentration of the sample from dis
advantaged homes. The results were similar to studies of Caucasian chi
ldren. Specifically, the results indicated that both age and cognitive
-language skills contribute to children's emotional understanding. How
ever, the contribution of age to emotion understanding was more consis
tent than the contribution of cognitive-language skills. Judgments of
anger showed an age-related increase in accuracy in the contextual cue
condition but not in the facial cue condition. Compared to other samp
les, children in this study were fairly accurate at judging and identi
fying fear. The results are discussed in terms of parent emotion socia
lization practices and implications for children's emotional developme
nt.