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Emotion recognition and social adjustment in school–aged girls and boys
Author(s) -
Leppänen Jukka M.,
Hietanen Jari K.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9450.00255
Subject(s) - psychology , surprise , developmental psychology , popularity , social competence , emotion recognition , facial expression , nonverbal communication , social cognition , cognition , social psychology , social change , communication , neuroscience , economics , economic growth
The present study investigated emotion recognition accuracy and its relation to social adjustment in 7–10 year–old children. The ability to recognize basic emotions from facial and vocal expressions was measured and compared to peer popularity and to teacher–rated social competence. The results showed that emotion recognition was related to these measures of social adjustment, but the gender of a child and emotion category affected this relationship. Emotion recognition accuracy was significantly related to social adjustment for the girls, but not for the boys. For the girls, especially the recognition of surprise was related to social adjustment. Together, these results suggest that the ability to recognize others’ emotional states from nonverbal cues is an important socio–cognitive ability for school–aged girls.