A1 Journal article (refereed)
How do early family systems predict emotion recognition in middle childhood? (2022)

Laamanen, P., Kiuru, N., Flykt, M., Vänskä, M., Hietanen, J. K., Peltola, M. J., Kurkela, E., Poikkeus, P., Tiitinen, A., & Lindblom, J. (2022). How do early family systems predict emotion recognition in middle childhood?. Social Development, 31(1), 196-211. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12526

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Laamanen, Petra; Kiuru, Noona; Flykt, Marjo; Vänskä, Mervi; Hietanen, Jari K.; Peltola, Mikko J.; Kurkela, Enni; Poikkeus, Piia; Tiitinen, Aila; Lindblom, Jallu

Journal or series: Social Development

ISSN: 0961-205X

eISSN: 1467-9507

Publication year: 2022

Publication date: 14/07/2021

Volume: 31

Issue number: 1

Pages range: 196-211

Publisher: Wiley

Publication country: United Kingdom

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12526

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/77168

Abstract

Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a fundamental element in human interaction. It begins to develop soon after birth and is important in achieving developmental tasks of middle childhood, such as developing mutual friendships and acquiring social rules of peer groups. Despite its importance, FER research during middle childhood continues to be rather limited. Moreover, research is ambiguous on how the quality of one's early social-emotional environment shapes FER development, and longitudinal studies spanning from infancy to later development are scarce. In this study, we examine how the cohesive, authoritarian, disengaged and enmeshed family system types, assessed during pregnancy and infancy, predict children's FER accuracy and interpretative biases towards happiness, fear, anger and sadness at the age of 10 years (N = 79). The results demonstrated that children from disengaged families (i.e., highly distressed relationships) show superior FER accuracy to those from cohesive families (i.e., harmonious and stable relationships). Regarding interpretative biases, children from cohesive families showed a greater fear bias compared to children from disengaged families. Our findings suggest that even in a relatively low-risk population, variation in the quality of children's early family relationships may shape children's subsequent FER development, perhaps as an evolution-based adaptation to their social-emotional environment.

Keywords: children (age groups); school-age children; child development; social development; family relations; family background; social interaction; emotions; face recognition (cognition); developmental psychology

Free keywords: early social-emotional environment; emotion recognition; family system; middle childhood; person-oriented

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

Reporting Year: 2022

JUFO rating: 1