| Abstract: | ![]()
22 4–5 yr olds and 22 7–8 yr olds, equally divided by sex, were interviewed regarding the contexts they considered elicited each of 5 emotional states (happy, sad, angry, afraid, and surprised) in self, other children, and adults. Responses were coded into a priori categories and were compared with rankings made by 40 22–36 yr olds of the same categories as explanations for adults' and for children's emotions. Results confirm that explanations for emotional states were nonrandom, even for preschoolers, and were distributed in significantly different and meaningful ways across the emotions investigated. Several age- and gender-related hypotheses were confirmed: Interpersonal and achievement explanations for emotions both increased with age; fantasy contexts for fear decreased with age; and girls used more interpersonal explanations for emotion than did boys. Expected increases with age in cognitive differentiation of such affect knowledge were marginally confirmed, with older children using a greater number of categories to explain emotions than did younger children. Contrary to expectations, there were no age or gender effects as a function of target person, nor was there greater differentiation of categories used to explain own vs others' affect. Social and cognitive factors relevant to children's and adults' affect construals are discussed. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
