Guseva, U.D.
Federal Scientific Center of Psychological and Multidisciplinary Research
Abstract
Background. Research on the development of emotion comprehension has accumulated a significant body of evidence. However, few studies address the extent to which emotion understanding varies across cultural contexts. This is the first study to compare the development of emotion comprehension in children from Russia, China, and Italy.
Objectives. The research aims to compare the development of the ability to understand emotions in Russian children aged 3 to 10 years with previously published diagnostic results for children of similar ages in Italy and China.
Study Participants. The sample of our study consisted of 925 children from Russia aged 36 to 119 months (M = 78.4 months; SD = 21.2 months) who attended public preschools and schools in Moscow in 2022–2024. Of these, 456 (49.3%) were boys and 469 (50.7%) were girls. Samples from other studies of emotion understanding in children that were compared with the Russian sample were: 1478 children aged 36 to 131 months from Italy (M = 73.5 months) and 257 children aged 42 to 114 months from China (M = 77.6 months).
Methods. To diagnose the ability to understand emotions in preschoolers, the F. Pons’ technique “Test of Emotion Comprehension” (TEC) was used. The assessment of emotion comprehension in children from Russia, Italy and China was carried out using a version of the specified test, adapted in accordance with the language specifics of each group of participants.
Results. The study showed that overall emotional understanding scores in Chinese children exceed those of Russian children. The difference between Russian and Italian children is insignificant and is only evident in a certain age range. Russian children demonstrate higher efficiency in recognizing emotions, understanding the nature of hidden emotions, and recognizing the moral component of emotional experiences. While children from Italy and China are more effective in developing the ability to connect emotions with beliefs, desires, and memories, as well as manage their emotional reactions.
Conclusions. The results confirm the cultural specificity of emotional development. Russian children are successful in recognizing hidden and moral emotions, but lag behind in understanding the cognitive aspects of emotions. The study highlights the
importance of cultural context in studying the understanding of emotions.
References
Bukhalenkova, D.A., Veraksa, A.N. Guseva, U.D., Oshchepkova, E.S. (2024). The relationship between vocabulary size and emotion understanding in children aged 5–7 years. Lomonosov Psychology Journal, 47(4), 150–176. (In Russ.).
https://doi.org/10.11621/LPJ-24-44
Cavadini, T., Richard, S., Dalla-Libera, N., Gentaz, E. (2021). Emotion knowledge, social behaviour and locomotor activity predict the mathematic performance in 706 preschool children. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 1–13.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93706-7
Cavioni, V., Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., Pepe, A., Pons, F. (2020). Assessing the factor structure and measurement invariance of the test of emotion comprehension (TEC): A large cross-sectional study with children aged 3–10 years. Journal of Cognition and Development, 21(3), 406–424.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2020.1741365
Cheie, L., Visu-Petra, L., Veraksa, A., Zinchenko, Y., Gorovaya, A. (2015). A cross-cultural investigation of inhibitory control, gen erative fluency, and anxiety symptoms in Romanian and Russian preschoolers. Child Neuropsychology, 21(2), 121–149.
Chen, X. (2009). Culture and early socio-emotional development. In: R.E. Tremblay, M. Boivin, R.D.V. Peters, (eds.). Encyclopedia on early childhood development. (pp. 1–6). Montreal: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development Publ.
Greenberg, M.T., Kusche, C.A., Cook, E.T., Quamma, J.P. (1995). Promoting emotional competence in school-aged children: The effects of the path curriculum. Development and Psychopathology, 7(1), 117–136.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579400006374
Gungor, D., Bornstein, M.H. (2010). Culture-general and-specific associations of attachment avoidance and anxiety with perceived parental warmth and psychological control among Turk and Belgian adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 33(5), 593–602.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2009.12.005
Guseva, U.D., Bukhalenkova, D.A., Kartashova, E.V., Morozova, O.V. (2025). The relationship between value orientations and understanding of emotions in preschoolers. Sovremennoye Doshkol’noye Obrazovaniye = Preschool Education Today, 19(1), 4–15. (In Russ.).
https://doi.org/10.24412/2782-4519-2025-1127-4-15
Harris, P., de Rosnay, M., Pons, F. (2016). Understanding emotion. In: L.F. Barrett, M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland-Jones, (eds.). Handbook of emotions, 4th ed. (pp. 293–306). New York: The Guilford Press.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: MacCraw-Hill Publ. Ilyenkov, E.V. (1991). Dialectical logic: Essays on history and theory. Moscow: Politizdat. (In Russ.)
Laugen, N.J., Kårstad, S.B., Reinfjell, T., Wichstrøm, L. (2024). The development of emotion understanding in children: The importance of parents, teachers, and peers. Developmental Psychology, 60(2), 255–264.
https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001627
Markus, H.R., Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224
Matsumoto, D. (2009). Culture and emotional expression. In: R.S. Wyer, C.-Y. Chiu, Y.-Y. Hong, (eds.). Understanding culture: Theory, research, and application. (pp. 271–287). New York: Psychology Press.
Molina, P., Bulgarelli, D., Henning, A., Aschersleben, G. (2014). Emotion understanding: A cross-cultural comparison between Italian and German preschoolers. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 11(5), 592–607.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2014.890585
Möller, C., Bull, R., Aschersleben, G. (2022). Culture shapes preschoolers’ emotion recognition but not emotion comprehension: a cross-cultural study in Germany and Singapore. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 6, 9–25.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-021-00093-6
Murray, D.R., Trudeau, R., Schaller, M. (2011). On the origins of cultural differences in conformity: Four tests of the pathogen prevalence hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(3), 318–329. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0146167210394451
Pons, F., Harris, P.L. (2000). Test of emotion comprehension (TEC). Oxford: University of Oxford Publ.
Pons, F., Harris, P.L. (2019). Children’s understanding of emotions or Pascal’s “error”: Review and prospects. In: V. LoBue, K. Pérez-Edgar, K.A. Buss, (eds.). Handbook of emotional development. (pp. 431–449). Cham: Springer Nature Publ.
Pons, F., Harris, P.L., de Rosnay, M. (2004). Emotion comprehension between 3 and 11 years: Developmental periods and hierarchical organization. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1(2), 127–152.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17405620344000022
Sheldon, K.M., Titova, L., Gordeeva, T.O., Osin, E.N., Lyubomirsky, S., Bogomaz, S. (2017). Russians Inhibit the Expression of Happiness to Strangers: Testing a Display Rule Model. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 48(5), 718–733.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022117699883
Tang, Y., Harris, P.L., Pons, F. (2019). The Development of Children’s Emotion Understanding: a Meta-Analysis of Results from the Test of Emotion Comprehension. In: Materials of 2019 SRCD Biennial Meeting (March 21–23, 2019). Baltimore: SRCD Publ.
Tang, Y., Harris, P.L., Pons, F., Zou, H., Zhang, W., Xu, Q. (2018). The understanding of emotion among young Chinese children. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 42(5), 512–517.
Tenenbaum, H.R., Visscher, P., Pons, F., Harris, P.L. (2004). Emotional understanding in Quechua children from an agro-pastoralist village. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 28(5), 471–478.
Torres, M.M., Domitrovich, C.E., Bierman, K.L. (2015). Preschool interpersonal relationships predict kindergarten achievement: Mediated by gains in emotion knowledge. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 39, 44–52.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2015.04.008
Triandis, H.C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Review, 96(3), 506–520.
Veraksa, N.E., Airapetyan, Z.V., Tarasova, K.S. (2023). Dialectical and formal thinking in the context of understanding emotions by young children. Teoreticheskaya i eksperimental’naya psikhologiya = Theoretical and Experimental Psychology, 3(16), 72–91. (In Russ.).
https://doi.org/10.11621/TEP-23-20
Veraksa, N.E., Veraksa, A.N., Gavrilova, M.N., Bukhalenkova, D.A., Tarasova, K.S. (2021). Test for understanding emotions: adaptation of the Russian-language version on a Russian sample of preschool children. Psikhologiya. Zhurnal Vysshei Shkoly ekonomiki = Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics, 1(18), 56–70. (In Russ.).
https://doi.org/10.17323/1813-8918-2021-1-56-70
Vishkin, A., Kitayama, S., Berg, M.K., Diener, E., Gross-Manos, D., Ben-Arieh, A., Tamir, M. (2023). Adherence to emotion norms is greater in individualist cultures than in collectivist cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(6), 1256–1276.
Zhuo, M. (2008). Study on the development of emotion comprehension of 2–9 year-old children. Diss. PhD. (Psychol.)
Zinchenko, Yu.P., Pervichko, E.I. (2016). Clinical psychological study of emotion regulation: cultural active approach.
Psychological Issues. Voprosy psikhologii, (3), 41–57. (In Russ.)
To cite this article:
Guseva, U.D. .
Development of Emotion Comprehension in Russian Children. // National Psychological Journal
2025. 3. Pages100-114. doi: 10.11621/npj.2025.0308
Copied to Clipboard
Copy
