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Updated: Oct 12, 2025
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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
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Positive emotion enhances conflict processing in preschoolers
Philipp Berger1,2, Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann2
1Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Developmental Science
|November 25, 2021
Summary
Positive emotions may help preschool children process conflict more efficiently. This study found faster conflict resolution in emotional conditions, challenging the view that emotion impedes cognitive control in young children.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Conflict resolution is vital for goal-directed behavior.
- Adult research suggests emotions facilitate conflict processing by acting as relevance detectors.
- Previous child studies emphasized emotion's negative impact on attention and executive function.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if positive emotions facilitate conflict processing in preschool children.
- To examine the role of emotion in executive function development during early childhood.
Main Methods:
- A modified color flanker task was used with preschool children (N=43, ages 2.8-7.0 years).
- The task included conditions with and without positive emotional stimuli.
- A preregistered Bayesian sequential design was employed.
Main Results:
- A significant conflict effect was observed, with more errors in incongruent trials.
- Conflict resolution was significantly faster in the emotional condition compared to the neutral condition.
- No age-related changes in the influence of positive emotion on conflict processing were found.
Conclusions:
- Positive emotions can facilitate efficient cognitive control processes in preschool children.
- This finding contrasts with the traditional view of emotion impeding executive function in early development.
- Emotion's influence on conflict processing may be facilitative or impeding, even in early childhood.
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