To access this work you must either be on the Smith College campus OR have valid Smith login credentials.
On Campus users: To access this work if you are on campus please Select the Download button.
Off Campus users: To access this work from off campus, please select the Off-Campus button and enter your Smith username and password when prompted.
Non-Smith users: You may request this item through Interlibrary Loan at your own library.
Publication Date
2013
Document Type
Honors Project
Department
Psychology
Keywords
Philosophy of mind in children, Vocabulary-Ability testing, Reasoning in children, Language and emotions, Emotional development, Vocabulary, Theory of mind, Second order theory of mind, Children
Abstract
How do children learn what the words for emotions mean? How do children learn to correctly apply the words for emotions to their own inner states? And how do they use that knowledge to reason about how other people feel? This set of questions is at the heart of the current research. Past research suggests that in order to predict others' emotions children simulate how they would feel in the given situation in order to know how the other person feels (Harris, 1989). The current research tested 32 elementary school students in three grades on a series of scenarios that was designed to determine how they made predictions about the characters' emotions. There were three types of scenarios that each required a different type of reasoning. We were interested to see what type of scenario was the most challenging, as this would suggest how children learn about and reason about emotions. The participants also completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test in order to determine how knowledge of vocabulary is related to the ability to predict others' emotion. An additional distinction that this research tests is the difference between emotions that are portrayed vividly (i.e. happy and angry) on the face and those that are portrayed subtly (i.e. calm and worried) on the face. We predicted that this variable would affect how easily the participants were able to predict the emotions based on the events and actions in the story. The data suggest that this is the case; the vivid emotions were easier to predict. We also found differences in the participant's responses to the different types of scenarios. The most difficult type of scenario is the type that required the students to make predictions about the character's emotion based on an idiosyncratic preference. This result has interesting implications for explaining how children learn about others inner states.
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Harrington, Ellen Rose, "We are all mindreaders : a study of children's ability to predict other people's emotions" (2013). Honors Project, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/165
Smith Only:
Off Campus Download
Comments
54 p. Honors project-Smith College, 2013. Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-54)