Emotion-specific vocabulary and its relation to emotion understanding in children and adolescents

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and Shapiro-Wilk statistic for all main variables.

	Maximum score	10–11-year-olds (n = 29)				16–17-year-olds (n = 28)
		M (SD)	Min	Max	W	M (SD)	Min	Max	W
General expressive vocabulary	42 / 190	36.1 (2.5)	31	40	.93	145.8 (19.4)	105	182	.97
Emotion-specific vocabulary
Size	20	10.4 (2.1)	7	16	.96	14.2 (2.4)	9	18	.96
Depth	5.0	2.9 (0.6)	1.6	4.3	.99	3.3 (0.5)	2.3	4.1	.97
Emotion understanding
Emotion recognition (IDS)	10	8.8 (1.1)	7	10	.85***	–	–	–	–
Emotion recognition (GERT-S)	42	–				29.4 (5.1)	21	37	.95
Emotion regulation knowledge (IDS)	18	12.5 (3.0)	6	17	.94	–
Emotion regulation knowledge (IDS-2)	18	–				16.2 (1.5)	13	18	.92*

Note: M = Mean; SD = Standard deviation. W = Shapiro-Wilk Statistics for Normal Distribution. IDS, Intelligence and Development Scales. GERT-S, Geneva Emotion Recognition Test (short version).

*p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .001.

Table 2. Blockwise multiple regression analyses predicting emotion recognition and knowledge of emotion regulation strategies from general and emotion-specific vocabulary (β-values).

	Emotion recognition	Emotion regulation knowledge
Model 1
Constant	.017	.000
General expressive vocabulary	1.33**	.444
Age Group × General expressive vocabulary	−1.10**	−.421
R^2	.22	.02
F	5.89**	.55
Model 2a
Constant	.001	.000
General vocabulary	1.20**	.396
Age Group × General expressive vocabulary	−.914*	−.381
Emotion-specific vocabulary size	−.420	−.382
Age Group × Emotion-specific vocabulary size	.609	.330
ΔR^2 / R^2	.06 /.28**	.02 /.04
ΔF / F	1.61 / 3.83**	.42 /.48
Model 2b
Constant	.023	.000
General vocabulary	1.40**	.487
Age Group × General expressive vocabulary	−1.20*	−.475
Emotion-specific vocabulary depth	.032	−.483
Age Group × Emotion-specific vocabulary depth	−.118	.642
ΔR^2 / R^2	.01 /.23*	.06 /.08
ΔF / F	.17 / 2.29*	1.61 / 1.09
Model 3
Constant	.017	.000
General vocabulary	1.40**	.451
Age Group × General expressive vocabulary	−1.17**	−.473
Emotion-specific vocabulary size	−.689	−.057
Age Group × Emotion-specific vocabulary size	1.04*	−.197
Emotion-specific vocabulary depth	.456	−.495
Age Group × Emotion-specific vocabulary depth	−.755	.808
ΔR^2 / R^2	13 /.35**	10 /.12
ΔF / F	1.86 / 3.36**	1.36 / 2.28

Note: Coding of age group: 1 = 10–11-year-olds, 2 = 16–17-year-olds. ΔR²: Additional explained variance compared to Model 1.

* p ≤ .05. ** p ≤ .01.

Figure 1. A: Relation between general expressive vocabulary and emotion recognition for 10–11-year-old children and 16–17-year-old adolescents. B: Relation between emotion-specific vocabulary size and emotion recognition for 10–11-year-old children and 16–17-years-old adolescents.