TITLE:
Predictors of emotional awareness during childhood
AUTHORS:
Giacomo Mancini, Sergio Agnoli, Elena Trombini, Bruno Baldaro, Paola Surcinelli
KEYWORDS:
Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale for Children; Gender; Age; Verbal Skills; Cognitive Ability; Emotion Recognition
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.5 No.3,
March
7,
2013
ABSTRACT: Emotional awareness,
the ability to identify and describe one’s
own emotions, and those of other people, has been widely studied in
adult samples, while only few studies have been conducted during childhood. Aim of the
present study was to investigate the predictability of the main variables
usually associated with the study of emotional awareness. The LEAS-C was administered to a group of
781 children aged 8 to 13 years old. The results showed that both gender and
verbal skills are important predictors of children’s emotional awareness.
Moreover, cognitive ability and emotion recognition also predicted LEAS-C
scores. Finally, age emerged as a significant predictor of the complexity of
children’s emotional awareness. The assessment of children’s emotional
awareness may be significant for different health-related purposes, e.g.
prevention and psychological support.