Distinguishing between fantasy and reality is an important developmental milestone, achieved in the preschool years, that has been linked to children's cognitive capabilities and emotional knowledge. The authors examined the influence of both trait and prime fearfulness on preschoolers' ability to differentiate between fantastic and real situations. Forty 3-5-year-old preschoolers were administered a fearfulness assessment, a standard theory-of-mind task, and a fantasy-reality discrimination task (with or without a fear prime). When primed to experience fear, participants who were high in trait fearfulness made more mistakes distinguishing between fantastic and real events than did participants who were low in trait fearfulness. In the absence of a fear prime there was no difference in performance between these two groups. These findings were independent of participants' age, gender, and theory of mind abilities and suggest that preschoolers who are high in trait fearfulness are more prone to difficulty in discriminating between fantasy and reality when actively experiencing fear. This study illuminates important factors that contribute to the errors in fantasy-reality judgments frequently seen in preschoolers.
Prosocial behavior emerges in the second year of life. This chapter reviews recent empirical evidence showing that both negative and positive emotion relate to emerging prosocial behavior and that their associations with prosocial behavior differ, suggesting that negative and positive emotion serve different functions. Moderators (recipient emotion, type of prosocial behavior, age) of associations between the young child’s emotional and prosocial responses are discussed. Data appear stronger for effects of negative emotion on prosocial behavior; however, children’s empathic concern in response to another’s emotion is inconsistently influenced by the recipient’s emotion and type of prosocial behavior (e.g., helping vs. comforting). Recent studies suggest that young children exhibit positive emotion following prosocial behavior; however, these findings are limited by recipient characteristics (e.g., puppets), task demands (e.g., adult requests), lack of age comparisons, and lack of controls for temperamental emotionality. Challenges of conceptualization and measurement of emotion are highlighted and directions for future research are suggested.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.