Adults\u27 Emotional States and Recognition of Emotion in Young Children

This study addressed the degree to which adults\u27\u27 emotional states influence their perception of emotional states in children and their motivation to change such states. Happiness, sadness, anger, or a neutral state was induced in adults, who then viewed slides of 4-year-old children who were actually experiencing various emotional states. Adults\u27\u27 own emotional states had little impact on their accurate recognition of children\u27\u27s emotions or on their motives for social action to change such emotions. However, adults\u27\u27 states did influence the intensity they assigned to children\u27\u27s emotions, with happy adults tending to rate some emotions as more intense for black children (sadness) and for girls (anger and neutrality). The base rates with which adults used different emotion labels also influenced judgments, increasing it for the recognition of happiness and reducing it for anger. The results are discussed in terms of the factors that influence whether or not emotional states affect judgment processes and the role of emotion labels in the effective recognition of ongoing emotional states. Also addressed is the consequence of adults\u27\u27 recognition of emotion in children for the effective socialization of emotion