The effect of affective characterizations on the use of size and colour in drawings produced by children in the absence of a model

Burkitt, Esther; Barrett, Martyn; Davis, Alyson

doi:10.1080/0144341042000211670

Cited by 36 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 31 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In considering whether children might be responding to the positive and negative characterisations on the basis of an acquired pictorial convention or an appetitive-defensive mechanism (see Burkitt et al, 2004, for a discussion of these two possibilities), it would appear that the data do not actually support either of these two interpretations. If children were operating using a pictorial convention that "nice" 21 figures should be drawn larger than "nasty" figures, then age differences would have been expected as a consequence of the progressive acquisition of this convention with age (unless the acquisition process itself is complete by the age of four, which is not very plausible); however, no such age effects were found.…”

mentioning

confidence: 59%

“…In particular, an increase in size was found to occur when topics were characterised as "nice". Furthermore, this effect occurred not only in a drawing task where a model was provided for the children to copy (Burkitt et al, 2004), but also in a drawing task in which the children were 5 asked to draw the "nice" topic in the absence of any model (Burkitt et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in a series of recent experiments, Burkitt et al (2003aBurkitt et al ( , 2003bBurkitt et al ( , 2004 employed both rigorous experimental controls and independent manipulations and assessments of the affective connotations of drawn topics. They found that there were systematic differences in the drawings of 4-11-year-old children when the topics which were being drawn were characterised as "nice" vs. "nasty".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study therefore provides further empirical support for the generalisability of the previously documented size effects across an additional set of positive and negative terms. This is in addition to our knowledge that these effects also occur across different drawing topics (Burkitt et al (2003a(Burkitt et al ( , 2003b(Burkitt et al ( , 2004 found that these effects occur not only in children's human figure drawing but also in their drawings of dogs and trees).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…

Acknowledgements:The research team would like to thank all of the children and teachers who participated in this project.

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

AbstractRecent studies have shown that, when an affective characterisation is given to a topic, children adjust the size and colour of those topics in their drawings: children increase the size of drawings of topics characterised as "nice", do not always decrease the size of topics characterised as "nasty", and use differential colouring systematically to distinguish between "nice" and "nasty" topics in their drawings (Burkitt, Barrett, Davis, 2003a, 2003b, 2004. The present experiment was designed to examine whether these specific effects only occur with the terms "nice" and nasty", or whether they also occur with another pair of positive and negative terms, "happy" and "sad".

…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

Burkitt¹,

Barrett²,

Davis³

2009

International Journal of Art Therapy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

UK Acknowledgements:The research team would like to thank all of the children and teachers who participated in this project. 2 Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings AbstractRecent studies have shown that, when an affective characterisation is given to a topic, children adjust the size and colour of those topics in their drawings: children increase the size of drawings of topics characterised as "nice", do not always decrease the size of topics characterised as "nasty", and use differential colouring systematically to distinguish between "nice" and "nasty" topics in their drawings (Burkitt, Barrett, Davis, 2003a, 2003b, 2004. The present experiment was designed to examine whether these specific effects only occur with the terms "nice" and nasty", or whether they also occur with another pair of positive and negative terms, "happy" and "sad". 102 4-7 year olds were divided into two groups and asked to draw either a baseline, "nice" and "nasty" man, or a baseline, "happy" and "sad" man. It was found that the valence of the characterisation (positive vs. negative), as well as the specific pair of words which was used, systematically influenced both the size and the colour of the children's drawings.These results show the importance of understanding the exact emotions in question when interpreting children's drawings on the basis of size and colour.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…

Acknowledgements:The research team would like to thank all of the children and teachers who participated in this project.

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

Burkitt¹,

Barrett²,

Davis³

2009

International Journal of Art Therapy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Children's drawings of significant figures for a peer or an adult audience

Burkitt

Watling

Murray

2011

Inf. Child Develop.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present study assessed if children would present different information in their drawings of emotion eliciting stimuli when they believed that an adult or a child audience would view their drawings. Seventy-five 6-year-olds (44 boys and 31 girls) were allocated to three groups: the reference group, the child audience group and the adult audience group. All children completed a drawing session where they first drew a neutral uncharacterised figure, followed by drawings of a sad and a happy figure in counterbalanced order. Findings demonstrated that children did consider who would be viewing their drawings when communicating emotional affect and included different features within their drawings. In particular, almost all happy drawings included a smile, but only those drawings where an audience was specified included a wave, and only the adult drawings included flower giving. Within the sad drawings tears and frowns were drawn regardless of audience type, whereas stomping was more likely to be portrayed in drawings with a child audience and thumbs down were more likely to be portrayed in drawings with adult audiences. The findings are discussed in terms of the need to further examine communicative aspects of children's drawings.

show abstract

Does Children's Colour Use Reflect the Emotional Content of their Drawings?

Crawford

Gross

Patterson

et al. 2011

Infant and Child Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When children draw in clinical contexts, clinicians sometimes rely on children's colour use to make inferences about their emotional reaction to the subject of the drawing. Here, we examined whether children use colour to portray emotion in their drawings. In Experiment 1, children indicated their colour preferences and then coloured in outlines of figures characterized as nasty or nice. Children also drew complex, multi‐coloured pictures about their own happy or sad experiences. In Experiment 2, hospitalized children drew about being worried or scared in hospital and about their positive experiences. In both experiments, we examined the relation between children's colour use and their colour preferences. Three‐ to 10‐year‐old children used more preferred colours to colour in the nice outline. Although they were more likely to use non‐preferred colours to colour in the nasty outline, they tended to used a mix of preferred and non‐preferred colours. When both normal and hospitalized children produced drawings about positive and negative events, there was no relation between children's colour choices and their colour preferences; children primarily used preferred colours. These data suggest that clinicians should exercise extreme caution when interpreting the meaning of colour in children's drawings. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

The effect of affective characterizations on the use of size and colour in drawings produced by children in the absence of a model

Cited by 36 publications

References 31 publications

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

Children's drawings of significant figures for a peer or an adult audience

Does Children's Colour Use Reflect the Emotional Content of their Drawings?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About