3～6岁儿童对消极情绪的理解:抑制控制与共情的作用

Understanding of Negative Emotions in Children Aged 3～6 Years: Roles of Inhibitory Control and Empathy

为考察3～6岁儿童对消极情绪的理解,并探讨儿童的共情和抑制控制在其中发挥的作用,本实验采取颜色作为情绪标签的方法,对86名3～6岁儿童进行考察。结果发现,儿童会使用不同的颜色来代表不同效价的情绪,高抑制控制儿童可以更好地理解他人的消极情绪,且不受共情水平的影响;共情水平只对低抑制控制儿童的消极情绪理解起作用。在不同年龄阶段,共情在消极情绪理解中的作用有所差异,3～4岁时主要是情绪共情起到作用,而5～6岁时主要是认知共情起作用。实验表明,颜色作为情绪标签是研究儿童情绪理解的有效方法,抑制控制和共情交互地影响了3～6岁儿童的消极情绪理解,高抑制控制促进儿童的消极情绪理解,低抑制控制儿童对他人消极情绪的理解需要其共情能力的参与。

Studies were conducted to investigate the ability to understand negative emotions and explore how inhibition control and empathy affected children s emotion understanding among 86 children aged 3 to 6 years by using color as a symbol for emotion.The results showed children using different colors to symbolize emotions of different valences,and innteraction between inhibitory control and empathy was found on the understanding of negative emotions.Children with strong inhibitory control better understood other s negative emotions,regardless of empathy,and empathy only affected children with weak inhibitory control.Besides,effects of different components of empathy on understanding of negative emotions varied with age.Affective empathy played a major role in 3-to 4-year-olds,while cognitive empathy played a major role in 5-to 6-year-olds.These findings suggest that color as a symbol for emotion was an effective way to study children s emotion understanding.Inhibition control and empathy affect the negative emotion understanding of 3~6 year olds.High inhibition control promotes children s understanding of negative emotions,while low inhibition control requires children s empathy involvement.