Let's Talk About Emotions: the Development of Children's Emotion Vocabulary from 4 to 11 Years of Age

Gerlind Grosse; Berit Streubel; Catherine Gunzenhauser; Henrik Saalbach

doi:10.1007/s42761-021-00040-2

Let's Talk About Emotions: the Development of Children's Emotion Vocabulary from 4 to 11 Years of Age

Affect Sci. 2021 Apr 16;2(2):150-162. doi: 10.1007/s42761-021-00040-2. eCollection 2021 Jun.

Authors

Gerlind Grosse^{1

2}, Berit Streubel^{3

2}, Catherine Gunzenhauser^{4

2}, Henrik Saalbach^{3

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Social and Education Sciences¸ Early Childhood Education Studies, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, Kiepenheuerallee 5, 14469 Potsdam, Germany.
² Leipzig Research Centre for Early Childhood Development, Leipzig University, Jahnallee 59, Leipzig, 04109 Germany.
³ Department of Educational Sciences, Leipzig University, Marschnerstraße 31, 04229 Leipzig, Germany.
⁴ Department of Educational Sciences, University of Freiburg, Rempartstraße 11, Freiburg, 79098 Germany.

Abstract

Learning to use language in an adult-like way is a long-lasting process. This may particularly apply to complex conceptual domains such as emotions. The present study examined children's and adults' patterns of emotion word usage regarding their convergence and underlying semantic dimensions, and the factors influencing the ease of emotion word learning. We assessed the production of emotion words by 4- to 11-year-old children (N = 123) and 27 adults (M = 37 years) using a vignette test. We found that the older the children, the more emotion words they produced. Moreover, with increasing age, children's pattern of emotion word usage converged with adult usage. The analysis for semantic dimensions revealed one clear criterion-the differentiation of positive versus negative emotions-for all children and adults. We further found that broad covering emotion words are produced earlier and in a more adult-like way.

Keywords: Children; Cognitive development; Conceptual development; Emotion vocabulary; Emotion-related knowledge; Lexical acquisition; Word learning.