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ERIC Number: EJ1216757
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Jun
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0012-1649
EISSN: N/A
How Do You Feel? Preverbal Infants Match Negative Emotions to Events
Ruba, Ashley L.; Meltzoff, Andrew N.; Repacholi, Betty M.
Developmental Psychology, v55 n6 p1138-1149 Jun 2019
There is extensive disagreement as to whether preverbal infants have conceptual categories for different emotions (e.g., anger vs. disgust). In addition, few studies have examined whether infants have conceptual categories of emotions "within" the same dimension of valence and arousal (e.g., high arousal, negative emotions). The current experiments explore one aspect of infants' ability to form conceptual categories of emotions: event-emotion matching. Three experiments investigated whether infants match different negative emotions to specific events. In Experiment 1, 14- and 18-month-olds were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 negative emotion conditions ("Anger," "Fear," or "Disgust"). Infants were familiarized with an Emoter interacting with objects in an anger-eliciting event ("Unmet Goal") and a disgust-eliciting event ("New Food"). After each event, the Emoter expressed an emotion that was either congruent or incongruent with the event. Infants matched unmet goals to the expression of anger. However, neither age matched the expression of disgust to an event involving exposure to new food. To probe whether this was a design artifact, a revised "New Food" event and a fear-congruent event ("Strange Toy") were created for Experiment 2. Infants matched the expression of disgust to the new food event, but they did not match fear to an event involving an unfamiliar object. Experiment 3 replicated the disgust findings from Experiment 2 in a sample of 14-month-olds. However, the anger findings from Experiment 1 did not replicate. Taken together, these results suggest that preverbal infants are beginning to form specific matches between some negative emotional expressions and events.
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A