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  • Dunn Et Al 1991...

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    Szimonetta Vuk
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    Dunn et al 1991...

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    333 vues8 pages

    Dunn Et Al 1991...

    Transféré par

    Szimonetta Vuk
    sdfdg

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
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    omni 8 te Ameran Pela Asotin Cee Family Talk About Feeling States and Children’s Later Understanding of Others’ Emotions Judy Dunn and Jane Brown Department of Human Development and Family Studies College of Health and Human Development Pennsylvania State University Lynn Beardsall Department of Psychiatry University of Cambridge ‘Cambridge, England ‘We examined the relation between individual differences in 36-month-old childrens conversations boul feeling states with thei mothers and siblings an afective-perspect fences in discourse about feelings (in frequency. avs nd their ater ability to recognize emotions in vetaking task at 6 years, Subjects were chien observed at home. Differs al discussion, civersityoF themes. and disputes) Seve correlated with later ability 4 recognize emotions. The associations were independent of childrens verbal ability and ofthe Frequency of tlk in the Famses. Results highlight the sgnii- cance at famils discourse in even very young childrens developing emotional understanding. “There is growing interest amone psychologists in the nature of sery young children’s understanding of emotions—a core laspect of human development about whose early stages we stil now litle see Harris, 1989: Miller & Aloise. 1989, for reviews! One important source of evidence for children’s interest in emotions, and their grasp of eause and consequence of emo- tions. is theirtalksaboutfeclingstates, A numberof studies have pow provided converging evidence that from around 20 months children use emotion-deseriptne terms in daily interaction ‘sith family: members (Bretherton, Fritz, Zahn-Waxler, & Rice peway, 1986: Bretherton, McNew, & Beeghl)-Smith. 1981: ‘Donn, Bretherton. & Munn, 1987; Ridgeway, Waters. & Kuezai 1985), Using parental reports, Ridgeway and her colleaguesdoc- tumented a dramatic increase in children’s vocabulary of emo- tion terms between 24 and 36 months. In addition, the studies show that children by 36 months talk about past and future femotions and discuss the antecedents and consequences of ‘emotional states—fndings further supported by recent studies ‘of children'scausal understanding of emotions (Huttenlocher & ‘Smiley in press: Stein & Levine, in press- "The primary focus of these studies of children’ talk about feeling states has been the description of normative develor- ‘ment—the documentation of the frequency and range of emo- tion terms used by children of different ages. Although this rescarch has claified the achievements and limitations of the abilities of children of different ages. one major issue remains “This study was supported by the Medical Research Council and by @ sant fom the Center forthe Study of Child and Adolescent Develon- ment, Pennsylvania State Universit: the article was prepared while Jody Duna wae supported in part by a grant from the National Inst tute for Child Health and Development (HD-23188-02) ‘Correspondence concerning thisaticl should be addressed to Judy ‘Dunn, Department of Homan Development and Family Studies, C {ee of Heath and Human Development, Peonsyivania State Univer sity, Unversity Patk, Pennsylvania 16802. a8 relatively unexplored. Thisis the question of the developmental significance of individual differences in very young childrens participation in talk about feeling states. The extent of individ- tal differences in children’s talk about emotions and in their exposure 10 discussion of feeling states has been litle consid- tered, bevond one descriptive paper focussed upon 24-month- folds (Dunn etal. 1987); we know nothing about the later corre~ fates of such individual differences, Do children differ much in their participation in discussion of feeling states and their causes within the family, and are such differences in eary fa ily experiences associated with later differences in children’s abilities to judge others’ emotions? These questions are of con- ‘iderable developmental importance; they center upon the rear tion of language experiences 10 conceptual development-—a ‘core aspect af human development. ‘Although differences in children’s abilities to recognize and understand others felings areclearly important, we know ree tively little about their origins. It is often assumed that early experience within the family must have a major impact: how ‘coer, the nature ofthat iniluence is not yet well understood, Itis {important here 10 make a distinction between recagnizine/tu™ derstanding anothers feeling state and behavioral responses t0 ‘thers emotional expressions. With regard to the latter, there is tvidence for connections between parental behavior and emo- tional expressiveness and childrens later response to others stress or anger, Zahn.Waxler and her colleagues found that parental reactions toa child causing hurt or distress toanother were related to later diflerences in the children's “reparative” ‘behavior towards ther victims (Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, & King, 1979). There is also evidence for links between family ‘emotional expressiveness and children’s behavior with peers (Cassidy & Parke, 1989; Denham, McKinley, Couchoud, & Holt, 1990). A number of fines of evidence support the hypothe- sis that family discourse about feelings is important in relation to childrens later social behavior. For instance, the studies by ZahnWaxier and her colleagues showed verbal explanation FAMILY TALK ABOUT FEELING STATES 449 concerning cause and consequence of emotions to be one fea ture of parental behavior that was associated with the later dif ferences in child behavioral outcome. Secondly, associations be- tween maternal talk about feelings to firstborn children and these children’ late friendly behavior towards their infant sib- lings have been reported in two separate studies (Dunn & Ken= rick, 1982; Howe & Ross. 1990), (On the issue of whether there are links between parental bbchavior and emotional understanding. however, little infor- ‘mation is available. Studies of abused children indicate that in these extreme cases there may indeed be associations between parental behavior and the ability to recognize others’ feelings (Camas, 1989), It remains unclear whether such connections apply within the normal range. Denham and Couchoud's(1988) finding that parents’ self-reports oftheir socialization practices were associated with differences in preschool children’s ability to identify emotions stands very much alone, Whether differences in parental talk about affect and in ex plicit discussion of cause and consequences of feeling states are systematically related to differences in later emotional under- standing isan inteiguing but unexplored question, one which raises the central developmental issue of the relation between Tanguage experiences and conceptual development, It has been argued that the ability to talk about emotion serves the function of enabling children to “distance” themselves from, and 10 re- flect upon. the experience of emotion (Bretherton etal. 1986: Stern, 1985). Stern argues that this allows children and their significant others to “negotiate shared meanings” about experi- ence, If discourse serves this function. then discussion of feel ings should play an important role in children’s developing un- derstanding of emotions: we might predict that in families in ‘which mothers and children engage relaively frequently in such talk. the children ability t0 understand the feelings of others would be fostered. That is.an association between the language experience and the later ability of the children to wderstand ‘thers’ emotions might be expected, From this general predic- tion, more specific questions aboot which particular features of the language experience are related to later individual differ ences in conceptual development follow. Is the experience of discourse about emotions important because the child is en- couraged to reflect on and articulate the causes and conse- quences of feeling states? Does its importance le in the childs exposure to discussion ofa diversity of emotional themes? Are discussions of negative and positive feeling states both related 10 later outcome, or does discourse about negative feelings have special significance? Do the families who discuss feeling states, talk more frequently in general—and are later differences in conceptual ability attributable to these differences in family talk, rather than to differences in family talk about felings per ‘A further issue to be explored isthe significance of the con- text in which such discourse about feeling states takes place. For instance, do disputes, in which children are faced withthe chal- Jenge ofanather’s viewpoint, have special developmental signifi ‘cance? From Piagets proposal that argument between peers is ‘of special significance inthe development of social understand ing. social conflict has been highlighted as of particular impor- tance (see Shantz, 1987). It has also been argued that angry ‘emotions and situations of frustration and failure are more fr ‘quently associated with evaluative, thoughtful behavior than are situations in which people are happy or successful (Schwarz, 1988; Stein & Levine, in press). At present, tle information is available on what social processes may be implicated in the development of the ability to understand others’ feelings, even though this is such a central espect of human development. In contrast to the proposal that disputes or contexts of thwarted selfinterest (Dunn, 1988) are of special significance, it has also ‘been proposed that discourse about the social world that takes place in the context of calm reflective discussion between fam- ily members, not directly concerned with immediate practical soa, is especially important in fostering social understanding (see, eg, Tizard & Hughes, 1985). These different proposals ‘each remain to be tested. In tis article these questions concerning the developmental significance of individual differences in family discourse about feelings are considered in light of data froma longitudinal study of children observed within the family. The children were ob- served at home in the toddler and preschool period and then ‘were tested at 612 years on an affective perspective-taking task —Rothenberg’s assessment of social sensitivity (Rothenbet 1970). The study thusoffersthe opportunity toexamine associ tions between individual differences in family talk about fee!- ings in the preschool years and later differences in children's ability to grasp what others may be feeling, Specifically, the article has 160 goals. The first is to present

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