What Do Children Know about Emotions and When Do They Know It?

Abstract

Although researchers have learned much about children's social knowledge in the last decade, little is known about children's understanding of emotions and emotional expressions. Investigations of children's knowledge of emotions and the socialization of emotional behavior have been restricted in part by a powerful theory of emotion, which was suggested by Darwin (1872) and later elaborated by Tomkins (1962, 1963) and Izard (1977). This biological view of emotion was characterized by Hochschild (1979) in the following description of emotional behavior: The image that comes to mind is that of a sudden, automatic reflex syndrome—Darwin's instant snarl expression; Freud's tension discharge at a given breaking point of tension overload; James' and Lange's notion of an instantaneous, unmediated visceral reaction to a perceived stimulus, the perception of which is also unmediated by social influence, (pp. 553–554) Emotions are viewed as analogous to knee jerks or sneezes, unlearned, biologically controlled, and subject to relatively little socialization influence.