Child Emotion Study

Question 1

What are the nine components of the Test of Emotion Comprehension, within their three higher-order categories?

Answer 1

Public/situational

1. Recognition
2. Causes
3. Desires

Mental

4. Belief
5. Memory
6. Hiding

Reflective

6. Regulation
7. Mixed
8. Moral

Question 2

What does this graph tell us? 2 things

Answer 2

1. Understanding of emotion improves with age. Mode of distribution increases as a function of age. But tells us nothing about the individual components.
2. A lot of individual difference at same age – within group variability. Otherwise all 5-yr-olds would get 4, all 6-yrs get 5, etc. One 4-yr-old passed 7, one 8-yr-old only passed 5.

Question 3

What does this graph show? Does it match predictions? What is interesting about the variance? Do any items stand out?

Answer 3

• This table shows how the performance of the sample conforms to the predicted categories. Emotion improves in a predictable way across the nine components, from easy to hard.
• It also illustrates the appeal of grouping the components.
• Small SDs for component I means our sample found this easy – perhaps some younger kids were needed. Assumption of equality of variance is met (apart from first two items). Spread around the means is basically the same across components.
• Component VI seems significantly different from other items in its group.

Question 4

What does this graph tell us? How do children pass the components? What are the main effects and interactions? How might the plateau be explained?

Answer 4

• Tells us about difference in the categories across age.
• Children best at public/situational, then mental, then reflective.
• No interaction effect. There is a main effect of age, such that understanding improves with age, across categories.

E.g. 5-yrs are significantly better at public/situational than mental, and sig. better at mental than reflective.

• Around 5, false belief understanding comes in - and lag might reflect attempt to reorganise thinking to meet new understanding.

Question 5

What does this graph show us? Who fits the model? Who doesn’t?

Answer 5

• shows an invariant, sequential progression through the components of emotional understanding. 173 or 92.5% kids’ responses accorded with the pattern of development according to the model of emotional understanding.
• 14, or 7.5% of kids answered in a way that contradicted predicted difficulty of the components. Possible that they randomly guessed a few hard ones beyond their capability.

Question 6

Is the development of children’s emotional understanding sequential?

Answer 6

At the level of the category, yes, development is sequential. You pass one, then the other, then the other. Don’t develop on several categorical levels at once.

Question 7

Is the development of children’s EU hierarchical?

Answer 7

Yes, each category builds on the previous category. Understanding of later categories subsumes understanding of later ones. Necessary, but not sufficient to have understanding of category one in order to understand category two. Mastery of early components is necessary for appearance of later components.

e.g. arithmetic is nec. but not suff. for understanding algebra.

Question 8

Is the progression of children’s emotional understanding invariant?

Answer 8

Yes, in 92.5% of cases. Every child progresses through the same hierarchical sequence (apart from 14/187 kids - some kind of error. Cat. 1 then 2 then 3 then 4.

But progression through the components within a category can vary from child to child.

Question 9

‘‘Let’s look at these four pictures. Can you point to the person who feels sad?’’ Which component is this?

Answer 9

Component I – Recognition

Question 10

‘‘This boy is looking at his little turtle, which has just died.’’ Then, the experimenter asked: ‘‘How is this boy feeling? Is he happy, sad, angry or just alright?’’

Answer 10

Component II – External cause

Question 11

‘‘This is Tom and this is Peter. Tom hates lettuce and Peter likes lettuce very much.’’

“There is lettuce in the box. How is Tom feeling? Is he happy, sad, just alright or scared? And how is Peter feeling? Is he happy, sad, just alright or scared?’’

Answer 11

Component III (Desire)

Question 12

‘‘It’s a fox. The fox is hiding behind the bushes because he wants to eat the rabbit. Can you put the bushes back on so that the rabbit can’t see the fox.’’

‘The rabbit does not know the fox is hiding behind the bushes.’’

‘‘How is the rabbit feeling? Is he happy, just alright, angry or scared?’’

Answer 12

Component IV – Belief

Question 13

‘‘Tom is very sad because the fox ate his rabbit.’’

‘‘Tom is looking at his photo album. He is looking at a picture of his best friend.’’

‘‘Now, Tom is looking at a picture of his rabbit. How is Tom feeling now? Is he happy, sad, alright or scared?’’

Answer 13

Component V – Reminder

Question 14

‘What is the best way for Tom to stop himself being sad? Can Tom cover his eyes to stop himself being sad? Can Tom go outside and do something else to stop himself being sad? Can Tom think about something else to stop himself being sad? Or, is there nothing Tom can do to stop himself being sad?’’

Answer 14

Component VI – Regulation

Question 15

‘‘This is Tom and this is Daniel. Daniel is teasing Tom because Daniel has lots of marbles and Tom does not have any. Tom is smiling because he does not want to show Daniel how he is feeling inside.’’ Finally, the experimenter asked: ‘‘How is Tom really feeling inside? Is he feeling happy, just alright, angry or scared?’’

Answer 15

Component VII – Hiding

Question 16

‘‘Tom is looking at the new bicycle that he just got for his birthday. But at the same time, Tom thinks he might fall off and hurt himself because he has never ridden a bicycle before.’’ Afterwards, the experimenter asked: ‘‘So, how is Tom feeling? Is he happy; sad and scared; happy and scared; or scared?’’

Answer 16

Component VIII – Mixed

Question 17

‘‘Later, Tom goes home. Tom remembers that he ate a chocolate biscuit without asking. He wonders if he should tell his mummy about it. He tells his mummy about playing with his friend but in the end he never tells her about taking the chocolate biscuit. How does Tom feel about that? Does he feel happy….”

Answer 17

Component IX – Morality

Question 18

What are the three goals of the TEC research?

Answer 18

1. To examine, using a single, consistent methodology, the development of the nine components of emotion understanding identified in the literature.
2. To assess the relative difficulty of the components and see if distinct developmental periods exist that can be characterized by the emergence of an understanding of specific components.
3. to examine the relationships among the nine components of emotion understanding. To see whether some components were a necessary condition (even if not a sufficient condition) for the emergence of other components.

Question 19

Describe the first category - public/situational - of emotional understanding?

Answer 19

The first period (around 5 years) is characterized by the understanding of important public aspects of emotions. Children are able to observe and learn from the externally accessible (or ostensive) aspects of emotion, that is, from people’s expressions and from regularities between certain situations and behaviors.

Question 20

Describe the second category - mental - of emotional understanding?

Answer 20

The second period (around 7 years) is characterized by the understanding of the mentalistic nature of emotions: that is, to understand emotions you need to know what people think, know, believe, expect and so on.

Question 21

Describe the third category - reflective - of mental understanding.

Answer 21

In the third period (around 9–11 years) children come to realize that the same person can bring various perspectives to the same situation. So an emotionally evocative situation can be re-appraised, or a moral transgression can be understood in terms of both the desired outcome (i.e., happy to have gotten something wished for) and in terms of an evaluation of the act of stealing (i.e., there is a consensus view that stealing is a bad thing to do, and you should feel bad about doing it).