Young Chinese children's anger and distress: Emotion category and intensity identified by the time course of behaviors

Jie He, Peihua Qiu, Ka Young Park, Qinmei Xu, Michael Potegal

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

A hierarchical cluster analysis of the time course of the videotaped reactions of 75 Chinese 2-4-year olds to mothers' toy-removal identified Distress, Low Anger, and High Anger behavior clusters. Anger often begins at low intensity; some children then escalate. The face-validity of Low and High Anger-cluster classifications was supported in that High Anger was displayed by a subset of the children who had first showed Low Anger. The three clusters had different and interpretable correlations with mothers' temperament ratings. Developmentally, 2-year-olds displayed more Distress, including crying; 3-year-olds showed more Low Anger, including stamp-jump. While Low Anger is predominant during toy-removal in Chinese children, it is, contrastingly, the least-frequent component in the tantrums of North American children.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)349-356
Number of pages8
JournalInternational Journal of Behavioral Development
Volume37
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2013

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by grants from the Natural and Scientific Foundation in Zhejiang Province, China (Y204321), the National Foundation for Fostering Talents of Basic Science (J0630760), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31000467) and the American National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD055343).

Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • anger
  • children
  • cluster analysis
  • distress
  • frustration
  • trajectory analysis

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