Conflict-Related Emotions During Peer Disputes

The aim of this study was to investigate young children's conflict emotions during peer disputes. Twenty-seven 4- to 5-year-old children participated in four 15- minute sessions in which groups of 3 children played with table toys. Videotapes of these sessions were used to identify all conflicts and conflict roles (initiator, recipient, and observer) and all conflict-related displays of facial emotions (using the AFFEX coding system). Results indicated that initiators', recipients' and observers' emotions differed in the conflict and postconflict periods, but that there were no initial preconflict differences. Overall, conflict initiators almost exclusively expressed happiness, whereas conflict recipients expressed mostly sadness and anger. In addition, children's conflict emotions were related to the frequency with which they initiated and received conflicts. Children who expressed higher percentages of negative emotions as conflict recipients both initiated and received more conflicts, and children who expressed more happiness when initiating conflicts also initiated more conflicts. These findings have implications for how young children develop methods of conflict resolution, and how they form concepts about sociomoral emotions.