Do Children Realize That Pretend Emotions Might Be Unreal?

ABSTRACT

This research is aimed at comparing children's understanding of the distinction between external and internal emotion in deception and pretend play situations. A total of 337 children from 4 to 12 years of age participated in the study. Previous research suggests that in deception situations this understanding is very rudimentary at the age of 4 years, whereas 6-year-olds can articulate it in words. In the present work the children were asked to make this distinction in pretend play or deception tasks. The results show that in pretend play situations children start making this distinction at the age of 6 years, and their performance is better when the simulated emotion is negative rather than positive. These findings suggest that 4-year-olds are not aware that the emotions expressed in pretend play situations might be different from internal emotions.

Keywords:

• children
• deception
• emotional understanding
• facial expression
• pretend play

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are pleased to thank all of the children interviewed, for their important role in this work. They also express their gratitude to the schools from Girona that participated in the study: Annexa-Joan Puigbert, Montfalgars, Joan Bruguera, Montjuïch, Dalmau Carles, Verd, and IES Santiago Sobrequés. This study has been partially funded by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (SEJ2006-12039).

Notes

The information concerning the justifications for the children's choice was not considered in the present article.

We conducted all post hoc tests using both Tamhane's T2 and Dunnet's T3 tests. Both led to the same conclusions. For brevity's sake, we only reported the results of Tamhane's T2.