Children's subjective perception of mixed emotions: An adaption of the Analogue Emotions Scale (AES)

Objectives: Explorations into children’s understanding of emotions have been previously analysed as sequential, without consideration for whether multiple emotions can be experienced simultaneously and across time. This study
16 aims to expand the developmental work of the Analogue Emotions Scale (AES), which has been used in adults to measure simultaneous perceptions of more than one emotion state. Objectives were to investigate the ability to perceive multiple emotions as well as whether there are developmental differences when children first identify emotions in themselves and someone else.
Design: Children were placed into one of three conditions where they were asked about the emotions of a protagonist (age-matched peer, adult, or self); in a 6 (age groups) x 3 (protagonist) design.
Methods: Participants (N=181) ranged in age from 4-10 years. The experimenter read a short vignette about moving house, where the protagonist is missing old friends, but making new ones. Children were asked to identify the emotions (classed broadly as negative and positive for purpose of analysis) felt by the protagonist throughout the story. Children plotted both the intensity and duration of each chosen emotion.
Results: Initial investigations show a significant association between age and the reporting of mixed versus single emotions, for the adult condition only ꭓ2(5)=13.176, p=.022.
Conclusions: We conclude that developmental changes in the ability to report multiple emotions vary as a function of context.