TY - JOUR A1 - Streubel, Berit A1 - Gunzenhauser, Catherine A1 - Große, Gerlind A1 - Saalbach, Henrik T1 - Emotion-specific vocabulary and its contribution to emotion understanding in 4- to 9-year-old children JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology N2 - Positive associations between children’s general language skills and emotion understanding are well documented. Concurrently, research from other domains highlights the importance of domain-specific language skills for conceptual development. The current study examined the relative contributions of emotion-specific and general vocabulary to individual differences in multiple early-acquired components of emotion understanding (e.g., facial emotion recognition) and later-acquired components (e.g., knowledge of emotion regulation strategies) in 4- to 9-year-old children (N = 86). Emotion-specific vocabulary was measured by size (i.e., number of emotion words children use) and depth (i.e., adult-like use of emotion words). Findings emphasize the role of children’s emotion-specific vocabulary rather than general vocabulary for early-acquired and later-acquired components of emotion understanding, especially when measured by expressive tasks. At preschool age, the size of emotion-specific vocabulary explains children’s knowledge of emotion regulation strategies. In primary school, however, the depth of emotion-specific vocabulary becomes relevant for individual differences in emotion understanding. KW - Sprachkompetenz KW - Kleinkind KW - Kind KW - Gefühlsempfindung Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104790 SN - 0022-0965 VL - 193 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Große, Gerlind A1 - Streubel, Berit A1 - Gunzenhauser, Catherine A1 - Saalbach, Henrik T1 - Let’s Talk About Emotions BT - the Development of Children’s Emotion Vocabulary from 4 to 11 Years of Age JF - Affective Science N2 - Learning to use language in an adult-like way is a long-lasting process. This may particularly apply to complex conceptual domains such as emotions. The present study examined children’s and adults’ patterns of emotion word usage regarding their convergence and underlying semantic dimensions, and the factors influencing the ease of emotion word learning. We assessed the production of emotion words by 4- to 11-year-old children (N = 123) and 27 adults (M = 37 years) using a vignette test. We found that the older the children, the more emotion words they produced. Moreover, with increasing age, children’s pattern of emotion word usage converged with adult usage. The analysis for semantic dimensions revealed one clear criterion—the differentiation of positive versus negative emotions—for all children and adults. We further found that broad covering emotion words are produced earlier and in a more adult-like way. T2 - Sprechen wir über Emotionen: die Entwicklung des Emotionsvokabulars von Kindern im Alter von 4 bis 11 Jahren KW - Kleinkind KW - Kind KW - Semantik KW - Verbales Gedächtnis KW - Gefühlsausdruck KW - Faktorieller Survey Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00040-2 SN - 2662-205X VL - 2 IS - 2 SP - 150 EP - 162 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER -