The effects of explanatory conversations on children's emotion understanding

Ninety-three children ranging in age from 5 to 8 years (M = 82:46 months, SD = 13:20) participated in a training study designed to improve their emotion understanding. Children either explained (self-explanation condition) or listened to an experimenter who explained (experimenter-explanation condition) the causes of protagonists' hidden and ambivalent emotional reactions in nine different vignettes. Compared to a control group who listened to the vignettes and answered questions unrelated to emotions, children assigned to the self-explanation and experimenter-explanation conditions increased from pre- to post-test in their emotion understanding. The educational implications of explanatory conversations in facilitating children's emotion understanding and general learning are discussed. © 2008 The British Psychological Society