Toddlers' Understanding of Intentions, Desires, and Emotions: Explorations of the Dark Ages

Abstract

Emotions are closely and intricately connected to intentions and desires in our adult understanding of mind. In full-fledged adult psychology, an important feature of desires and intentions is that they are “directed at” objects and events. In fact, in adult psychology this is one thing that distinguishes desires and intentions from mere moods, feelings, or emotions and makes them similar to perceptions and beliefs. Desires carry with them an implication of certain positive or negative attitudes towards objects and events. Various forms of emotional contagion and/or simple associative processes could be at work in these studies, as argued by advocates of a “lean interpretation” of the standard social referencing work. Toddlers are systematically testing the dimensions on which their desires and the desires of others may be in conflict. Taken together, the recent procedural advances in addressing questions to very young children are starting to reveal some of what children understand in the dark ages.

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