Carlo Di Chiacchio

Emotion comprehension: the impact of nonverbal intelligence.

ABSTRACT A substantial body of research has established that emotion understanding develops throughout early childhood and has identified three hierarchical developmental phases: external, mental, and reflexive. The authors analyzed nonverbal intelligence and its effect on childrens improvement of emotion understanding and hypothesized that cognitive level is a consistent predictor of emotion comprehension. In all, 366 children (182 girls, 184 boys) between the ages of 3 and 10 years were tested using the Test of Emotion Comprehension and the Coloured Progressive Matrices. The data obtained by using the path analysis model revealed that nonverbal intelligence was statistically associated with the ability to recognize emotions in the 3 developmental phases. The use of this model showed the significant effect that cognitive aspect plays on the reflexive phase. The authors aim to contribute to the debate about the influence of cognitive factors on emotion understanding.

Effects of verbal ability and fluid intelligence on children's emotion understanding.

This study investigated the role of verbal ability and fluid intelligence on childrens emotion understanding, testing the hypothesis that fluid intelligence predicts the development of emotion comprehension over and above age and verbal ability. One hundred and two children (48 girls) aged 3.6-6 years completed the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) that comprised external and mental components, the Coloured Progressive Matrices and the Test for Reception of Grammar. Regression analysis showed that fluid intelligence was not equally related to the external and mental components of the TEC (Pons & Harris, 2000). Specifically, the results indicated that the external component was related to age and verbal ability only, whereas recognition of mental emotional patterns required abstract reasoning skills more than age and verbal ability. It is concluded that the development of fluid intelligence has a significant role in the development of mental component of emotion comprehension.

Comprendere e descrivere l’altro: uno studio sulla comprensione delle emozioni e sul lessico psicologico del bambino

Un rilevante numero di studi mostra una relazione tra l’utilizzo nel bambino di termini psicologici nelle conversazioni e la comprensione di stati interni. Sono stati oggetto di studio in un gruppo di 120 bambini tra i 6 e i 9 anni l’utilizzo di linguaggio sugli stati interni e la comprensione emotiva. La comprensione emotiva e stata valutata con il Test sulla Comprensione delle Emozioni, mentre l’uso del linguaggio riferito a stati interni e stato valutato con il compito di Mind-Mindedness. I risultati hanno evidenziato delle differenze significative in bambini di eta diverse rispetto alla comprensione delle emozioni e all’uso di termini psicologici nella descrizione del miglior amico. Il linguaggio sugli stati interni non e risultato correlato al livello di comprensione delle emozioni. Agli autori sembra possibile ipotizzare che l’utilizzo del linguaggio sugli stati interni possa essere indipendente dalle capacita dei bambini di rappresentare gli aspetti psicologici propri ed altrui.

Comprensione e regolazione della rabbia in adolescenti sportivi e non sportivi

Understanding and regulation of anger in sports-active and non-sport active adolescents ABSTRACT: Within social constructivistic paradigm, emotions follow a series of regulatory principles according to the meaning to be attributed to elicited situations ranging from rules of behaviour (intensity of expression), anticipated progress and development and finally from rules of attribution or criteria of legitimacy regarding social value systems in which emotions are expressed (Averill, 1982; Armon-Jones, 1986; Harre, 1986). This study analyses the impact of socialisation processes linked to sport activities (sporting context) on anger regulation in a group of adolescents. The effects of gender and socialcultural level are also examined. Forty-nine adolescents from Rome, aged from 11 to 14, took part in the research. Each of the participants was given: five emotigene scenarios (elicitant pictures of emotional aspects related to injustice and frustration) (D’Urso, 2001) in a version adapted for adolescents during the pilot phase of this study. Regarding the differences between sporting and non-sporting adolescents and between males and females, several interesting outcome emerged. In short, the sporting group demonstrated a greater capacity to modulate the expression of anger compared to the nonsporting group. With respect to gender, the girls showed a greater propensity than the boys for expressing their anger directly.