Emotion Recognition in Children: is there a Concordance between Self-reported and Observer-reported ratings of Emotions?

Emotion recognition is an important skill for individuals to acquire, leading to effective communication and smooth social interactions. While previous research has extensively studied emotion recognition in childhood, many of these studies are limited by the use of non-authentic expressions produced by actors and assuming a direct correspondence between facial expressions and felt emotions, disregarding individual context. This study aimed to measure children’s emotion recognition using a more naturalistic approach by comparing self-reported and observer-reported emotions in children. In the first phase of the study, children (8 to 12 years old; N = 10) and adults (18 to 40 years old; N = 10) were filmed while watching emotion-inducing videos and self-reported their emotional experiences. In the second phase, a separate group of children (8 to 12 years old; N = 15) rated the expressed emotions of the participants from the first phase of the study. The concordance between self...Show moreEmotion recognition is an important skill for individuals to acquire, leading to effective communication and smooth social interactions. While previous research has extensively studied emotion recognition in childhood, many of these studies are limited by the use of non-authentic expressions produced by actors and assuming a direct correspondence between facial expressions and felt emotions, disregarding individual context. This study aimed to measure children’s emotion recognition using a more naturalistic approach by comparing self-reported and observer-reported emotions in children. In the first phase of the study, children (8 to 12 years old; N = 10) and adults (18 to 40 years old; N = 10) were filmed while watching emotion-inducing videos and self-reported their emotional experiences. In the second phase, a separate group of children (8 to 12 years old; N = 15) rated the expressed emotions of the participants from the first phase of the study. The concordance between self-reported and observer-reported emotions was examined, with a focus on whether concordance differed across emotions and the age of the stimulus actors. The results indicated that children exhibited similar accuracy in recognizing happiness, sadness, fear and disgust. Additionally, children demonstrated an own age bias, which reflects a better emotion recognition accuracy for own-age faces compared to other-age faces. These findings highlight the importance of considering self-reported emotions and the age of the stimulus actors in understanding the development of emotion recognition. Further research should explore the underlying factors that influence emotion recognition in children using a naturalistic approach.Show less

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Emotion Recognition in Children: is there a Concordance between Self-reported and Observer-reported ratings of Emotions?