Predictors of emotional awareness during childhood

Giacomo Mancini, Sergio Agnoli, Elena Trombini, Bruno Baldaro, Paola Surcinelli

1Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Marconi Institute for Creativity (MIC), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.

DOI: 10.4236/health.2013.53050                

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.

Keywords

Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale for Children; Gender; Age; Verbal Skills; Cognitive Ability; Emotion Recognition

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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