Acknowledgments

1. Acknowledgments Brian Ackerman George Bear Sam Blumberg Frank BoxwillEric Youngstrom Jen Kogos Youngstrom David Schultz Sarah Fine Allison Mostow Christopher Trentacosta Kristen King Fran Haskins Margaret Feerick Jenny Anderson Dante Cicchetti Michael Morrow 100s of UGRAs 600 Children and their Parents and Preschool Teachers (mostly ECAP and Head Start)

2. Accelerating the Development of Emotion Competence: Overview • The centrality of emotions, emotion knowledge (EK), emotion regulation (ER), and emotion utilization (EU) in development and functioning • The development and correlates of EK • The Effects of an Emotions Course on children living in poverty: Increased EK, ER, EU, and the self-regulation of negative behavior • Explanations of Emotion Course effects

3. Claims of an Emotion Theory Zealot: I. Emotions Drive All Personally and Socially Significant Behavior. II. Without Emotions, We Would Have No: - Stable sense of self - Empathy - Enduring relationships - Altruism - Conscience - Values - Morality - Goals III. We Can Have Them All by Modulating and Utilizing Emotion Motivation

4. Emotions in Perspective EMOTIONS Emotionality/ Temperament/ Personality Cognition Action

7. Early Emergence and Functionality of Emotion Expressions EmotionAge/MoFunction • Interest 0 - 1 Exploration/Lrng • Joy 2 - 3 Broadens & Builds Resources • Sadness 3 - 5 Elicits Empathy • Anger 3 - 5 Action vs. Restraints • Fear 9 - 11 Protection/safety

8. Infants’ Emotion Competencies:By Age 3- 5 Months, Infants Can: 1. Encode and decode some basic emotion expressions 2. Protest the loss of animation/expression in mother’s face 3. Discriminate mother’s expressions of sadness and anger 4. Respond differentially to these expressions

9. Emotion/Language-Based Competencies: Age 2-3 Years 1.Limited emotion vocabulary 2. Limited ability to: • match a key expression with one in a set of four • match an emotion expression and an eliciting stimulus • match a pictorial and verbal representation on an emotion • produce verbal labels for facial expressions [Emotion Matching Task (EMT)] Moreover, poverty and its co-factors delays the development of all these processes

10. Emotion Recognition and Emotion Labeling for French (N=140) and American N (ER) =286; N (EL) =281) children. Mean Score Chronological Age Izard, The face of emotion (1971)

11. Growth in Understanding of Situational Cues of Emotions: Shame Percentage of Items Correct Fine, Izard, et al. (2003) Development and Psychopathology

12. Development of Emotion Knowledge and Social Skills: Early to Middle Childhood

13. Emotion Knowledge, Social Skills, and Peer Acceptance – Achieving Emotion Competence: Middle to late Childhood Mostow, A. & Izard, C. (Submitted, 4/05)

14. A Risk Index That Includes EK and Empathy Mediated the Effect of Trait Emotionality on Aggression Anger .38* Aggression .76 -.25* Happiness .37* Anger Emotion Processing Risk Index .94 .06 Aggression .70 .26* -.22* Happiness -.19* Schultz, Izard, & Bear (2004) Development and Psychopathology

15. Emotion Knowledge (EK) Predicts Social and Academic Competence: Head Start EK mediates the effect of verbal ability on first grade academic performance Emotion Knowledge .61 (eq. 1) .36 (eq. 3) Verbal Ability Academic Competence .39 (eq. 2) .11 (eq. 3) Izard et al. (2001) Psychological Science

16. Emotion Knowledge, Social Skills, and Academic Competence β = .16 Verbal Ability Academic Competence Social Skills β = .36 β = .26 Emotion Knowledge β = .20 Late Childhood Middle Childhood Trentacosta, Mostow, & Izard (2005), SRCD Poster

17. Theoretical Framework for the Emotions Course. Emotions: 1. Are part of our biology and culture 2. Are part of temperament and personality 3. Serve critical developmental functions 4. Facilitate the development of relationships, empathy, morality 5. Motivate goal-directed cognition and behavior Effective Regulation of Emotions Enables the Child to Utilize Their Inherent Adaptiveness and Capitalize on the Energy and Motivational Properties of Emotional Arousal.

18. The Teacher-Implemented Emotions Course For Preschoolers 1. 20 lessons on interest, joy, sadness, anger, fear, and contempt. Puppet shows, emotion games, emotion story books 2. Increases awareness of the expressions, feeling states, and functions of emotions 3. Encourages children to express modulated emotions and talk about feelings 4. Emphasizes utilization of the inherently adaptive energy and motivation of modulated emotion (No Extrinsic Rewards)

19. Methods: Outcome Measures(Administered Pre- and Post EC) • Emotion Knowledge: 48 item Emotion Matching Task (C) • Emotion Regulation Checklist (T) • C-TRF Aggressive Behavior (T) • C-TRF Anx/Dprsd Behavior (T) • Emotion Expression Rating Scale (T) • Preschool Competence Q-aire (T) • Negative social Interactions (O) • Negative Emotion Expression (O) IQ Control Measure: Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (C)

20. Hypotheses: The Emotions Course 1. Will increase emotion knowledge and emotion regulation 2. Will decrease symptoms of behavior problems and psychopathology

21. Research Design • Quasi-experimental design • Randomly assigned Head Start Centers/Classrooms to Treatment (Emotions Course) and Control Groups • Treatment = Head Start Curriculum + Emotions Course (N = 107) • Control = Head Start Curriculum (N = 63)

22. Procedure WeekEvent 1-4 Children Accommodate to HS 5 Tchrs Complete Ratings of Children 6-10 UGRAs Complete Pre-tests 11-31 Tchrs Conduct Emotions Course 32-36 UGRAs and Tchrs Complete Post-tests

23. Results • Data analysis via Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM): • EC • Increased: • Emotion Knowledge and Emotion Regulation • Decreased: • Negative Emotion Expressions • Anxious/Depressed Behavior • Aggressive Behavior • Negative Social Interactions

25. Emotion Regulation Emotion Regulation (ERC) Emotions Course (EC) t = -2.61 p < .05 Effect Size r = 0.55

26. Aggression Aggression (C-TRF) t = -2.61 p < .05 Effect Size r = 0.55 Emotions Course (EC)

27. Negative Emotion Expression Negative Emotion Expression (EERS) Emotions Course EC t = -1.80† p < .10 Effect Size r = 0.41

28. Observations of Negative Peer Interactions Observed Negative Peer Interactions Emotions Course (EC) t = -3.43 p < .01 Effect Size r = 0.65

29. Anxious/DepressedBehavior Anxious/ Depressed (C-TRF) Emotions Course EC t = -2.88 p < .05 Effect Size r = 0.58

30. EC Effect on Percentage of Borderline or Clinical C-TRF Scores pretest χ2 (1, N = 123) = 7.67, p < .01 posttest χ2 (1, N = 102) = 6.79, p < .01

31. Explaining the Effects of the Emotions Course (EC): Behavioral Level • EC enabled children to experience and talk about emotions in a safe learning environment. • EC increased emotion knowledge (EK), which increased the capacity for empathy and emotion regulation. • The interaction of EK and modulated emotion arousal increased continual emotion awareness, via intersystem (emotion-cognition) connectivity. • The increase in awareness of emotions and understanding of their characteristics and functions increased utilization of their inherently adaptive properties.

32. Explaining EC Effects: Developmental Level: EC accelerated the transition from phenomenal emotion experience to language-related emotion that enables: 1.Conscious control and utilization of emotions 2.Growth of executive function • Neural Level: EC increased connectivity between: • Sub-cortical and cortical emotion systems • Insular cortex (and possibly other cortical midline systems that  feelings) and the ACC (that facilitates experiencing feelings as emotion motivation

33. Conclusion • We think the increased connectivity and emotion competence resulted primarily from increased emotion knowledge and emotion regulation and utilization via: • 1. Playful emotion games (child play drives brain development) 2. Emotion-language development (conscious control of emotions) 3. Emotion motivated techniques for self regulation 4. Freedom to express and utilize modulated emotions