Acknowledgments
Brian Ackerman
Sam Blumberg
Eric Youngstrom
David Schultz
Allison Mostow
Kristen King
Margaret Feerick
Dante Cicchetti
George Bear
Frank Boxwill
Jen Kogos Youngstrom
Sarah Fine
Christopher Trentacosta
Fran Haskins
Jenny Anderson
Michael Morrow
100s of UGRAs
600 Children and their Parents and Preschool Teachers
(mostly ECAP and Head Start)
1
Accelerating the Development of
Emotion Competence: Overview

The centrality of emotions, emotion knowledge
(EK), emotion regulation (ER), and emotion
utilization (EU) in development and functioning

The development and correlates of EK

The Effects of an Emotions Course on children
living in poverty: Increased EK, ER, EU, and the
self-regulation of negative behavior

Explanations of Emotion Course effects
2
Claims of an Emotion Theory Zealot:
I. Emotions Drive All Personally and Socially
Significant Behavior.
II. Without Emotions, We Would Have No:
- Stable sense of self
- Enduring relationships
- Conscience
- Morality
- Empathy
- Altruism
- Values
- Goals
III. We Can Have Them All by Modulating and Utilizing
Emotion Motivation
3
Emotions in Perspective
EMOTIONS
Emotionality/
Temperament/
Personality
Cognition
Action
4
5
6
Early Emergence and Functionality
of Emotion Expressions
Emotion
Interest
Joy
Age/Mo
0 - 1
2 - 3

Sadness
Anger
3 - 5
3 - 5

Fear
9 - 11



Function
Exploration/Lrng
Broadens & Builds
Resources
Elicits Empathy
Action vs.
Restraints
Protection/safety
7
Infants’ Emotion Competencies:
By Age 3- 5 Months, Infants Can:
1. Encode and decode some basic emotion
expressions
2. Protest the loss of animation/expression in
mother’s face
3. Discriminate mother’s expressions of sadness
and anger
4. Respond differentially to these expressions
8
Emotion/Language-Based
Competencies: Age 2-3 Years
1. Limited emotion vocabulary
2. Limited ability to:
 match a key expression with one in a set of
four
 match an emotion expression and an
eliciting stimulus
 match a pictorial and verbal representation
on an emotion
 produce verbal labels for facial expressions
[Emotion Matching Task (EMT)]
Moreover, poverty and its co-factors delays the
development of all these processes
9
Emotion Recognition and Emotion Labeling for
French (N=140) and
American N (ER) =286; N (EL) =281) children.
35
30
Mean Score
25
French ER
American ER
French EL
American EL
20
15
10
5
0
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Chronological Age
Izard, The face of emotion (1971)
10
Growth in Understanding of Situational
Cues of Emotions: Shame
Percentage of Items Correct
120
Head Start
Sample
100
80
Middle Class
Sample
60
40
20
0
1st Grade
3rd Grade
5th Grade
Fine, Izard, et al. (2003) Development and Psychopathology
11
Development of Emotion Knowledge and Social
Skills: Early to Middle Childhood
12
Emotion Knowledge, Social Skills, and Peer Acceptance –
Achieving Emotion Competence: Middle to late
Childhood
Mostow, A. & Izard, C. (Submitted, 4/05)
13
A Risk Index That Includes EK and Empathy Mediated
the Effect of Trait Emotionality on Aggression
Anger
.38*
Aggression
.76
-.25*
Happiness
.37*
Anger
.06
Emotion
Processing
Risk Index
Aggression
.70
.94
-.22*
Happiness
.26*
-.19*
Schultz, Izard, & Bear (2004) Development and Psychopathology
14
Emotion Knowledge (EK) Predicts
Social and Academic Competence:
Head Start EK mediates the effect of verbal ability on first
grade academic performance
Emotion
Knowledge
Verbal
Ability
.39 (eq. 2)
.11 (eq. 3)
Academic
Competence
Izard et al. (2001) Psychological Science
15
Emotion Knowledge, Social Skills,
and Academic Competence
β = .16
Verbal
Ability
Emotion
Knowledge
Social
Skills
β = .26
Middle Childhood
β = .36
Academic
Competence
β = .20
Late Childhood
Trentacosta, Mostow, & Izard (2005), SRCD Poster
16
Theoretical Framework for the
Emotions Course. Emotions:
1. Are part of our biology and culture
2. Are part of temperament and personality
3. Serve critical developmental functions
4. Facilitate the development of relationships, empathy,
morality
5. Motivate goal-directed cognition and behavior
Effective Regulation of Emotions Enables the Child to
Utilize Their Inherent Adaptiveness and Capitalize on
the Energy and Motivational Properties of Emotional
Arousal.
17
The Teacher-Implemented Emotions
Course For Preschoolers
1. 20 lessons on interest, joy, sadness, anger, fear, and
contempt. Puppet shows, emotion games, emotion
story books
2. Increases awareness of the expressions, feeling states,
and functions of emotions
3. Encourages children to express modulated emotions and
talk about feelings
4. Emphasizes utilization of the inherently adaptive energy
and motivation of modulated emotion (No Extrinsic
Rewards)
18
Methods: Outcome Measures
(Administered Pre- and Post EC)








Emotion Knowledge: 48 item Emotion Matching Task (C)
Emotion Regulation Checklist (T)
C-TRF Aggressive Behavior (T)
C-TRF Anx/Dprsd Behavior (T)
Emotion Expression Rating Scale (T)
Preschool Competence Q-aire (T)
Negative social Interactions (O)
Negative Emotion Expression (O)
IQ Control Measure: Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (C)
19
Hypotheses: The Emotions Course
1. Will increase emotion knowledge and
emotion regulation
2. Will decrease symptoms of behavior
problems and psychopathology
20
Research Design

Quasi-experimental design

Randomly assigned Head Start
Centers/Classrooms to Treatment (Emotions
Course) and Control Groups

Treatment = Head Start Curriculum + Emotions
Course (N = 107)

Control = Head Start Curriculum (N = 63)
21
Procedure
Week
1-4
5
6-10
11-31
32-36
Event
Children Accommodate to HS
Tchrs Complete Ratings of Children
UGRAs Complete Pre-tests
Tchrs Conduct Emotions Course
UGRAs and Tchrs Complete Post-tests
22
Results

Data analysis via Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM):

EC

Increased:
Emotion Knowledge and Emotion Regulation

Decreased:
Negative Emotion Expressions
Anxious/Depressed Behavior
Aggressive Behavior
Negative Social Interactions





23
24
Emotion Regulation
81
80
Emotion
Regulation
(ERC)
79
EC
Control
78
77
76
Pre
t = -2.61
p < .05
Effect Size r = 0.55
Emotions
Course
(EC)
Post
25
Aggression
10
9
Aggression
(C-TRF)
8
EC
Control
7
6
5
4
Pre
t = -2.61
p < .05
Effect Size r = 0.55
Post
Emotions
Course
(EC)
26
Negative Emotion Expression
9
8
Negative
Emotion
Expression
EC
Control
7
(EERS)
6
5
Pre
t = -1.80†
p < .10
Effect Size r = 0.41
Emotions
Course
EC
Post
27
Observations of Negative Peer
Interactions
3.5
3
Observed
Negative
Peer
Interactions
2.5
2
EC
Control
1.5
1
0.5
0
Pre
t = -3.43
p < .01
Effect Size r = 0.65
Emotions
Course
(EC)
Post
28
Anxious/Depressed
Behavior
3
2.5
Anxious/
2
Depressed
(C-TRF)
EC
Control
1.5
1
0.5
0
Pre
t = -2.88
p < .05
Effect Size r = 0.58
Emotions
Course
EC
Post
29
EC Effect on Percentage of
Borderline or Clinical C-TRF Scores
Time 1
Time 2
EC
14%
10%
Control
7%
17%
pretest χ2 (1, N = 123) = 7.67, p < .01
posttest χ2 (1, N = 102) = 6.79, p < .01
30
Explaining the Effects of the Emotions
Course (EC): Behavioral Level

EC enabled children to experience and talk about
emotions in a safe learning environment.

EC increased emotion knowledge (EK), which increased
the capacity for empathy and emotion regulation.

The interaction of EK and modulated emotion arousal
increased continual emotion awareness, via intersystem
(emotion-cognition) connectivity.

The increase in awareness of emotions and
understanding of their characteristics and functions
increased utilization of their inherently adaptive
properties.
31
Explaining EC Effects:
Developmental Level: EC accelerated the transition from
phenomenal emotion experience to language-related emotion
that enables:
1.Conscious control and utilization of emotions
2.Growth of executive function
Neural Level: EC increased connectivity between:
1. Sub-cortical and cortical emotion systems
2. Insular cortex (and possibly other cortical midline systems
that  feelings) and the ACC (that facilitates experiencing
feelings as emotion motivation
32
Conclusion
We think the increased connectivity and emotion competence
resulted primarily from increased emotion knowledge and
emotion regulation and utilization via:
1. Playful emotion games (child play drives brain development)
2. Emotion-language development (conscious control of
emotions)
3. Emotion motivated techniques for self regulation
4. Freedom to express and utilize modulated emotions
33