The attribution of self-conscious emotions (envy) The attribution of self-conscious emotions (envy) byby3 to 5 year-old children: A comparison of three 3 to 5 year-old children: A comparison of three

culturescultures.. Laura Quintanilla, Encarna Sarriá & Kristine Jensen de López.

National University of Distance Education, Spain & University of Aalborg, Denmark.

International Society for Cultural and Activity Reseach.University of California, San Diego, September 8-13, 2008.

Envy Definition: “spite and resentment at seeing the

success of another” or “happiness for misfortune of another”.

[…] implies a pattern of behaviors produced by the loss of the own prestige, compared with someone else’s success (Dogan y Vechio, 2001).

Involves a moral aspect.

Has not previously been studied by developmental psychologist.

Our Aims To explore the influence of culture (Zapotec,

Spanish & Danish) on the development of emotional comprehension within contexts of envy.

To explore the emotional attributions within a basic envy context and the type of explanations children provide.

To explore the relation between emotional attribution explanations and coping strategies in envy contexts.

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Cultural meanings of envy Anthropologists consider envy to be a universal l

emotionemotion.

Developmental psychologist describe envy as a self-conscious emotion.

However, meanings differ among cultures.

Meaning relies on one’s conception about the world and is influenced by one’s exposure to specific cultural practices regarding access to goods.

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Cultural meanings of envy

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In Mesoamerican societies (Zapotec) the emotion of envy is consider to be a “Threat” (Foster, 1972).

In Western societies the emotion of envy is considered to mediate the person’s feeling of “Pride” and self-esteem.

Developmental Psychology

Envy is considered a self-conscious emotion as opposed to non-basic emotions (happy, sad etc).

Envy doesn’t have a body expression. In order to understand the emotion of envy one must have knowledge about the distinction between Other-Self (Baldwin, 1962).

Recognition of Envy requires mental understanding and inferences about the desires of others. It is seen as a complex mental emotion.6

The Triadic Relation in contexts of envy

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I want to have

it!

Emotional comprehension: cross-cultural evidence

Mental concepts (think, know, desire, etc.) are understood by children at an early age across different cultures.

However, development of emotional comprehension can differ depending on the cultural setting.

Explaining and appraising a situation also differs

between cultural groups (Cole, Brushi & Tamang, 2001; Lillard, et al., 2007; Mesquita y Walker, 2000).

Coping devices employed in emotional situations are dependent on cultural rules (Cole et al., 2001). 8

Our Hypothesis

Young children’s abilities to attribute the self-conscious emotion of envy follow similar pathways across different societies.

Young children’s explanation about emotional

attributions may differ across societies.

Young children’s coping devices may differ across societies.

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Method Participants:

150 children (45 Spanish, 70 Danish & 37 Zapotec)

53 three year-olds (36-47 months) 57 four year-olds (48 -59 months) 50 five years-olds (60-72 months)

Populations El Carpio de Tajo, Toledo, Spain. Brovst, Northern Jutland, Denmark. Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca, Mexico.

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Procedure: Two stories conveying envy:

The Backpack Story How does Sara feel? And Theresa, how

does she feel?

How does Sara feel, now?

And Theresa, when she sees Sara’s backpack is broken, how does she feel?

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The Camera Story

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Maria comes back and sees that Marta has the camera. 3) How does Maria feel? 4) And Marta, how does she feel? Now you finish the story, 5) what will do Maria to feel happy again?

Maria goes out and leaves the camera on the playground. Then Marta takes it and pretends she is taking photos.

Now Maria finds a piece of plastic. She pretends it’s a camera. She pretends she’s taking photos. Marta is watching Maria. She wants the camera too. But, Maria does not want to lend it. Now, can you tell me, 1) How does Maria feel? 2) And Marta, how does she feel? Why do they feel X?

Maria and Marta go out to the playground and they find a lot of things. But the things are all broken and they don’t have anything to play,with.

Critical questions for emotions

1. How does Maria feel?

2. And Marta, how does she feel?

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3. How does Maria feel now?

4. And Marta, how does she feel?

1. Good 2. Bad. 3. Bad. 4. Good. (GBBG)

Or Other Patterns. (OP)

Analysis of Response Patterns

1) Response patterns for the emotional questions.

2) Response patterns for the justification questions.

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How does Sara feel? (new backpack)

How does Theresa feel? (old backpack)

How does Sara feel? (torn backpack)

How does Theresa feel? (now that Sara’s backpack is torn)

Camera Story

Camera Story

Camera Story

Results for Strategy Patterns within

each culture

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Critical question for eliciting strategies

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What will Maria do to feel happy again?

Responses categories for the Solution Strategies

Irrelevant

Maria retains the camera.

Maria shares it.

Distract strategy. (Looking for other object)

Summary of Results

Children from all three cultures understand that a person can be happy when witnessing the misfortune of another person – the emotion of envy.

However, there are differences in the onset of, but not in the trajectory of understanding envy across cultures.

Zapotec children compared with the Spanish and Danish children express different patterns for resolution strategies in resolving a conflict caused by envy.

Discussion & Conclusions Are the obtained differences due to different pattern of

socialization that are practised within the cultures, e.g.

Spanish parents use distractive strategies when their children disagree about an object.

Spanish/Danish parents socialize their children into the “you should share your toys” mode.

Although the Zapotec children share their toys during break time in the school, our results suggest they aren’t able to explicitly suggest these rules in the present tasks.

Does conceptualizing envy as a threat motivate Zapotec children towards strategies that avoid the confrontation of the emotion of envy.

Remember, saying and knowing explicitly the rules is no garanti that the child will apply them in vivo!

Many Thanks Thanks a lot to the children, parents, teachers from both

Atlantic sides. We are grateful for their collaboration. Thanks to the Caledonian Glasgow University, where the

first author spent a fruitful period preparing the study.

Part of this study has been supported by the Ministry of Education and Science (SEJ2006-07491) in Spain.

T. Arnfrídardóttir, L. Clasen, M. Holst, M. Hougaard, S. Kiilerich, J. Kordovsky, M. Møller, D. Nielsen, N. Oppenhagen, A. Pihl, S. Schönhoff, S. Søgaard & V. Tualborg for assistance with data collection and coding.

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