Riddell, C., Nikolić, M., Dusseldorp, E., & Kret, M. E. (2024). Age-related changes in emotion recognition across childhood: A meta-analytic review.Psychological Bulletin, 150(9), 1094–1117.https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000442
Key TakeawaysThe primary methods of examining children’s emotion recognition development include analyzing accuracy across age groups for recognizing basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust) in facial expressions, body language, and vocalizations.Factors like age, task type (e.g. forced-choice vs. free labeling), stimulus characteristics (e.g. static vs. dynamic), and geographical region significantly affect children’s emotion recognition accuracy.Children’s recognition accuracy improves across childhood (ages 2-12) for all basic emotions, with happiness being recognized most accurately and fear/disgust least accurately across ages.This research has certain limitations such as focusing only on basic emotions, including mostly studies from Western countries, and not examining children’s misattributions/errors in emotion recognition.Understanding the development of emotion recognition abilities is universally relevant as it represents a crucial social skill for children’s healthy development and psychosocial outcomes.
Key Takeaways
Rationale
This meta-analysis aimed to comprehensively examine how children’semotion recognition abilitiesdevelop from early childhood to early adolescence, and how various methodological factors influence this developmental trajectory.
While many individual studies have investigated children’s emotional recognition, there has been little systematic quantitative analysis of this large body of research to date.
Understanding the typical developmental trajectory of emotion recognition is important because these abilities are associated with various positive psychosocial outcomes for children, including better academic performance (Izard et al., 2001), higher self-confidence (Widen, 2019), and increased social adjustment (Goodfellow & Nowicki, 2009).
Conversely, emotion recognition deficits have been linked to various childhood disorders (Collin et al., 2013). By synthesizing findings across many studies, this meta-analysis aimed to provide a more comprehensive picture of how these crucial skills develop.
Additionally, given the wide variety of methods used to study emotion recognition in children, it was unclear how much task characteristics and other methodological factors may influence results.
As the authors state, “the extent to which task- and stimulus-related features, that, along with age, may influence these developmental trajectories is currently unclear” (p. 1095).
Analyzing how these factors moderate developmental trajectories can help inform best practices for assessing emotion recognition in future research and clinical applications.
Method
The authors conducted a systematic review andmeta-analysisadhering to PRISMA guidelines. They searched the databases APA PsycInfo, Web of Science Core Collection, and Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts in January 2021.
Search strategy and terms
The authors provide an example of their search strategy for APA PsycInfo, which included terms related to emotion recognition, child age groups, and various stimulus/task types.
They screened abstracts and full texts, with two authors independently reviewing a subset to ensure reliability.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Studies were included if they:
Studies were excluded if they:
Statistical measures
The authors used a multilevel meta-analytic approach to account for dependencies in the data. They calculated a corrected proportion index as theireffect size measureto adjust for chance performance and differences in response options across studies.
They conducted moderation analyses using metaregression to examine how various factors influenced emotion recognition accuracy.
Results
Overall Analysis
Emotion-Specific Analysis
Insight
This comprehensive meta-analysis provides important insights into how children’s emotion recognition abilities develop across childhood.
The finding that recognition accuracy improves steadily for all basic emotions, but with a consistent order of accuracy (happiness highest, fear/disgust lowest), extends previousqualitative reviews.
This suggests there may be both universal and emotion-specific factors influencing recognition development.
The study also highlights how methodological choices can significantly impact measured recognition abilities in children. The large differences in accuracy between forced-choice and free-labeling tasks (88% vs. 60%) underscore the importance of task selection when assessing these skills.
The lack of gender differences in accuracy contrasts with some previous findings of small female advantages. This null result from a large pooled sample suggests any gender differences may be smaller or less consistent than previously thought.
The regional differences in accuracy between European and North American samples are intriguing and warrant further investigation.
Future research
Future research could examine potential cultural, educational, or other factors that may contribute to these differences.
An important area for future research is examining children’s specific error patterns or misattributions in emotion recognition, rather than just overall accuracy.
This could provide more nuanced insights into how emotion concepts develop.
Additionally, expanding research to include a wider range of cultures and non-basic emotions would help determine how universal these developmental patterns are.
Strengths
The study had many methodological strengths including:
Limitations
The authors acknowledge several limitations of the study:
These limitations suggest caution in generalizing findings to non-basic emotions or non-Western populations. The focus on overall accuracy without error analysis also provides an incomplete picture of children’s developing emotion concepts.
Implications
This meta-analysis has significant implications for both research and applied fields related to children’s emotional development.
For researchers, it highlights the importance of carefully considering task characteristics when designing studies or interpreting results, as factors like response format can substantially impact measured recognition abilities.
The finding of consistent developmental trajectories across emotions supports theories proposing innate readiness to recognize basic emotions, though cultural learning likely shapes this development.
For clinical practice, the results provide benchmarks for typical emotion recognition development across childhood. This could aid in identifying children with atypical trajectories who may benefit from intervention.
However, the large impact of task type suggests clinicians should use multiple assessment methods for a comprehensive picture of a child’s abilities.
In educational settings, the findings support introducing more complex emotions later in curricula, as children show lower recognition accuracy for emotions like fear and disgust across ages.
The steady improvement in recognition across childhood also suggests potential benefits of emotion education throughout the school years.
The regional differences in accuracy highlight the need for culturally-appropriate norms and potentially tailored emotional education approaches in different geographical areas.
Overall, this meta-analysis underscores the complexity of emotion recognition development and the need for nuanced, multi-method approaches in both research and applied settings dealing with children’s emotional competencies.
References
Primary reference
Other references
Collin, L., Bindra, J., Raju, M., Gillberg, C., & Minnis, H. (2013). Facial emotion recognition in child psychiatry: A systematic review.Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34(5), 1505-1520.
Goodfellow, S., & Nowicki, S., Jr. (2009). Social adjustment, academic adjustment, and the ability to identify emotion in facial expressions of 7-year-old children.The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 170(3), 234-243.
Izard, C. E., Fine, S., Schultz, D., Mostow, A., Ackerman, B., & Youngstrom, E. (2001). Emotion knowledge as a predictor of social behavior and academic competence in children at risk.Psychological Science, 12(1), 18-23.
McClure, E. B. (2000). A meta-analytic review of sex differences in facial expression processing and their development in infants, children, and adolescents.Psychological Bulletin, 126(3), 424-453.
Widen, S. C. (2019). Emotion perception and recognition. In S. Hupp & J. Jewell (Eds.),The encyclopedia of child and adolescent development(pp. 1-11). Wiley.
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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education
Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.
Saul McLeod, PhD
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
