Children's understanding of conflicting emotions: a training study

Notwithstanding a substantial body of evidence indicating that young children have difficulty in understanding conflicting emotions, we predicted that training would likely be effective in promoting an ability to understand. This prediction was made in the light of recent research that has demonstrated young children's competence in understanding conflicting beliefs and desires, a competence that is seen as contingent upon the possession of a representational theory of mind (Perner, 1991). The experiment involved two groups of 6-year-olds, one of which had undergone brief training. Ten weeks following training, both groups watched a video recording of an event that could be seen to give rise to both positive and negative emotions. As predicted, children in the experimental group gave significantly more evidence of understanding conflicting emotions than did those in the control group. Surprisingly, even within the control group, many children understood conflicting emotions. Possible explanations for the precocious performance of children in the control group are discussed, as are caveats relating to the major findings of the study.