Judith A. Hosie

The Development of Theory of Mind in Deaf Children

Deaf children aged 4 to 16 years were given a false-belief test of theory of mind. Although the children experienced difficulty with the test, relative to hearing children, confirming a report by Peterson and Siegal (1995), performance was age-related, with a significantly higher proportion of 13- to 16-year-olds passing the test. It was concluded that deaf children raised in a spoken language environment show a developmental delay in theory of mind acquisition. This delay is consistent with the assumption that their early opportunities for learning about mental states are relatively restricted and that the normal development of theory of mind is dependent upon such opportunities.

Age, anger regulation and well-being

Emotion regulation has been argued to be an important factor in well-being. The current study investigated the effects of adult aging on emotional expression, emotional control and rumination about emotional events, focusing on an emotion which is particularly important in social interaction: anger. Measures of anger regulation and well-being were obtained in a sample of 286 adults aged between 18 and 88. Older adults expressed anger outwardly less often, and reported more inner control of anger using calming strategies compared to their younger counterparts. These age differences were not explained by variance in social desirability of responding. Age improvements in negative affect and anxiety were partly explained by age differences in anger regulation suggesting an important role for anger management in good mental health amongst older adults. Further, age improvements in quality of life were explained by variance in anger regulation indicating that improved management of emotions with age is an important factor in maintaining well-being in old age.

The Matching of Facial Expressions by Deaf and Hearing Children and Their Production and Comprehension of Emotion Labels

This paper reports the results of three tasks comparing the development of the understanding of facial expressions of emotion in deaf and hearing children. Two groups of hearing and deaf children of elementary school age were tested for their ability to match photographs of facial expressions of emotion, and to produce and comprehend emotion labels for the expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise. Accuracy data showed comparable levels of performance for deaf and hearing children of the same age. Happiness and sadness were the most accurately matched expressions and the most accurately produced and comprehended labels. Anger was the least accurately matched expression and the most poorly comprehended emotion label. Disgust was the least accurately labeled expression; however, deaf children were more accurate at labeling this expression, and also at labeling fear, than hearing children. Error data revealed that children confused anger with disgust, and fear with surprise. However, the younger groups of deaf and hearing children also showed a tendency to confuse the negative expressions of anger, disgust, and fear with sadness. The results suggest that, despite possible differences in the early socialisation of emotion, deaf and hearing children share a common understanding of the emotions conveyed by distinctive facial expressions.

Knowledge of Display Rules in Prelingually Deaf and Hearing Children

Deaf children of elementary and secondary school age participated in a study designed to examine their understanding of display rules, the principles governing the expression and concealment of emotion in social situations. The results showed that deaf childrens knowledge of display rules, as measured by their reported concealment of emotion, was comparable to that of hearing children of the same age. However, deaf children were less likely to report that they would conceal happiness and anger. They were also less likely to produce reasons for concealing emotion and a smaller proportion of their reasons were prosocial, that is, relating to the feelings of others. The results suggest that the understanding of display rules (which function to protect the feelings of other people) may develop more gradually in deaf children raised in a spoken language environment than it does in hearing children.

Brief report: Cognitive-regulation across the adolescent years

The human brain undergoes considerable maturational changes during adolescence which have been predicted to influence self-regulatory control. In the current study, developmental trajectories associated with three domains of cognitive regulation; response inhibition, updating of working memory, and mental set-switching, were assessed in a sample of 149 adolescents aged between 11 and 17 years. Findings support the premise that levels of self-regulatory control increase over the course of adolescence but that different aspects of cognitive regulation are likely to mature along differing developmental trajectories.

The Interpretation of Line of Regard by Prelingually Deaf Children

The ability of 5- to 12-year-old deaf children to utilise and interpret another persons visual line of regard (where the eyes are looking) was studied in four experiments using cartoon faces. The children had little difficulty in determining whether or not a face was looking directly at them. They had more difficulty, however, with more complex tasks requiring them to infer mental states of desire and intention from line of regard and to ignore line of regard when it was inappropriate to attend to this cue. Deaf children raised in a hearing environment appear to have more difficulty with these more complex tasks than hearing children. The results are discussed in terms of the special difficulties facing some deaf children in the development of skills involving utilisation of line of regard and the implications for the development of joint attentional behaviour, theory of mind and dyadic social interaction in deaf and hearing children.

Anger, Quality of Life and Mood in Multiple Sclerosis

Objective: To investigate the role of different anger variables in predicting quality of life and mood in multiple sclerosis (MS), while controlling for disease severity. Methods: 78 individuals with MS completed questionnaire measures of anger (Anger Rumination Scale and State/Trait Anger Expression Inventory), mood (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale); disease severity (Patient Determined Disease Steps) and quality of life (WHOQoL-BREF). Results: Anger was significantly associated with quality of life (QoL) in MS. Higher levels of experienced anger and lack of control over the experience of anger predicted lower psychological and environmental QoL. Depression levels were also predicted by high levels of experienced anger and lack of control over anger. In contrast, ruminating about anger was the strongest predictor of anxiety levels. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that feelings of anger are strongly associated with QoL in MS, even when disease severity is taken into account. Problems in controlling and ruminating about anger may also contribute to mood disorder in MS.