Poster #88 - A Functionalist Perspective of Young Children’s Anger and Sadness in a Frustrating Task

• In Event: Poster Session 02

Abstract

The functional theory of emotion defines emotions by two processes—appraisal and action readiness—that prepare one to act to achieve goals (Frijda, 1986; Keltner & Gross, 1999). Anger and sadness serve important functions: anger recognizes a blocked goal and readies action to overcome the obstacle—to approach; sadness recognizes a goal is lost and readies the relinquishment of effort—to withdraw (Campos et al., 1994; Frijda, 1986). Developmental evidence indicates the functionality of anger. Preschool age children displaying more low-level anger during frustration tasks also display greater effort and persistence (Dennis et al., 2009; He et al., 2011; Tan & Smith, 2018). The functionality of sadness in early childhood, how it develops and supports behavior is not known. Limited evidence suggests sadness detracts from persistence, especially for younger preschool age children who may have difficulty transitioning back to on-task efforts (Dennis et al., 2009; Ramsook et al., 2020). This poster presents developmental differences in functional behavior-emotion couplings, approach-related anger and withdrawal-related sadness, that emerge when preschool age children are faced with a frustration task.
Building from functional theories of emotion and developmental theories of emotion regulation, we hypothesize (1) fluctuations in young children’s anger are coupled with fluctuations in approach to the goal and (2) fluctuations in sadness are coupled with fluctuations in withdrawal from the goal. Further, the prevalence of functional anger and how strongly it couples to approach (3) gets stronger with age but (4) weakens as children fatigue. We also test these last associations for sadness without specific predictions given lack of prior evidence.
We observed 154 children (Mage = 45.85 months, range 29.7 to 59.7 months, 50% girls) during the Transparent Locked Box task in which they try to unlock a box to retrieve a toy but have the wrong key. Coders rated children’s observable displayed anger, sadness, approach, and withdrawal continuously throughout the 6 minute task.
Within-person results from multilevel models indicate, as hypothesized, fluctuations in anger and approach are coupled (b = .14, p = .01), but, contrary to prediction, are not decreasingly coupled as the task proceeds; fluctuations in sadness and withdrawal are coupled (b = .50, p < .01), but become less coupled as the task proceeds (b = -.01, p < .01). As expected, older children display more approach (b = 1.46, p = .04) and less withdrawal (b = -0.02, p < .01). Contrary to hypotheses, however, couplings of approach and anger and of withdrawal and sadness do not differ with age.
This study provides further evidence of the functional nature of young children’s anger and sadness in a frustrating task. Novel aspects of these findings include considering within-person fluctuations in approach-related anger and withdrawal-related sadness and whether these couplings change with task time. Unexpectedly, there are not age differences in the coupling of approach and anger and in sadness and withdrawal. Future studies will consider the role of children’s physiology and regulatory cognitive effort involved to further understand the development and functional nature of children’s negative emotions.

Authors

• Gabrielle Sky Cardwell, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Pamela M Cole, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Lisa M. Gatzke-Kopp, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Nilam Ram, Stanford University