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Emotion understanding in postinstitutionalized Eastern European children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2004

ALISON B. WISMER FRIES  and
SETH D. POLLAK
ALISON B. WISMER FRIES
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin at Madison
SETH D. POLLAK
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin at Madison
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Abstract

To examine the effects of early emotional neglect on children's affective development, we assessed children who had experienced institutionalized care prior to adoption into family environments. One task required children to identify photographs of facial expressions of emotion. A second task required children to match facial expressions to an emotional situation. Internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized children had difficulty identifying facial expressions of emotion. In addition, postinstitutionalized children had significant difficulty matching appropriate facial expressions to happy, sad, and fearful scenarios. However, postinstitutionalized children performed as well as comparison children when asked to identify and match angry facial expressions. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of emotional input early in life on later developmental organization.The authors thank Paul Ekman and Linda Camras for making their facial expression stimuli available to us. Dirk Wilker, Ziggy Bialzik, and Craig Rypstat provided invaluable assistance with computer programming and the computerized implementation of the tasks reported in this article. We also appreciate the assistance of Gabrielle Sowle, Marna Brown, Justin Martin, Susan Perlman, Kristi Johnson, Anne Kolan, Erin Eatough, and Sarah Pluck in the collection of these data. Linda Camras provided very helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. These experiments would not be possible without the participation of many children and their families, for whose collaboration we are extremely appreciative. A preliminary version of these data were presented at the 2003 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health to Seth Pollak (MH 68858 and MH 61285). Alison Wismer Fries was also supported by a National Institutes of Health Training Program in Emotion Research (MH 18931).

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 355 - 369
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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