Children's organization and development of emotion: attachment relationships, perceptual asymmetry, and executive functioning

Choi, Eunsil

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/29813 Copy

Description

Title

Children's organization and development of emotion: attachment relationships, perceptual asymmetry, and executive functioning

Author(s)

Choi, Eunsil

Issue Date

2012-02-06T20:18:42Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Bost, Kelly

Committee Member(s)

• McElwain, Nancy L.
• McBride, Brent A.
• Wiley, Angela R.
• Roisman, Glenn I.

Department of Study

Human & Community Development

Discipline

Human & Community Development

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Emotion Recognition
• Emotion Expression
• Attachment Relationships
• Perceptual Asymmetry
• Executive Functioning

Abstract

The goals of present study were to examine the unique and interactive effects of preschool children’s attachment security, perceptual asymmetry in the processing of emotion, and executive functioning (EF) on their recognition of different emotions, emotion expression, and social initiations among peers. A total of 65 three to five year-old children (37 girls, 28 boys) completed attachment story-stem doll plays, the Chimeric Faces Task (CFT) to assess perceptual asymmetry in the processing of emotion, and emotion recognition task. Head teachers of the children completed a standard EF. Observers documented children’s frequency of expressed affect and valence of social initiations among peers in the preschool classroom. Consistent with attachment theory, secure children were more likely to recognize different emotions and expressed positive emotions more often than insecure children. Children’s executive functioning was a unique predictor of children’s negative affect expression and initiations above and beyond perceptual asymmetry, child age, gender, and language ability. Finally, attachment security was found to moderate the relations between flexibility, a subscale of EF, and children’s positive affect expression. Children’s capacities to modify behavior and affect to new situations affected their experience of positive emotion only when they were insecure. In contrast, secure children expressed positive emotions frequently regardless of their EF flexibility. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of the interconnectedness between emotion and cognition. In addition, the findings highlight the notion that attachment security plays a crucial role in capacities to embrace and express positive emotions in addition to buffering the negative effects of EF inflexibility on experiencing positive emotion.

Graduation Semester

2011-12

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29813

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2011 Eunsil Choi

Owning Collections