The Developing Theory of Mental State Control: Changes in Beliefs about the Controllability of Emotional Experience from Elementary School through Adulthood

ABSTRACT

In everyday life, we use folk theories about the mind and behavior to understand ourselves and others. An important part of our folk theory of mind is our intuitions about the role of the self in mental functioning—namely, whether the self is able to control each mental operation. The current study explored beliefs about the nature of control over emotional aspects of mental experience from middle childhood through adulthood. Elementary school children (n = 46), middle schoolers (n = 46), 18-year-olds (n = 46), and adults (n = 104) were presented with vignettes depicting characters experiencing negative emotions. Participants evaluated the intentionality, changeability, and chronicity of the characters’ responses. Results showed that by elementary school, children share adults’ view that emotions are largely outside of volitional control. However, beliefs about the changeability and chronicity of emotions mature beyond middle childhood. Between elementary school and adulthood, participants decreased their endorsement of the ability to change one’s current negative emotions and increased their beliefs in the chronic, enduring nature of these responses. With age, these changeability and chronicity beliefs also came to differ depending on the emotional response (i.e., feeling grumpy, being nervous, acting mean). Together, these findings suggest that intuitions about the controllability of emotional experience become more differentiated and less optimistic across development.