Poster #211 - Express yourself: Social Comparison Impairs Positive and Negative Emotion Regulation in 4- to 10-year-olds

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Envy occurs when one perceives oneself less favourably disposed than another, whereas epicaricacy occurs when one takes pleasure in another’s misfortune. Although different, both emotions arise from social comparison and both lead one to experience inappropriate affect toward the target of one’s comparison. Using modified versions of Saarni’s (1984) disappointing-gift task, we examined younger (4-6.5-yr-olds) and older (6.5-10-yr-olds) children’s ability to hide emotions in socially taxing contexts designed to generate envy or epicaricacy. All children played a card game with an experimenter in which each flipped cards from separate decks. Prizes were promised to whomever flipped a jack. Decks were arranged so that children flipped a jack mid-way through or at the bottom of the deck, and the experimenter flipped hers in the complementary position. Before the game, the experimenter placed two gift bags, seemingly randomly, one near the child and one near herself. Bags were discretely marked so that each player opened a pre-determined gift based on condition. In all, 84 children (M=82.3mos., SD=23.4; 43 girls) were assigned randomly to 1 of 4 conditions differing in whether children received a good (toy) or bad (plain clear plastic cup) gift and whether they received it before or after watching the experimenter open the alternate gift. During both gift openings, the experimenter kept a neutral facial expression in order to not influence children’s responses. Children’s reaction was coded to each gift opening.
An Age (Younger vs. Older) x Condition (Receive Good 1st, Receive Good 2nd, Receive Bad 1st, Receive Bad 2nd) x Gift Segment (Receive vs. Watch) mixed-measures analysis of variance was conducted on composite scores with segment as the repeated measure. A main effect of condition, F(3,76)=22.50, MSE=.44, p<.001, partial η2=.47, revealed that children in Receive Bad 1st or 2nd conditions responded negatively, whereas those in Receive Good 1st or 2nd conditions responded positively (differences were significant across pairs, ps=.001), indicating the manipulation worked. Age was also significant, F(1,76)=8.56, MSE=.44, p=.005, partial η2=.10, with older children responding more positively than younger children. A two-way interaction between gift condition and segment was subsumed under a significant three-way interaction between age group, gift condition and segment, F(3,76)=2.71, MSE=.37, p=.05, partial η2=.10, indicating that when children opened their gift moderated positive and negative affective displays (Figure 1). That is, younger children expressed significantly more negativity when opening a bad gift after witnessing the experimenter open a good gift compared to opening their bad gift first. Conversely, younger children who received a good gift after watching the experimenter receive a bad gift struggled to temper their positive expressions to their own gift as demanded by the context. Older children’s reaction to the experimenter receiving her gift also depended on social comparison. Indeed, we found clear evidence of envy: Older children who first received a bad gift subsequently responded more negatively to the experimenter opening a good gift compared to other conditions. Together, our findings indicate that social comparison matters, and envy and epicaricacy moderate children’s ability to regulate both positive and negative emotional expressions.

Authors

• Amanda Hudson, Dalhousie University
  Presenting Author

• Sophie Jacques, Dalhousie University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Colleen Lehnert, Dalhousie University
  Non-Presenting Author