Article

Preschoolers\' Decision on Emotion Display and Motives for Emotion Display

Author

심현주, 이순형

Information

pp. 33~53 / 2006 Vol.13 No.4

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to 1) investigate preschoolers\' decision on emotion display according to their ages, types of situations, types of audience figures, types of affect experienced; 2) investigate preschoolers\' motives for emotion display according to their ages and types of situations. Subjects were 39 three-year-olds and 46 five-year-olds recruited from two day-care centers in Seoul and Kyonggi provinces. Each child was individually interviewed with pictorial tasks. The major findings of the experiment were as follows: 1. There were significant differences in preschoolers\' decision on emotion display according to their ages, types of situations, and types of affect experienced. Five-year-olds could decide whether or not to display emotion more appropriately than three-year-olds. When a situation required emotion masking, children performed better in a negative story; in a situation requiring emotion expression, children performed better in a positive story. 2. There were significant differences in preschoolers\' motives for emotion display according to their ages and types of situations. Five-year-olds responded with more appropriate motives for emotion display, while three-year-olds could hardly respond with appropriate motives. ‘Other-oriented motive\' was used more frequently when a situation required masking of emotion while \'self-oriented motive was used more in a situation for emotion expression.

Keywords