Sarah E. Fine

Emotion Knowledge as a Predictor of Social Behavior and Academic Competence in Children at Risk

Following leads from differential emotions theory and empirical research, we evaluated an index of emotion knowledge as a long-term predictor of positive and negative social behavior and academic competence in a sample of children from economically disadvantaged families (N = 72). The index of emotion knowledge represents the childs ability to recognize and label emotion expressions. We administered control and predictor measures when the children were 5 years old and obtained criterion data at age 9. After controlling for verbal ability and temperament, our index of emotion knowledge predicted aggregate indices of positive and negative social behavior and academic competence. Path analysis showed that emotion knowledge mediated the effect of verbal ability on academic competence. We argue that the ability to detect and label emotion cues facilitates positive social interactions and that a deficit in this ability contributes to behavioral and learning problems. Our findings have implications for primary prevention.

Modeling Emotional, Cognitive, and Behavioral Predictors of Peer Acceptance

Integrating principles of differential emotions theory and social information-processing theory, this study examined a model of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral predictors of peer acceptance in a sample of 201 early elementary school-age children (mean age = 7 years, 5 months). A path analytic model showed that social skills mediated the effect of emotion knowledge on both same- and opposite-sex social preference, but social skills and verbal ability were more strongly related to opposite-sex peer acceptance. These findings suggest that adaptive social skills constitute a mechanism through which children express their emotion knowledge and achieve peer acceptance. Results also supported findings of previous studies that showed that emotion knowledge mediated the effect of verbal ability on social skills. Findings from the present study have specific implications for emotion-centered prevention programs that aim to improve childrens socioemotional competence and enhance the likelihood of peer acceptance.

First grade emotion knowledge as a predictor of fifth grade self-reported internalizing behaviors in children from economically disadvantaged families

In this longitudinal study, we examined the relations between emotion knowledge in first grade, teacher reports of internalizing and externalizing behaviors from first grade, and childrens self-reported internalizing behaviors in fifth grade. At Time 1, we assessed emotion knowledge, expressive vocabulary, caregiver-reported earned income, and teacher-rated internalizing and externalizing behaviors in 7-year-old children from economically disadvantaged families (N = 154). At Time 2, when the children were age 11, we collected childrens self-reports of negative emotions, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. First grade teacher-reported externalizing behaviors, but not first grade internalizing behaviors, were positively related to childrens self-reports of internalizing behaviors in fifth grade. First grade emotion knowledge accounted for a significant amount of variance in childrens self-reports of internalizing symptoms 4 years later, after controlling for per capita earned income, expressive vocabulary, and teacher-reported internalizing and externalizing behaviors in first grade.

Emotion processes in normal and abnormal development and preventive intervention

We present an analysis of the role of emotions in normal and abnormal development and preventive intervention. The conceptual framework stems from three tenets of differential emotions theory (DET). These principles concern the constructs of emotion utilization; intersystem connections among modular emotion systems, cognition, and action; and the organizational and motivational functions of discrete emotions. Particular emotions and patterns of emotions function differentially in different periods of development and in influencing the cognition and behavior associated with different forms of psychopathology. Established prevention programs have not emphasized the concept of emotion as motivation. It is even more critical that they have generally neglected the idea of modulating emotions, not simply to achieve self-regulation, but also to utilize their inherently adaptive functions as a means of facilitating the development of social competence and preventing psychopathology. The paper includes a brief description of a theory-based prevention program and suggestions for complementary targeted interventions to address specific externalizing and internalizing problems. In the final section, we describe ways in which emotion-centered preventions can provide excellent opportunities for research on the development of normal and abnormal behavior.

Emotion, Development, and Self-Organization: Self-Organization of Discrete Emotions, Emotion Patterns, and Emotion-Cognition Relations

A core principle of differential emotions theory (DET) is that emotions operate as systems (Izard, 1971; Izard et al., 1965). An emotion is a complex system in the sense that it emerges from interactions of constituent neurohormonal, motoric, and experiential processes. Although personenvironment transactions play a role in the development of healthy emotions, the potential for each component of each discrete emotion system self-organized in phylogeny and emerged as an evolutionary adaptation. Individual emotions also coassemble with other emotions to form contingent emotion patterns that stabilize over repetitions and time. Thus, discrete emotions are both the product and stuff of system organization. The systems are self-organizing in the sense that recursive interactions among component processes generate emergent properties. This system perspective of DET fits well with the general emphasis of dynamic systems (DS) theories of development on the self-organization of the structure of behavior. Both DS theories of development and DET have the central theoretical goal of understanding organization and pattern in complex systems, without recourse to some deus ex machina (Izard, 1977; Smith and Thelen, 1993; Thelen, 1989). For both theories, structure and complexity emerge from constituent processes to yield behavioral performances that vary among individuals and within individuals over time. Understanding the individual variation is a main theoretical concern of both DET and DS theories of development.

Temperament, Cognitive Ability, Emotion Knowledge, and Adaptive Social Behavior

Few studies have related emotion knowledge to positive behavioral outcomes in middle childhood, and none of these included both temperament and cognitive ability in the analysis. In the present study of 166 seven-year-old children from economically disadvantaged families, we show that temperamental inhibition, cognitive ability, a traditionally studied index of emotion knowledge (emotion recognition), and emotion memories contribute to the concurrent prediction of adaptive social behavior. We also found that temperament and cognitive ability relate significantly to emotion recognition which, in turn, partially mediates the relations of inhibition and cognitive ability to adaptive social behavior. Emotion memories relate significantly to the behavioral outcome after removing the variance due to inhibition, cognitive ability, and emotion recognition. We argue that compared to memories tagged simply as good (pleasant) or bad (unpleasant) events, discrete emotion memories have greater adaptive value because they provide more useful information and have the capacity to facilitate the anticipation and management of emotion arousal.