Emotional development: Cultural influences on young children's emotional competence

Abstract

Children's emotional development follows a complex trajectory, characterized by the interaction of nature and nurture. Although emotional development occurs across the lifespan, basic emotions appear at birth, and secondary or selfconscious emotions appear soon afterward. Children's emotion socialization often begins with parents, butmany others, including peers and teachers, serve as agents of socialization. The goal of emotion socialization is to develop emotional competence in children, setting them up for successwithin their cultural context. Interactions with parents, other family members, and peers teach children to recognize and understand their own and others' emotions. Children also quickly learn culturally acceptable ways to express and regulate their emotions. Parental ethnotheories reflect cultural beliefs about emotions and subsequently influence the ways parents respond to and reminisce about emotional behaviors and events with their children. Though gender and socioeconomic differences also affect the emotion socialization of children, culture has a pervasive influence on emotional competence. Simply put, the study of emotional development cannot be separated from culture.