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Le traitement des émotions chez des enfants maltraités vivant dans un contexte de stress intense
Abstract
RÉSUMÉ : Le traitement des émotions chez des enfants maltraités vivant dans un contexte de stress intense
Le but de cette recherche était d’étudier la reconnaissance des émotions chez des enfants maltrai- tés âgés entre cinq et sept ans, à l’aide du subtest Affect Recognition de la NEPSY-II. Le groupe est composé de 22 garçons et 12 filles qui reçoivent des services des centres de protection de la jeunesse. Les résultats démontrent que seulement les garçons ont obtenu un rendement inférieur par rapport aux filles et par rapport aux normes du test. Par ailleurs, le QI n’a pas influencé le rendement des enfants. Les résultats sont expliqués par les effets néfastes du stress intense sur le développement des habiletés socio-émotionnelles
Mots clés : maltraitance – reconnaissance des émotions – stress.
SUMMARY: Recognition of emotion in maltreated children living in intense stress context.
The purpose of this research was to study emotion recognition in maltreated children from five to se- ven years of age, with the Affect Recognition subtest from the NEPSY-II. The group was composed of 22 boys and 12 girls all receiving child protective care services. Results show that boys had significantly lower scores, when compared with girls and with the test’s norms. Also, IQ didn’t influence children’s per- formances. Results are explained by the negative impacts of intense stress on the development of socio- emotional abilities.
Key words: Child abuse – Emotion recognition – Stress.
RESUMEN: Tratamiento de las emociones en niños maltratados que viven en un entorno de stress intenso
El objetivo de este ensayo es estudiar el reconocimiento de las emociones en niños maltratados con edades comprendidas entre cinco y siete años, con el subtest Affect Recognition de la NEPSY-II. El grupo está compuesto por 22 niños y 12 niñas acogidos a los servicios de los centros de protección de la juventud. Los resultados muestran que los niños obtienen un rendimiento inferior respecto a las niñas y respecto a los valores normales del test. Por otra parte, el CI no influye en el rendimiento de los niños y niñas. Los resultados se explican por los efectos nefastos del stress intenso sobre el desarrollo de las habilidades so- cioemocionales.
Palabras clave: maltrato – reconocimiento de las emociones – stress.
This article is a reply to Kagan’s (in press) commentary on our earlier article (Luke & Banerjee, 2013), which presented a meta-analysis and systematic review of research on the links between childhood maltreatment and social understanding. We address Kagan’s comments about the depiction of maltreatment as an isolated independent variable, and consider the specific obstacles faced by researchers in this area when seeking to understand the role played by social–contextual factors. We also consider how Kagan’s extension of our argument about heterogeneity in maltreated samples might usefully be applied to future research with this vulnerable group.
The extreme parenting experiences encountered by children who are physically abused or neglected place them at increased risk for impaired socio-emotional development. There is growing evidence that maltreated children may apprehend interpersonal encounters in different ways from children without such traumatic histories. This systematic review examines the links between childhood physical abuse and neglect and various constituent skills of social understanding (including emotion recognition and understanding, perspective taking, false belief understanding, and attributional biases) in 51 empirical studies. The review incorporates a meta-analysis of 19 studies on emotion recognition and understanding in this population. This showed an overall negative effect of maltreatment, but moderation analyses revealed that significantly stronger effects were found for measures of emotion understanding rather than recognition, and for younger rather than older age groups. The broader review also reveals a complex and differentiated profile of social understanding among maltreated children. Directions for future research that addresses individual differences in children’s experiences, both within and outside the maltreatment context, are discussed.
Presented a series of short stories to 200 3-8 yr. Olds. Ss indicated how the child in each situation felt by selecting a happy, sad, afraid, or angry face to complete the picture accompanying each story. Results support piaget's observation that social sensitivity increases with age but challenge his position that young children are egocentric and unable to understand another person's viewpoint. Children as young as age 3 showed an awareness of other people's feelings and could identify the specific situations that evoke different kinds of affective responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined whether spontaneous facial expressions provide observers with sufficient information to distinguish accurately which of 7 affective states (6 emotional and 1 neutral) is being experienced by another person. Six undergraduate senders' facial expressions were covertly videotaped as they watched emotionally loaded slides. After each slide, senders nominated the emotions term that best described their affective reaction and also rated the pleasantness and strength of that reaction. Similar nominations of emotion terms and ratings were later made by 53 undergraduate receivers who viewed the senders' videotaped facial expression. The central measure of communication accuracy was the match between senders' and receivers' emotion nominations. Overall accuracy was significantly greater than chance, although it was not impressive in absolute terms. Only happy, angry, and disgusted expressions were recognized at above-chance rates, whereas surprised expressions were recognized at rates that were significantly worse than chance. Female Ss were significantly better senders than were male Ss. Although neither sex was found to be better at receiving facial expressions, female Ss were better receivers of female senders' expressions than of male senders' expressions. Female senders' neutral and surprised expressions were more accurately recognized than were those of male senders. The only sex difference found for decoding emotions was a tendency for male Ss to be more accurate at recognizing anger. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper examines sex differences in nonverbal communication and possible explanations for these differences. Explanations are discussed for both encoding and decoding, including the probable reasons for women being generally more accurate decoders than men and “losing their advantage” over men in situations where the encoder is known or where deception or channel discrepancy is involved. Explanations for sex differences in nonverbal communication generally focus on what it is about women which causes them to decode less accurately in these particular situations rather than why men generally decode poorly, except in these specific situations. This bias occurs despite the fact that both men and women have difficulty decoding discrepant and deceptive communications. It will be argued in this paper that the most parsimonious explanation of sex differences in nonverbal accuracy involves women's greater knowledge of and endorsement for social rules about (a) emotional supportiveness and politeness, (b) display and decoding rules concerning how emotional messages should be sent and attended to, and (c) the specific codes and usages of nonverbal communication.
Teachers' conception and use of the terms “learning disability” and “emotional disturbance” was investigated in two studies to determine the implications for developing educational programs. In Study I, experienced teachers in a special education certification program categorized 106 child characteristics as LD, ED, or both LD and ED. In Study II, in-service teachers specified annual achievement goals and extent of regular class placement for the same child bearing either the LD or ED label. Results from Study I showed that the majority of child characteristics were considered by teachers to be relevant to either LD or ED labels. A subset of 23 characteristics was significantly related to one or the other label—LD characteristics representing academic and health/development areas, and ED characteristics representing psychological and behavioral areas. In Study II, teachers recalled the ED label significantly more often than the LD label, but did not specify significantly different goals or regular class participation for the child under the two labeling conditions. The findings support the conclusion that teachers can treat the LD and ED constructs as mutually exclusive when eligibility for special service is the decision, and as mutually inclusive when program-planning decisions are made.
To study the effects of gender on ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion, two separate samples of male and female undergraduates (727 in Study 1, 399 in Study 2) judged 120 color photographs of people posing one of four negative emotions: anger, disgust, fear, and sadness. Overall, females exceeded males in their ability to recognize emotions whether expressed by males or by females. As an exception, males were superior to females in recognizing male anger. The findings are discussed in terms of social sex-roles.
Preschool, kindergarten, first and second-grade children were told twelve stories describing emotion-inducing events. After each story the subjects were presented either with three emotion labels (e.g., happy, sad, surprised) or with facial expressions of three emotions. Subjects were asked to choose the label or expression appropriate for the story''s main character. Data analysis showed that children''s accuracy increased with age. Performance was high on both response measures but recognition of labels exceeded that of facial expressions. Some of the six emotions studied (e.g., happiness and sadness) were recognized more easily than others (surprise, fear, and anger), with disgust being correctly identified least often.
Sixty children between the ages of 3 and 5 participated in this study of children's ability to discriminate emotions in others. Twelve children were identified as neglected, and eight were identified as abused. Two additional groups of nonmaltreated children included one comparable on IQ and one with significantly higher intelligence. All children were given three tests: The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, the Borke Interpersonal Awareness Test and the Rothenberg Social Sensitivity Test. The results showed that normal children with the higher IQ were significantly better able to identify and discriminate other people's emotions from picture stories than were the other groups of children, who were not different from one another on any of the measures. Furthermore, when IQ was covaried in the ANOVAS, all group-differences disappeared. It was suggested that previous studies demonstrating inferior performance on measures of social cognition by maltreated children may have been due to the failure to control for IQ.
Following leads from differential emotions theory and empirical research, we evaluated an index of emotion knowledge as a long-term predictor of positive and negative social behavior and academic competence in a sample of children from economically disadvantaged families (N = 72). The index of emotion knowledge represents the child's ability to recognize and label emotion expressions. We administered control and predictor measures when the children were 5 years old and obtained criterion data at age 9. After controlling for verbal ability and temperament, our index of emotion knowledge predicted aggregate indices of positive and negative social behavior and academic competence. Path analysis showed that emotion knowledge mediated the effect of verbal ability on academic competence. We argue that the ability to detect and label emotion cues facilitates positive social interactions and that a deficit in this ability contributes to behavioral and learning problems. Our findings have implications for primary prevention.