Article2019

How do you feel? Preverbal infants match negative emotions to events.

Ashley L. Ruba · Andrew N. Meltzoff · Betty M. Repacholi

54 citations0/0 files storedDevelopmental Psychology

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Child and Animal Learning Development Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development Emotions and Moral Behavior

Abstract

There is extensive disagreement as to whether preverbal infants have conceptual categories for different emotions (e.g., anger vs. disgust). In addition, few studies have examined whether infants have conceptual categories of emotions within the same dimension of valence and arousal (e.g., high arousal, negative emotions). The current experiments explore one aspect of infants' ability to form conceptual categories of emotions: event-emotion matching. Three experiments investigated whether infants match different negative emotions to specific events. In Experiment 1, 14- and 18-month-olds were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 negative emotion conditions (Anger, Fear, or Disgust). Infants were familiarized with an Emoter interacting with objects in an anger-eliciting event (Unmet Goal) and a disgust-eliciting event (New Food). After each event, the Emoter expressed an emotion that was either congruent or incongruent with the event. Infants matched unmet goals to the expression of anger. However, neither age matched the expression of disgust to an event involving exposure to new food. To probe whether this was a design artifact, a revised New Food event and a fear-congruent event (Strange Toy) were created for Experiment 2. Infants matched the expression of disgust to the new food event, but they did not match fear to an event involving an unfamiliar object. Experiment 3 replicated the disgust findings from Experiment 2 in a sample of 14-month-olds. However, the anger findings from Experiment 1 did not replicate. Taken together, these results suggest that preverbal infants are beginning to form specific matches between some negative emotional expressions and events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

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References

1978Facial Action Coding System 1985Object permanence in five-month-old infants 2007Language as context for the perception of emotion 1988The Development of Social Referencing 2001Evidence for Referential Understanding in the Emotions Domain at Twelve and Eighteen Months 2013What’s in a Word? Language Constructs Emotion Perception

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