Children’s Emotion Understanding: Preliminary Data from the Italian Validation Project of Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC)

Children’s understanding of emotions is an aspect or ability which has met with special attention within the body of research devoted to the development of emotional competence. Emotional competence is the set of skills that help one to recognize, understand, and respond consistently to other people’s emotions as well as regulate the expression of one’s own (Saarni, 1999). With respect to emotional competence, the literature produced in the field of developmental psychology falls within the theoretical framework of studies on children’s theory of mind and meta-representational skills (Astington, Harris & Olson, 1988; Harris, 1989). Based on extensive investigations conducted in the last two decades (e.g. Harris, 1983;1991; Harris, Olthof & Meerum Terwogt, 1981; Harris, Donnelly, Guz & Pitt-Watson, 1986; Bretherton, Fritz, Zahn-Waxler & Ridgeway, 1986; Kestenbaum & Gelman, 1995; Lagattuta, Wellman & Flavell, 1997; Lagattuta & Wellman, 2001; Pons, Lawson, Harris & de Rosnay, 2003; for a review: Grazzani & Antoniotti in press), authors have described well-identified developmental stages and outlined their hierarchical relations in the development of emotion understanding (Pons, Harris & de Rosnay, 2004). The chapter by Pons, de Rosnay, Doudin and Harris in this book illustrates the hierarchical model, emphasizing nine distinct components concerning the nature, the causes and the regulation of emotions. Children develop an understanding of the different components between three and eleven years of age. Three different stages may be identified (external, mental, reflective), and the experimental tasks performed by children are connected, at each stage, to the understanding of a few specific interrelated components (Pons, Harris & de Rosnay, 2004).