Grosse Gerlind, Streubel Berit, Gunzenhauser Catherine, Saalbach Henrik
Department of Social and Education Sciences¸ Early Childhood Education Studies, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, Kiepenheuerallee 5, 14469 Potsdam, Germany.
Leipzig Research Centre for Early Childhood Development, Leipzig University, Jahnallee 59, Leipzig, 04109 Germany.
Affect Sci. 2021 Apr 16;2(2):150-162. doi: 10.1007/s42761-021-00040-2. eCollection 2021 Jun.
Learning to use language in an adult-like way is a long-lasting process. This may particularly apply to complex conceptual domains such as emotions. The present study examined children's and adults' patterns of emotion word usage regarding their convergence and underlying semantic dimensions, and the factors influencing the ease of emotion word learning. We assessed the production of emotion words by 4- to 11-year-old children ( = 123) and 27 adults ( = 37 years) using a vignette test. We found that the older the children, the more emotion words they produced. Moreover, with increasing age, children's pattern of emotion word usage converged with adult usage. The analysis for semantic dimensions revealed one clear criterion-the differentiation of positive versus negative emotions-for all children and adults. We further found that broad covering emotion words are produced earlier and in a more adult-like way.
学会以成人般的方式使用语言是一个长期的过程。这在诸如情感等复杂概念领域可能尤为适用。本研究考察了儿童和成人在情感词汇使用模式上的趋同情况及其潜在语义维度，以及影响情感词汇学习难易程度的因素。我们通过一个情景测试评估了4至11岁儿童（n = 123）和27名成年人（平均年龄 = 37岁）的情感词汇产出。我们发现，儿童年龄越大，产出的情感词汇就越多。此外，随着年龄的增长，儿童的情感词汇使用模式与成人的使用模式趋同。语义维度分析揭示了一个所有儿童和成人都明确的标准——积极情绪与消极情绪的区分。我们还发现，涵盖范围广的情感词汇出现得更早，且方式更像成人。
