Predictors of emotional awareness during childhood

Abstract

Emotional awareness, the ability to identify and describe one’s own emotions, and those of other people, has been widely studied in adult sam- ples, while only few studies have been conduct- ed 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 admini- stered 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, cog- nitive ability and emotion recognition also pre- dicted LEAS-C scores. Finally, age emerged as a significant predictor of the complexity of chil- dren’s emotional awareness. The assessment of children’s emotional awareness may be signifi- cant for different health-related purposes, e.g. prevention and psychological support.