A considerable body of research has shown that preschoolers who have a better understanding of emotions also have better social competence. In the present study, we focused on the potential roles that verbal ability and working memory may play in the relationship. A total of 187 4- to 6-year-old preschoolers completed: (i) the Test of Emotion…

The development of emotion understanding in young Chinese preschoolers was examined. The overall developmental trend, as measured by the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC), proved similar to that found among preschoolers in Western Europe. However, Chinese children performed better at understanding the distinction between real and apparent…

This study examines the contribution of children's linguistic ability and mothers' use of mental-state language to young children's understanding of false belief and their subsequent ability to make belief-based emotion attributions. In Experiment 1, children (N = 51) were given three belief-based emotion-attribution tasks. A standard task in…