DEVELOPMENT OF ACHIEVEMENT-RELATED EMOTIONS

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Developmental change in children's experience, expression, and understanding of achievement-related emotions will be investigated in the proposed research. The research is based on a cognitive-evaluation model of emotions: emotional experiences are assumed to become increasingly differentiated with age in part because the underlying cognitive constructs become more differentiated. In the first set of studies behaviors--including facial expressions and postural cues--presumed to reflect pride and shame are examined in children aged one-and-a-half to four years. Achievement-related situations are systematically varied to provide evidence on the early emergence of pride and shame in situations in which success and failure are defined by task-intrinsic criteria, the difficult level of the task, and social comparison. The second set of studies concerns developmental change in the situational variables associated with the experience of achievement-related emotions. The studies address developmental questions based on an attribution model of emotions. The first study employs vignettes to provide information on children's judgments about the relationships between emotional responses (pride, shame, guilt, happiness, sadness, gratitude, surprise) and causal attributions (luck, ability, effort, other's help). The second study extends the first by studying the same emotional responses in a real achievement task situation. The studies have practical as well as theoretical value. Children spend a considerable portion of their time in achievement settings and their emotional experiences in those settings have important implications for their mental health and well-being and their school achievement.