ABSTRACT
This study examined the development of emotion understanding. Children (N = 296, 157 boys, 139 girls) and parents (67% White, 8% Black, 15% Hispanic, 2% Asian American, 6% Biracial, 2% “Other”) recruited from Denver, Colorado were observed annually for four years starting in 2019 (beginning M
age = 2.44 years, SD = 0.26) discussing a wordless storybook featuring illustrated emoters expressing joy, sadness, fear, anger, or disgust towards a referent (e.g., dropped ice cream). Analyses revealed changes and bidirectional relations in children’s and parents’ emoter talk and referent talk across early childhood, as well as differences in parent and child relative emoter-referent emphasis for discrete emotions. Implications for the ontogeny and socialization of young children’s emotion understanding will be discussed.