Emotion understanding: A cross-cultural comparison between Italian and German preschoolers

Abstract

Italy and Germany belong to the Latin and the Germanic cultural cluster, respectively, and show, e.g., diverse languages, religious practices, rearing styles, and socialization goals. Given potential cultural differences in the developmental goals of independence and interdependence, the present work sought to explore developmental differences between Italian and German 3–6-year-old children's understanding of emotion assessed by the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC). On average, Italian (n = 114) compared to German (n = 108) preschoolers mastered more TEC components at the ages 3 and 5. On component level, however, the samples only differed on the component Hiding: more Italian compared to German preschoolers understood that expressed and felt emotion may differ. Cultural differences within the Western industrial world thus likely relate to specific components rather than overall competence. Results will be discussed in relation to cultural belonging, controlling for maternal educational level, presence of siblings, and multilingualism.

Keywords::

• Emotion comprehension
• Cultural differences
• TEC (Test of Emotion Comprehension)

Acknowledgements

We thank the psychology undergraduate students of the Empiriepraktikum 2010–2011, and Annette Brückner and Christoph Kowalski for help with the collection and coding of the German data. Special thanks to Christiane Mink for organizational support. We also thank Bettina Janke for helpful comments regarding the testing procedure and coding of the German version of the Test of Emotion Comprehension. We thank professor Ottavia Albanese and all Italian co-authors of the Italian version of the Test of Emotion Comprehension for making the standardization data available. We are especially grateful to the Kita gGmbH and to German and Italian kindergarten staff for their support, and to the parents and children who participated in the study.