Emotions in motion: impact of emotion understanding on children’s peer action coordination

Abstract

Peer action coordination has been often studied in terms of its underlying cognitive mechanisms, and little is known about its emotional processes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which children's emotion understanding explains their coordination of actions with a peer in a cooperative sensorimotor problem-solving task. Sixtyeight 5-to 9-year-old children were assessed for their emotion understanding with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) and for their problem-solving capacities with a sensorimotor task in an individual setting (individual sensorimotor skills) and in a cooperative setting (peer action coordination). The results showed that higher levels of emotion understanding significantly explained greater peer action coordination, even when controlling for age, gender and the child's individual sensorimotor skills. The findings point to the existence of emotional mechanismsmore specifically the role of emotion understanding-underlying successful coordination of actions in peer interaction. Theoretical and educational implications of having emotion understanding abilities for coordinating actions with others are discussed.

Pathways to behavior problems in Norwegian kindergarten children: The role of parent emotion socialization and child emotion understanding

“…An alternative explanation is that children with poor emotion understanding discourage parents from talking about emotions, either indirectly (e.g., the child does not respond to the parent’s efforts) or directly (e.g., the child actively refuses to talk about emotions). In kindergarten, externalizing behavior problems might exacerbate poor child emotion understanding through a process of peer rejection and lack of socialization in peer groups (Di Giunta, Pastorelli, Thartori, Bombi, Baumgartner, Fabes & Enders, 2018; Racz, Putnick, Suwalsky, Hendricks & Bornstein, 2017; Viana, Zambrana, Karevold & Pons, 2019; Wong, Chen & McElwain, 2019).…”

Fühlen Denken Sprechen. Alltagsintegrierte Sprachbildung in Kindertageseinrichtungen

“…Da das Lernen in Kindergarten und Grundschule eine ausgesprochen soziale Angelegenheit ist (Denham & Brown, 2010) kann das Wissen über eigene und fremde Emotionen Kindern zudem dabei helfen, mit Gleichaltrigen zu kooperieren (Viana et al, 2019), in Kindergruppen aufgenommen zu werden, nicht "anzuecken" und auch zu verstehen, wann es eine Fachkraft ernst meint. Insofern ist es kein Wunder, dass das Wissen über Emotionen zur Vorhersage des akademischen Erfolgs im Kindergarten (z.B.…”

“…Diese Lernerfolge lassen sich dadurch erklären, dass Kinder mit fortgeschrittenem Emotionswissen die emotionalen Reaktionen von anderen besser vorhersagen können, sich eher mit ihnen koordinieren können (Viana et al, 2019), sich entsprechend prosozialer verhalten (Gust, von Fintel & Petermann, 2017) und daher eher in die (Lern-)Aktivitäten der anderen Kinder einbezogen werden, weil das Lernen in diesen jungen Jahren ein ausgesprochen sozialer Prozess ist (Denham & Brown, 2010). Für das Lernen ist auch zuträglich, dass Kinder mit ausgeprägtem Emotionswissen sich ungeteilt dem Wissenserwerb zuwenden können, da ihre Aufmerksamkeit weniger durch emotionale Ereignisse in Anspruch genommen wird als die anderer Kinder, die einige Zeit damit verbringen mögen, über diese Ereignisse zu rätseln (von Salisch et al, 2015a).…”

Social Cognition, Self-Perceptions, and Social Withdrawal in Adolescents

“…As part of the constellation or network of skills that make up social cognition, such as emotion recognition and perspective-taking (Wellman, 2014;2020), the theory of mind is the understanding that people's observable actions are motivated by their mental states, including their intentions, emotions, beliefs, and desires (Doherty & Perner, 2020). Subtle differences in using the theory of mind understandings, or 'the ability to read others' mind,' particularly the ability to identify emotions in others by viewing one's eyes has been found to help all ages of individuals (from a young child to adult) to make appropriate and accurate judgements about others' mental states (Viana et al, 2020). Such skill is associated with important social qualities and interactions with children and adolescents including peer coordination, cooperation, and empathy (Hughes, 2011).…”

“…According to past studies within a developmental, constructivist perspective (Bowker et al, 2019;Vygotsky, 1978), a developmental interplay takes place between children's motivations to either play alone or with others and their social-cognitive skills including emotion recognition and perspective-taking. For example, studies show links among social preferences for solitude and social play, the development of self-consciousness, and the onset of explicit ToM-related skills such as emotion recognition and perspective-taking start by the age of 4-5 years (Banerjee & Yuill, 1999;Viana et al, 2020). Thus, the experience of shyness and unsociability continues to play a role in adolescents' self-consciousness and social development because it requires the ability to reflect on the self as seen by others, as well as be concerned about social evaluation (Pequet & Warnell, 2020;Rubin & Asendorf, 1993).…”