Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a critical sociocognitive ability that underpins successful social interactions and undergoes developmental changes during adolescence. Since biopsychosocial factors influencing FER in adolescence have been under‐researched concurrently, and past literature has utilised emotion recognition tasks with psychometric limitations, this cross‐sectional study examined associations between FER (accuracy and speed) measured on the Penn Emotion Recognition Task (Penn‐ER‐40) and a verbal intelligence proxy (Wide Range Achievement Test‐4 word reading subtest), sex, wellbeing (COMPAS‐W scale) and social connectedness (Social Connectedness Scale) in 12–13‐year‐olds ( N = 99, 52.5% female). Multiple regressions revealed a significant association between verbal intelligence and accuracy and sex differences for reaction time. A post‐hoc MANOVA found females were faster in correct responses of happiness, fear and sadness, but not anger or neutral expressions. Exploratory ANOVAs investigating FER differences by pubertal stage ( n = 28) were nonsignificant. The results contribute novel findings to the field of FER research. Future longitudinal studies may utilise this biopsychosocial approach to investigate the interrelated and diverse factors impacting FER development during adolescence.
Ball et al. (Thu,) studied this question.