Developmental changes in children's abilities to match and label emotionally laden situations

In two studies, male and female preschoolers and third- and fourth-graders were tested on their abilities to match and generate affective labels for 19 types of emotionally laden situations. Age changes were found in the accuracy with which situations were both labeled and matched; the ability to match similar situations was more strongly related to age than was the ability to label emotions. Matching and labeling abilities were positively related to each other. Both age groups were best at labeling situations depicting happiness, anger, and sadness, and at matching situations depicting sadness, anger, and disgust, but both age groups were capable of matching a wide variety of emotions depicted in situations at a better than chance rate. Only situations depicting fear, nervousness, and embarrassment were not matched better than chance by either preschoolers or third- and fourth-graders.This research was supported by a grant to the first author from Boston University Graduate School, No. GRS-661-PS. Portions of this paper were presented in Toronto at the Biannual Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, April 1985. The authors would like to thank Gail Desmond, Lesley Landau, Ana Ortiz, Phyllis Sternlight, Mark Steward, and Orna Wolfson for their help in various phases of this project, and especially the Lowell Day Nursery for its cooperation.