Victimizers and Their Victims: Children''s Conceptions of the Mixed Emotional Consequences of Moral Transgressions

4-8-year-old children's conceptions of the emotional consequences of moral transgressions were assessed in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, most children expected victimizers to feel positive emotions and victims to feel negative emotions, but 8-year-olds who assessed victims first subsequently attributed less positive emotions to victimizers. Despite efforts to manipulate the salience of victims' losses in Experiment 2, children had similar expectations about the emotional consequences of transgressions. However, a developmental shift emerged: 4-year-olds attributed extremely positive emotions to victimizers due to the material gains produced by victimization, whereas 8-year-olds attributed less positive emotions to victimizers, in part due to the unfairness and harm produced by victimization. Probe questions revealed that older children also attributed additional negative-valence emotions to victimizers, suggesting that victimizers are expected to feel conflicting rather than exclusively positive emotions. Discussion focused on potential cognitive constraints in children's conceptions of moral emotions.     

When you shouldn't do what you want to do: young children's understanding of desires, rules, and emotions

This research investigated 4- through 7-year-olds' and adults' (n = 64) concepts about the emotional consequences of desire fulfillment versus desire inhibition in situations where people's desires conflict with prohibitive rules. Results revealed developmental increases in attributing positive or mixed emotions to story characters that make willpower decisions and negative or mixed emotions to characters that transgress. These developmental changes in emotion predictions were accompanied by age-related differences in emotion explanations. Whereas 4- and 5-year-olds largely explained emotions in relation to the characters' goals, 7-year-olds and adults further explained how rules and future consequences influence emotions. Results are discussed in relation to connections among children's psychological, deontic, and future-oriented reasoning about emotions as well as the development of self-control.     

Children's Concordant Emotions and Cognitions in Response to Observed Emotions

Children's emotional and cognitive responses to observed scenarios were examined in 2 studies ( N = 138 5–13-year-olds) investigating hypothesized developments in concordant emotion with stimulus persons, cognitive attributions for these emotions, and the effects of emotional intensity in self and stimulus persons. Results across studies confirmed age-related increases in children's emotional and cognitive responses. There were limited increases with age in concordant emotion, and continuous increases in the frequency and kinds of attributions explaining such emotion. Results also confirmed a model ordering expected developments in children's emotion attributions. As expected, stimulus persons' emotional intensity correlated with children's emotion intensity and affect match. However, as expected, empathy with others was lower when children's own intensity was higher than stimulus persons'. Present findings contribute to investigations of children's understanding of emotions and have implications for developmental studies of empathy.     

Looking on the bright side: children's knowledge about the benefits of positive versus negative thinking

Five- to 10-year-olds (N = 90) listened to 6 illustrated scenarios featuring 2 characters that jointly experience the same positive event (and feel good), negative event (and feel bad), or ambiguous event (and feel okay). Afterward, one character thinks a positive thought and the other thinks a negative thought. Children predicted and explained each character's emotions. Results showed significant development between 5 and 10 years in children's understanding that thinking positively improves emotions and thinking negatively makes one feel worse, with earliest knowledge demonstrated when reasoning about ambiguous and positive events. Individual differences in child and parental optimism and hope predicted children's knowledge about thought-emotion connections on some measures, including their beliefs about the emotional benefits of thinking positively in negative situations.     

Children's understanding of moral emotions

4-8-year-old children's attributions of emotion to a story figure who violated a moral rule were studied in a series of experiments. Most 4-year-olds judged a wrongdoer to experience positive emotions, focusing their justifications on the successful outcome of his action, whereas almost all 8-year-olds attributed negative feelings, focusing on the moral value of the wrongdoer's action. A developmental trend from outcome-oriented toward morally oriented emotion attributions was also observed in children's judgments of the feelings of a story character who had resisted temptation. When morally evaluating a wrongdoer, only children above the age of 6 years took emotional reactions into account, judging a "happy" wrongdoer to be worse than a "sorry" one. 4- and 5-year-olds attributed positive emotions to a wrongdoer even if his transgression was severe and if he did not gain any material profit from it. However, they did not expect a person (even an ill-motivated one) to feel good if he or she unintentionally harmed another person or merely observed someone being hurt. These results are discussed in relation to recent research on children's developing conceptions of emotion and on the early development of moral understanding.     

Mother- and father-reported reactions to children's negative emotions: relations to young children's emotional understanding and friendship quality

Mother- and father-reported reactions to children's negative emotions were examined as correlates of emotional understanding (Study 1, N = 55, 5- to 6-year-olds) and friendship quality (Study 2, N = 49, 3- to 5-year-olds). Mothers' and fathers' supportive reactions together contributed to greater child-friend coordinated play during a sharing task. Further, when one parent reported low support, greater support by the other parent was related to better understanding of emotions and less intense conflict with friends (for boys only). When one parent reported high support, however, greater support by the other parent was associated with less optimal functioning on these outcomes. Results partially support the notion that children benefit when parents differ in their reactions to children's emotions.     

Facilitators or suppressors: Effects of experimentally induced emotions on multimedia learning

The present study investigated the influence of experimentally induced emotions (positive, neutral, negative) on learning with multimedia instruction with N = 75 university students. In order to provide sound explanations about how emotional state might impact learning, measures of motivation, cognitive load, and attentional processes (eye tracking) were integrated. Results showed that while emotions did not influence retention, emotions did influence outcomes of the comprehension and transfer test. Specifically, a facilitating effect of an induced negative emotional state on learning outcomes was observed, which could be attributed to a more focused and detailed information processing. In contrast, an induced positive emotional state had a suppressing effect on learning outcomes since learners were distracted from the learning materials by their emotions. Motivational measures were not influenced by learners' different emotional states, but overall, controlled motivation increased and autonomous motivation decreased during learning. In sum, the learners' emotional state should be considered in learning research as an important predictor for learning success.     

Parental coping with children's negative emotions: relations with children's emotional and social responding

This study examined the relation between parents' reactions to children's negative emotions and social competence. Additionally, the role of parental emotional distress in children's emotional socialization was examined. The emotional reactions of 57 preschoolers (33 girls, 24 boys; M age = 59.2 months) were observed during their free-play interactions. Parents (mostly mothers) completed questionnaires about their reactions to children's negative emotions. An index of children's social competence was obtained from teachers. Results indicated that the relation between harsh parental coping strategies and children's emotional responding was moderated by parental distress. In addition, the relation of the interaction of parental coping and distress to children's social competence was mediated by children's level of emotional intensity. It was concluded that distressed parents who use harsh coping strategies in response to children's negative emotions have children who express emotion in relatively intense ways. In turn, these children find it relatively difficult to behave in a socially competent manner.     

Relation of maternal cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusive behavior during Head Start to children's kindergarten cognitive abilities

The current study examined how parental cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusiveness measured during children's prekindergarten year were related to children's verbal and nonverbal abilities 1 year later. Participants were 110 Head Start children and their caregivers from primarily rural and low-income backgrounds. Analysis of children's scores on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities confirmed the predictive utility of cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusive behavior for perceptual scores (20% of the unique variance) as well as the predictive utility of emotional support and intrusive behavior for verbal scores (15% of the unique variance). Parental emotional support during guidance of problem solving (positive feedback) explained statistically significant unique variance in children's perceptual scores beyond other measures of emotional support. Cognitive stimulation moderated the relation between positive feedback and perceptual scores. Although other syntactic forms of maternal utterances such as commands did not explain statistically significant unique variance in children's scores beyond emotional support and intrusive behavior, mothers' questions did. Specific policy implications of the effects are discussed.     

Grown-ups are not afraid of scary stuff, but kids are: young children's and adults' reasoning about children's, infants', and adults' fears

Three-, 5-, and 7-year-olds and adults ( N = 64) listened to stories depicting 2 protagonists of different ages (infant and child or child and grownup) that encounter an entity that looks like a real (e.g., a snake) or an imaginary (e.g., a ghost) fear-inducing creature. Participants predicted and explained each protagonist's intensity of fear. Results showed significant age-related increases in knowledge that infants and adults would experience less intense fears than young children and that people's fears are causally linked to their cognitive mental states. Across age, stories involving imaginary beings elicited more frequent mental explanations for fear than stories about real creatures. Results are discussed in relation to children's developing awareness of the mind as mediating between situations and emotions.     

The Role of Positive Emotions in Education: A Neuroscience Perspective

Humans are inherently emotional creatures due to our social nature, and emotions are able to influence how well we learn and even affect academic outcomes. Emotions are rarely a chief concern in educational settings, and we will discuss the mechanisms underlying how emotions are processed in the brain and how they influence the key aspects of learning—attention, memory, and motivation. The brain mechanisms of emotional and cognitive relationships are then detailed in order to provide some context within the modern developments of neuroscience. This will help to clarify the relationship between emotions and cognition, and hope to put forward a theoretical map based on neuroscience that helps us to better understand the pivotal role of emotions in students' cognitive activities and ultimately their performance. Various strategies, based on research findings, aimed at creating more positive learning environments are then put forward.     

“I am Really Good at It” or “I am Just Feeling Lucky”: the effects of emotions on information problem-solving

The ability to search, process, extract, evaluate and integrate information for learning purposes has clearly become the basic skills of the twenty first century. Although this process is often taken as a cognitive process, research has shown a strong connection between emotion and cognition. Recent research has suggested that positive emotions can influence the way cognitive material is organized and processed. This study examined the relationship between students’ emotional states prior to task engagement to their problem-solving patterns. Results revealed that students with positive emotions, compared to the negative and mixed emotion groups, were characterized as regulatory problem-solvers who were more engaged in self-regulatory activities. Students with negative emotions were characterized by less variety of search activities as well as little or no regulatory activities.     

大学生如何进行自我情绪管理

处于青年期的大学生,心理上正经历变化波动较大的时期,反应在情绪和情感方面,表现为情绪的不稳定性与冲动性,情感体验开放、丰富,却容易陷入情绪困扰,导致其心理健康、学习生活和未来事业受到不同程度的影响。作为初步具有独立性的大学生如何认知情绪,并学会应对不良情绪,成为自己情绪的主人呢?作为过来人的辅导员可以引导其认知情绪,并学会对情绪进行自我管理、调适,从而驾驭情绪,做情绪的主人。     

情绪调节策略与延迟满足关系的实验研究

为研究情绪调节策略对情绪类型与延迟满足关系影响,采用两种不同情绪类型的视频短片启动大学生产生相应的情绪(积极情绪或消极情绪),比较两种条件下使用认知重评策略与表达抑制策略对紧随其后的延迟满足任务成绩的影响。实验结果表明:积极情绪状态下,认知重评与表达抑制组延迟满足得分差异不显著;消极情绪状态下,认知重评组延迟满足任务得分显著高于表达抑制组。结论:认知重评策略能够有效地改善消极情绪对延迟满足表现的负面影响。     

在线讨论中动态学习情绪和认知行为序列的关系研究

在线讨论作为在线学习的重要组成部分,其产生的文本数据可以反映学习者的认知水平、互动质量以及情绪状态。学习情绪影响认知行为,从而影响学习成效,研究学习情绪和认知行为之间的关系非常重要。文章基于Harris等人的情绪分类法和蔡今中的认知分类体系,使用内容分析法和滞后序列分析法研究学习者的动态学习情绪、认知行为序列模式以及学习情绪和认知行为之间的关系。研究表明:困惑情绪和消极情绪会转化为积极情绪,但是中性情绪不会转化为积极情绪;学习者倾向于呈现描述行为和推断或解释行为,且认知行为序列模式具有渐进性特征;描述行为会引发消极情绪,比较行为、推断或解释行为会引发积极情绪。教师可根据学习者的行为转换情况进行适当的指导和干预,以提升学习者的学习效果。     

Young children's understanding of perception, desire, and emotion

Very young children seem to know that people experience several mental states: desires, perceptions, emotions. In three studies, we investigated 2- and young 3-year-olds' judgments and communications about how these states connect together in people's lives and minds. Two experimental studies with 56 participants demonstrated young children's understanding of at least one set of connections: In appropriate circumstances, a person's perception of desirable or undesirable objects leads to related emotional experiences. A complementary investigation of four young children's everyday conversations demonstrated their awareness of and expression of several additional connections between people's desires, perceptions, and emotions.     

Positive justice reasoning in deaf and hearing children before and after exposure to cognitive conflict

The development of positive justice reasoning in profoundly deaf, signing Australian 7- to 12-year-olds and hearing children was compared. Reactions to cognitive conflict were also assessed. The performance of those deaf children whose signed English skills were adequate to give detailed justifications for reward allocation was examined separately. The deaf children were delayed relative to hearing children in number and liquid conservation, but equally mature in justice reasoning. Spontaneous conflicts with signing peers over sharing possessions conceivably could be responsible for the fluently signing deaf children's development of positive justice reasoning on pace with their normally-hearing counterparts. Experimentally-induced conflict resulted in progress for the hearing but not the deaf children. Results are discussed in relation to factors that promote deaf children's tolerance for ambiguity (Brice, 1985) and impede their resolution of cognitive conflict (Liben, 1978).     

Family-Peer Connections: The Roles of Emotional Expressiveness within the Family and Children''s Understanding of Emotions

The purpose of this study was to explore patterns of parent and child emotional expressiveness within the family context, to examine links between these patterns and children's peer relations, and to examine whether these links might be mediated by children's understanding of emotions. Subjects were 61 kindergarten and first-grade white, middle-class children and their parents. Parent and child expressiveness were assessed in a laboratory ring-toss game designed to elicit a range of emotional responses. Parent expressiveness in the home was also assessed with Halberstadt's Family Expressiveness Questionnaire. The questionnaire, completed by both mother and father, assesses a range of emotions in a variety of settings typical of many families, and consists of items tapping both positive and negative expressiveness. Children were interviewed about their understanding of emotions across a broad range of areas. Results indicated that maternal expressiveness (home) and paternal expressiveness (home and laboratory) but not children's expressiveness with parents were associated with children's peer relations. Although children's understanding of emotions was generally not associated with family expressiveness, understanding predicted children's peer relations. In addition, children's understanding influenced the links between maternal expressiveness in the home and peer relations and between paternal expressiveness in the laboratory and peer relations. This pattern of results underscores the importance of the emotional climate of the family for the development of children's social relations with peers.     

Thinking about the past: early knowledge about links between prior experience, thinking, and emotion

In two studies the authors investigated the situations where 3- to 7-year-olds and adults (N = 152) will connect a person's current feelings to the past, especially to thinking or being reminded about a prior experience. Study 1 presented stories featuring a target character who felt sad, mad, or happy after an event in the past and who many days later felt that same negative or positive emotion upon seeing a cue related to the prior incident. For some story endings, the character's emotion upon seeing the cue matched, or was congruent, with the current situation, whereas for others, the emotion mismatched the present circumstances. Participants were asked to explain the cause of each character's current feelings. As a further comparison, children and adults listened to behavior cuing stories and provided explanations for characters' present actions. Study 2 presented emotional scenarios that varied by emotion-situation fit (whether the character's emotion matched the current situation), person-person fit (whether the character's emotion matched another person's), and past history information (whether information about the character's past was known). Results showed that although there were several significant developments with increasing age, even most 3-year-olds demonstrated some knowledge about connections between past events and present emotions and between thinking and feeling. Indeed, children 5 years and younger revealed strikingly cogent understanding about historical-mental influences in certain situations, especially where they had to explain why a person, who had experienced a negative event in the past, was currently feeling sad or mad in a positive situation. These findings help underwrite a more general account of the development of children's coherent understandings of life history, mind, and emotion.     

Game playing and fluctuations in emotional climate

The inclusion of games in mathematics programmes is widely believed to foster the enjoyment of mathematics. The focus of this paper is on fluctuations in emotional climate during the playing of whole-class mathematics games. A multimethod approach drawing on the sociology of emotions was employed to explore changes in the classroom emotional climate that were associated with game playing. The event-oriented inquiry was conducted with two teachers and a class of 10- to 13-year-olds in a New Zealand classroom during mathematics sessions. Over a series of eight mathematics lessons, there were three noticeable fluctuations in emotional climate, all of which occurred during whole-class games. Our analysis of these three events identified a successful interaction with dramatic emotional energy associated with a positive emotional climate, a successful interaction with undramatic emotional energy associated with positive emotional climate, and an unsuccessful interaction associated with negative emotional climate with interactional repair. The third event also illustrated how the incomplete nature of a game’s rules can provide an opportunity for a negative emotional climate to be associated with game playing. The taken-for-granted wisdom that whole-class mathematics games can enhance emotional aspects of a classroom learning environment is supported by some of our evidence.