Children´s comprehension of emotion: A cross-cultural investigation

Roazzi, A., Dias, M. B. B., Minervino, C. M., Roazzi, M. & Pons, F. (2009). Children´s comprehension of emotion: A cross-cultural investigation. In: D. Elizur & E. Yaniv. (Orgs.), Theory Construction and Multivariate Analysis: Applications of Facet Approach (pp. 83-102). Jerusalem: FTA. https://goo.gl/MmGzWm  DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2790.3600Abstract: A sample of 396 children balanced for sex and type of school - 42,2% from a state school and 57,8%  from a private school; 44,2% males and 55,8 % females) aged from 4 to 12 years - were individually tested at the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) to assess their understanding of nine aspects of emotions. An SSA of the ordination of the scores in the nine components was computed in order to analyze the interrelationship between these two brazilian groups with three other groups: british, italian, and quéchua. Several similarities were observed between brazilian children and the other 3 groups, notwithstanding the fact that state school children presented strong discrepancies in 4 of the nine components of the TEC when compared with the british group. This discrepancy of the state school group is clearly depicted in the SSA plot indicating similarities and differences of these groups with the other children’s groups.  Implications of these findings for better comprehending the performance of children from different culture and social background in the  TEC is discussed.