Children's understanding that emotion influences behaviour

Young children‘s understanding that emotions influence behaviour has been neglected in past research. Two studies examined children‘s understanding that emotion influences behaviour. In study 1, 35 (17 girls; 18 boys) 4-year-old and 27 (13 girls; 14 boys) 6-year-old children answered questions probing their understanding of how emotions influence behaviour and completed a standardised test of emotion understanding. Six-year-old children had a greater understanding that emotions influence situations than did four-year-old children, which was related to mentalistic aspects of emotion understanding. In study 2, 90 children aged 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 answered questions about the likelihood of action based on emotion. There was an age increase in understanding with children 4 years and older scoring above chance. The findings suggest that children‘s understanding that emotions influence their behaviour is a distinct component of emotion understanding that emerges in early childhood.