Valence ratings of emotional and non-emotional words in children

Words of varying emotional content are widely used as stimuli in studies that examine the cognitive responses to threat in childhood anxiety disorders. To date, there are limited data on word stimuli that elicit emotional responses in children. The purpose of this study was to collect children’s valence ratings of different types of emotional words. Typically developing children (n = 174; ages: 9–11 years) rated a pre-selected list of 81 words from three emotional categories: threat, positive, and neutral. Children’s valence ratings differentiated the three word categories with strong internal consistency in each category. Furthermore, females provided more extreme valence ratings than males. Mean valence ratings and word characteristics for each word are provided. These words can potentially be used to develop experimental paradigms that examine reactions to emotional words in children with and without anxiety disorders.