Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T12:54:57.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Emotion and the development of children's understanding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Abstract

The significance of emotion and social experiences in young children's growing understanding of emotion and mind is discussed here. There is evidence for early mind-reading, and the role of emotional experience in these developments; differentiation of various aspects of social understanding is indicated from studies of discourse, and longitudinal research. The challenges to be addressed in research on links between affect and cognition include a focus on children at risk of relationship problems, on the relations between attachment and mind-reading, and on possible developmental changes in the connections between emotion and social understanding.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Dunn, J. (1996) The Emanuel Miller Memorial Lecture 1995: Children's relationships: bridging the divide between cognitive and social development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 37, 507518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Goodnow, J. J. (1990) The socialization of cognition: What's involved? In Stigler, J. W., Shweder, R. A., and Herdt, G., (eds) Cultural Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp. 259286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Hoffman, M. (1986) Affect, cognition and motivation. In Sorrentino, R. and Higgins, E. (eds) Handbook of Motivation and Cognition (New York: Guilford) pp. 244280.Google Scholar
4.Astington, J. W. (1993) The Child's Discovery of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
5.Perner, J. (1991) Understanding the Representational Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).Google Scholar
6.Wellman, H. M. (1990) Children's Theory of Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Zelazo, P., Astington, J. and Olson, D. (eds) (1999) Theories of Mind in Action (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).Google Scholar
8.Chandler, M., Fritz, A. S. and Hala, S. (1989) Small-scale deceit: deception as a marker of two-, three- and four-year-olds' theories of mind. Child Development, 60, 12631277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9.Dunn, J. (1988) The Beginnings of Social Understanding, 1st edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.Reddy, V. (1991) Playing with others' expectations: teasing and mucking about in the first year. In Whiten, A., (ed.) Natural Theories of Mind (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
11.Newton, P. (1994) Preschool Prevarication: an Investigation of the Cognitive Prerequisites for Deception (Portsmouth University).Google Scholar
12.Sodian, B. (1991) The development of deception in children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 173188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13.Hughes, C. and Dunn, J. (1998) Understanding mind and emotion: longitudinal associations with mental-state talk between young friends. Developmental Psychology, 34, 10261037.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
14.Brown, J. R., Donelan-McCall, N. and Dunn, J. (1996) Why talk about mental states? The significance of children's conversations with friends, siblings, and mothers. Child Development, 67, 836849.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15.Dunn, J. and Brown, J. (1994) Affect expression in the family, children's understanding of emotions, and their interactions with others. Special Issue: Children's emotions and social competence. Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 40, 120137.Google Scholar
16.Youngblade, L. M. and Dunn, J. (1995) Individual differences in young children's pretend play with mother and sibling: links to relationships and understanding of other people's feelings and beliefs. Child Development, 66, 14721492.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
17.Hughes, C. and Dunn, J. (1997) ‘Pretend you didn't know’: preschoolers' talk about mental states in pretend play. Cognitive Development, 12, 477499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18.Bartsch, K. and Wellman, H. M. (1995) Children Talk About The Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19.Bartsch, K. and Estes, D. (1996) Individual differences in children's developing theory of mind and implications for metacognition. Learning and Individual Differences, 8, 281304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20.MacWhinney, B. and Snow, C. E. (1985) The child language data exchange system. Journal of Child Language, 12, 271295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
21.Bruner, J. and Feldman, C. (1993) Theories of mind and the problems of autism. In Baron-Cohen, S., Tager-Flusberg, H., and Cohen, D., (eds) Understanding Other Minds. Perspectives from Autism (Oxford: Oxford University Press) pp. 267291.Google Scholar
22.Brown, J. R. (1995) What happened? Emotional experience and children's talk about the past. Unpublished Thesis.Google Scholar
23.Hudson, J. A., Gebelt, J., Haviland, J. and Bentivegna, C. (1992) Emotion and narrative structure in young children's personal accounts. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 2, 129150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24.Baron-Cohen, S. (1995) Mindblindness: an essay on autism and theory of mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25.Hughes, C., Dunn, J. and White, A. (1998) Trick or treat? Uneven understanding of mind and emotion and executive function among ‘hard to manage’ preschoolers. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 981994.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
26.Hughes, C., White, A., Sharpen, J. and Dunn, J. (1999) Antisocial, angry and unsympathetic: ‘Hard to manage’ preschoolers' peer problems, and possible social and cognitive influences. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, (in press).Google Scholar
27.Dunn, J. and Hughes, C. (1999) I got some swords and you're dead!: fantasy and friendship in young ‘hard to manage’ children (submitted for publication).Google Scholar
28.Fonagy, P., Redfern, S. and Charman, A. (1997) The relationship between belief-desire reasoning and projective measure of attachment security. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15, 5161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29.Meins, A., Fernyhough, C., Russell, J. T. and Clarke-Carter, D. (1998) Security of attachment as a predictor of symbolic and mentalising abilities: a longitudinal study. Social Development, 7, 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30.Happé, F. G. E. (1995) The role of age and verbal ability in the theory of mind task performance of subjects with autism. Child Development, 66, 843855.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
31.Dunn, J. (1995) Children as psychologists: the later correlates of individual differences in understanding of emotions and other minds. Cognition and Emotion, 9, 187201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32.Dunn, J. and Hughes, C. (1998) Young children's understanding of emotions within close relationships. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 171190.Google Scholar
33.Leslie, A. (1987) Pretense and representation: The origins of ‘theory of mind’. Psychological Review, 94, 412426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
34.Harris, P. L. (1991) The work of the imagination. In Whiten, A., (ed) Natural Theories of Mind: the Evolution, Development, and Simulation of Everyday MindReading (Oxford: Blackwell) pp. 283304.Google Scholar