Self-control of emotional reactions by young children

Six-year-old children were instructed to adopt a detached or an involved attitude while they listened to a sad story. The effects of these instructions became clear by the children's self-report using a non-verbal emotion scale, their way of reproducing the story they had to listen to, and their achievements on an unrelated picture-memory task. Differences between boys and girls were found and discussed as well as the nature of some of the self-control strategies reported by the children.