Dataset Information

Children with Behavioural Problems Misinterpret the Emotions and Intentions of Others.

ABSTRACT: Research indicates that the misinterpretation of other's emotions or intentions may lead to antisocial behaviour. This study investigated emotion and intention recognition in children with behavioural problems and examined their relationship and relations with behaviour problem severity. Participants were 7-11 year old children with behavioural problems (n?=?93, mean age: 8.78, 82.8% male) who were taking part in an early intervention program and typically developing controls (n?=?44, mean age: 9.82, 79.5% male). Participants completed emotion recognition and Theory of Mind tasks. Teachers and parents rated children's emotional and behavioural problems. Children with behavioural problems showed impaired emotion and intention recognition. Emotion recognition and intention recognition were positively related and inversely associated with behavioural problem severity and, independently of one another, predicted behavioural problems. This study is the first to show that children with behavioural problems are impaired in identifying others' emotions as well as intentions. These social cognitive processes were found to be related and inversely associated with severity of behavioural problems. This has important implications for intervention and prevention programmes for children with behavioural difficulties.

SUBMITTER: Wells AE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6969861 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Children with Behavioural Problems Misinterpret the Emotions and Intentions of Others.

Wells Amy E AE Hunnikin Laura M LM Ash Daniel P DP van Goozen Stephanie H M SHM

Journal of abnormal child psychology 20200201 2

Research indicates that the misinterpretation of other's emotions or intentions may lead to antisocial behaviour. This study investigated emotion and intention recognition in children with behavioural problems and examined their relationship and relations with behaviour problem severity. Participants were 7-11 year old children with behavioural problems (n = 93, mean age: 8.78, 82.8% male) who were taking part in an early intervention program and typically developing controls (n = 44, mean age: ...[more]

PMID: 31686284

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Project description:Many studies suggest that preschoolers initially privilege outcome over intention in their moral judgments. The present findings reveal that, in contrast, even younger preschoolers can privilege intentions when evaluating characters who successfully or unsuccessfully help or hinder a third party in achieving its goal. Following a live-action puppet show originally created for infant populations, children made a forced-choice social judgment (which puppet was liked) and two forced-choice moral judgments (which puppet was nicer, which puppet should be punished), and were asked to explain their punishment allocations. In two experiments (N = 195), 3- and 4-year-olds evaluated characters with distinct intentions to help or to hinder who were associated with either positive or negative outcomes. Both ages judged characters with more positive intentions as nicer, and allocated punishment to characters with more negative intentions; neither of these tendencies depended on the outcomes the characters were associated with. Three-year-olds' responses were somewhat less consistent than were 4-year-olds', in that 3-year-olds' judgments were disrupted by ambiguous harmful intent. Notably, children's social judgments were less consistent than their moral judgments. In a third and final experiment (N = 100), children evaluated characters with the same intention but who were associated with different outcomes. Children showed inconsistent responding across age and outcome valence, but only 4-year-olds evaluating two characters with positive intentions reliably responded based on outcome. When providing informative responses in all three studies, children most frequently explained their punishment allocations by appealing to the puppet's (attempted) hindering action or failure to help. These findings raise questions as to what underlies different patterns of response across studies in the literature, and suggests that observing live interactions may facilitate young children's intention-based moral judgments.

Dataset Information

Children with Behavioural Problems Misinterpret the Emotions and Intentions of Others.

Publications

Children with Behavioural Problems Misinterpret the Emotions and Intentions of Others.

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