Children's Spontaneous Control of Facial Expression

COLE, PAMELA M. Children's Spontaneous Control of Facial Expression. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 1309-1321. Spontaneous expressive control of negative emotion was examined in 2 studies of children aged 3-9 using an experimental situation. In Study 1, facial expressions, verbalizations, and spontaneous references to emotional expression control were examined in terms of the child's age and sex and the experimental manipulation (neutral, positive, and mood segments). Results suggested that children attempted to control the display of negative emotion with positive displays and that females did so more than males. No effect of age on expressive behavior was found. Age differences were found for children's spontaneous reference to expressive control, with such references increasing with age. To further examine the possibility that preschoolers engaged in expressive control, Study 2 examined the expressive behavior of 20 preschool girls in the disappointing situation in 2 conditions, alone or with the examiner present. These data indicated that females, aged 3-4, inhibited negative displays when in the presence of the examiner.