Recognition of emotions in children with early family adversity

Abstract

Emotional recognition is a component of the emotional understanding, which is strongly influenced by the experiences of social interaction. Early adversity is often linked to deficits in interpersonal situations, which could affect the emotional development. This research explores the emotional recognition in three groups of children: international adoptees, institutionalized, and a comparison group. Furthermore, it is analyzed the influences of the type of emotion to identify (positive, negative, and ambiguous), as well as the relationship between emotional recognition and attachment, and the cognitive developmental these groups of children. The results show differences between the three groups, as well as more difficulties in the identification of ambiguous emotions in adoptees and foster children. In addition, relationships between emotional recognition and cognitive development were found in all groups; however, the relationship with attachment was less clear.