Too assesses how well people read kids' emotions

Date:
November 2, 2021
Source:
North Carolina State University
Summary:
Psychology researchers have developed and validated a new tool
for assessing how accurate people are at recognizing emotion in
elementary school-aged children. The technique will facilitate
research on understanding emotions of children -- and highlights
that adults are often wrong when assessing the emotions of children.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Psychology researchers at North Carolina State University have developed
and validated a new tool for assessing how accurate people are at
recognizing emotion in elementary school-aged children. The technique
will facilitate research on understanding emotions of children --
and highlights the fact that adults are often wrong when assessing the
emotions of children.


==========================================================================
The new tool for measuring people's ability to perceive emotion in
kids is called the "PerCEIVED Task," which stands for Perceptions of
Children's Emotions in Videos, Evolving and Dynamic Task. The assessment involves having adults review video clips of six emotions portrayed
by 72 different child actors. The tool balances children's races and
genders within each emotion.

"This tool allows us to identify whether we have any emotion-related
biases," says Amy Halberstadt, first author of a paper on the work and a professor of psychology at NC State. "For example, we've shown in multiple studies that people are more likely to incorrectly perceive Black children
as angry. But we can also look for other forms of bias. For example,
are people more likely to think children of one gender are happier? Or
we could look at variations such as whether some people are more likely
to think children in general are happy or miserable little creatures."
The researchers validated PerCEIVED Task across four studies involving
477 adults.

The tool features more children, and a more racially diverse cross-section
of children, than previous assessments. In addition, the researchers
had each emotion expression validated by subject-matter experts.

"In short, we've demonstrated that it is the most robust assessment
tool we have for determining how people perceive emotions in children," Halberstadt says.

But in addition to its potential utility for the research community, Halberstadt notes that there are also take-home messages from this work
for parents, teachers and caregivers.

"We do make errors in assessing the emotions of children," Halberstadt
says.

"So we need to ask them what they're feeling. Also, being good at
identifying one emotion in children doesn't mean that you'll be good at recognizing other emotions." Alison Cooke, a co-author on the paper,
also notes, "We're rarely as good as we think we are at identifying
emotions in children. So don't be quick to assume you know how a child is feeling by the look on their face." The paper, "PerCEIVED: Perceptions
of Children's Emotions in Videos, Evolving and Dynamic Task," is published
in the journal Emotion. Cooke, a former Ph.D.

student at NC State who is now at the UCLA/Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, is corresponding author of the paper. The paper was co- authored by Courtney Hagan and Xi Liu, both of whom are Ph.D. students
at NC State.

The work was done with support from the William T. Grant Foundation,
under grant 184516; and from the National Institute for Child Health
and Human Development, under grant T32-HD07376.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
North_Carolina_State_University. Original written by Matt Shipman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Amy G. Halberstadt, Alison N. Cooke, Courtney A. Hagan, Xi Liu.

PerCEIVED: Perceptions of children's emotions in videos, evolving
and dynamic task.. Emotion, 2021; DOI: 10.1037/emo0001019 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211102111153.htm

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