Abstract :
In past research, emotion has been classified as
basic, self-conscious or self-conscious evaluative, with each
type of emotion being progressively more difficult for children
to understand (Lewis, M. (2000a). In M. Lewis & J. M.
Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp.
265–280), New York, NY: The Guilford Press). Although
researchers have examined children’s understanding of individual
emotions (e.g., guilt), researchers have not assessed
children’s understanding and memory for emotions based
on this classification. In the present research, 6-, 8- and
10-year-old children’s memory and understanding of basic,
self-conscious and self-conscious evaluative emotions
were examined. Although a memory advantage was found
for emotions, this effect was less so for the younger children
and less so for non-basic emotions. In fact, 6-year-old children
and, to a lesser extent 8-year-old children, were more
likely than older children to recall self-conscious and selfconscious
evaluative emotions with basic emotion labels, and
were more likely to explain them using basic emotion labels.
Overall, negative emotions (e.g., mad, guilt) were better recalled
than positive emotions (e.g., happy, pride), regardless
of type of emotion. Gender differences were found as girls
were more likely to remember emotion than boys, especially
when the emotion action was specifically labeled and a female
character experienced it.
