The relationship between emotional-state language and emotion understanding: A study with school-age children |
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| Authors: | Veronica Ornaghi Ilaria Grazzani |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Human Sciences “R Massa” , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy veronica.ornaghi1@unimib.it;3. Department of Human Sciences “R Massa” , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy |
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| Abstract: | We carried out an investigation with primary-school children on the relationship between both use and comprehension of emotional-state language and emotion understanding. Participants were 100 students between 7 and 10 years old (mean age=8 years and 10 months; SD=15.3 months), equally divided by gender. They completed four tests evaluating their language ability, use of emotional-state language, comprehension of emotional-state language and emotion understanding (EU) respectively. Significant correlations were found between both use and comprehension of emotional-state talk and children's EU. In addition, regression analyses showed that comprehension of emotional-state language, rather than its use, plays a significant role in explaining children's emotion understanding. |
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| Keywords: | Emotional-state language Use and comprehension of the psychological lexicon Emotion understanding Theory of mind |
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