Children's understanding of mental states as causes of emotions

Theory of Mind studies of emotion usually focus on children?s ability to predict other people's feelings. This study examined children?s spontaneous references to mental states in explaining others? emotions. Children (4-, 6- and 10-year-olds, n = 122) were told stories and asked to explain both typical and atypical emotional reactions of characters. Because atypical emotional reactions are unexpected, we hypothesized that children would be more likely to refer to mental states, such as desires and beliefs, in explaining them than when explaining typical emotions. From the development of lay theories of emotion, derived the prediction that older children would refer more often to mental states than younger children. The developmental shift from a desire-psychology to a belief-psychology led to the expectation that references to desires would increase at an earlier age than references to beliefs. Our findings confirmed these expectations only partly, because the nature of the emotion (happiness, anger, sadness or fear) interacted with these factors. Whereas anger, happiness and sadness mainly evoked desire references, fear evoked more belief references, even in four-year-olds. The fact that other factors besides age can also play an influential role in children?s mental state reasoning is discussed

Anger communication in deaf children

In this study, we investigated how deaf children express their anger towards peers and with what intentions. Eleven-year-old deaf children (n = 21) and a hearing control group (n = 36) were offered four vignettes describing anger-evoking conflict situations with peers. Children were asked how they would respond, how the responsible peer would react, and what would happen to their relationship. Deaf children employed the communicative function of anger expression differently from hearing children. Whereas hearing children used anger expression to reflect on the anguish that another child caused them, deaf children used it rather bluntly and explained less. Moreover, deaf children expected less empathic responses from the peer causing them harm. Both groups did, however, expect equally often that the relationship with the peer would stay intact. These findings are discussed in the light of deaf children's impaired emotion socialization secondary to their limited communication skills

Deaf children's use of beliefs and desires in negotiation

Although several studies have shown that deaf children demonstrated impaired performances on false-belief tasks, the children's belief understanding appeared intact when asked to explain emotions or behavior. However, this finding does not necessarily indicate a full-fledged theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate deaf children's negotiation strategies in false-belief situations, because situations that require negotiation provide a natural context with a clear motivational aspect, which might appeal more strongly to deaf children's false-belief reasoning capacities. The purpose of this study was to compare the reactions of 11- to 12-year-old deaf and hearing children to scenarios in which a mother, who is unaware of a change in the situation, threatens to block the fulfillment of the child's desire. The results showed that deaf children more often failed to correct the mother's false beliefs. In contrast with hearing children, who frequently left their own desires implicit, deaf children kept stressing their desires as a primary argument, even though the mother could be expected to be fully aware of these desires. Moral claims were used to the same extent by both groups. In general, deaf children more often used arguments that did not provide new information for their conversation partners, including repetitions of the same argument. The results were interpreted in terms of the special needs that are required by the hampered communication between deaf and hearing people as well as in terms of the ongoing discussion regarding theory-of-mind development in deaf children

Identity problems related to an absent genetic father

'Menschen, die ihren genetischen Vater nicht kennen, entwickeln oft Identitätsprobleme. Der abwesende Vater dient als eine Identifikationsfigur, der sie alle ihre persönlichen Eigenschaften zuschreiben, die sie nicht auf andere Personen zurückführen können. Infolgedessen werden solche Charakteristika weniger stark als Teil der eigenen Persönlichkeit empfunden. Neben der theoretischen Entfaltung der daraus resultierenden Identitätsprobleme und der damit im Zusammenhang stehenden Fragestellungen stellt der Beitrag eine Fallstudie vor, um die allgemeinen Schritte des psychotherapeutischen Behandlungsprozesses zu verdeutlichen.' (Autorenreferat)'People who do not know their genetic father often develop identity problems. They identify with the unknown father, to whom they attribute all the personal characteristics that they cannot trace to others. Consequently, such characteristics are less strongly felt as being part of one's own personality. In addition to a theoretical exposition of the ensuing identity problem and related issues, the paper presents a case study in order to illustrate the general steps in the psychotherapeutic treatment process.' (author's abstract)

Understanding atypical emotions among children with autism

Children with autism are said to be poor mind readers: They have a limited understanding of the role that mental states play in determining emotions and behavior. In this research, 23 high-functioning children from the autistic spectrum (M age 9 years 3 months), 42 6-year-old controls, and 43 10-year-old controls were presented with six emotion-evoking stories and they were asked to explain protagonists' typical and atypical emotions. In the case of typical emotions, as expected on the basis of the mindblind hypothesis, children from the autistic spectrum gave few mental state explanations, referring to fewer than even the 6-year-old control group. However, in the case of atypical emotions, the autistic group performed as well as the 10-year-old controls. Their explanations for the atypical emotions demonstrate that children from the autistic spectrum indeed have the capacity to mind read (with respect to both desires and beliefs), although they do not always use this capacity in the same way as normally developing children. It is argued that the mind-reading capacity of high-functioning children from the autistic spectrum might be basically intact; unused in everyday circumstances but not necessarily defective

Psychometric properties of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for children

In order to broaden the alexithymia concept, we identified six aspects in a newly developed questionnaire for children which aims to measure emotion awareness: Differentiating Emotions, Verbal Sharing of Emotions, Bodily Awareness, Acting Out Emotions, Analyses of Emotions, and Others? Emotions. First, the six-factor structure of this Emotion Awareness Questionnaire was identified in children (692 children, 9-16 years old), although the scale Acting Out Emotions showed poor psychometric properties. Second, the predictive validity of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire showed promise with respect to self-reported somatic complaints (in samples from two different countries, the UK and the Netherlands), depression and worry. Only Acting Out Emotions did not contribute to any of the criterion variables whilst Bodily Awareness and Others? Emotions contributed in the unexpected direction. It is proposed that the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire could help to identify which specific elements of emotional (dys)functioning are related to different kinds of psychological problems

Children’s coping with peer rejection: The role of depressive symptoms, social competence, and gender

The present study investigated children's anticipated emotional response and anticipated coping in response to peer rejection, as well as the qualifying effects of gender, depressive symptoms, and perceived social competence. Participants (N = 234), ranging in age between 10 and 13 years, were presented with two written vignettes depicting peer rejection. The most highly endorsed coping strategies were behavioural distraction, problem-focused behaviour, and positive reappraisal. Results indicate that children higher in depressive symptoms reported a more negative anticipated mood impact. Moreover, children higher in depressive symptoms were less inclined to endorse behavioural and cognitive coping strategies typically associated with mood improvement (e.g., behavioural distraction, positive reappraisal). Independent of depression, children scoring higher on perceived social competence reported more active, problem-oriented coping behaviour in response to the Stressors. Types of coping were largely unaffected by gender, however girls reported higher levels of anticipated sadness than boys in response to the rejection vignettes. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Links between social information processing in middle childhood and involvement in bullying. [IF 0.95]

The aim of this study was to investigate the way in which bullies, victims, bully/victims, and those not involved process social information. A peer nomination measure of bullying and victimization was administered twice over an interval of one year. The sample consisted of 236 (126 girls and 110 boys) children at the beginning of the study (TI) and 242 children one year later (T2) (mean age: 8 years). To test how children responded when provoked, both spontaneously and after prompting, we used provocation scenarios, and to test their attributional interpretations we used ambiguous scenarios. The results showed that children not involved in bullying responded in an assertive way to provocation more often than bullies and victims, but not more than bully/victims. In general, aggressive answers diminished after prompting and irrelevant answers increased. Appealing for the help of an adult or a peer was the strategy most often chosen. When the intent of the perpetrator was ambiguous, bully/ victims attributed more blame, were angrier, and would retaliate more than those not involved. Partly similar results were obtained when stably involved children were compared with those unstably involved. Suggestions for intervention are presented. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc