Impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the development of emotion understanding of children living in a Eurasian collectivistic society (Russia)

Background The impact of culture on the development of children's emotion understanding has become an increasingly prominent focus of research. However, one fundamental dimension of culture has so far been almost completely overlooked in this field: history. Objective In this study, we aimed to investigate the potential impact of a major dramatic historical event, the COVID-19 lockdown, on emotion understanding in children living in a Eurasian collectivist society (Russia). Specifically, we asked whether the lockdown influenced children's emotion understanding development and, if so, whether this influence was positive or negative. Design The present study examined the one-year development of emotion understanding in children who experienced a six-month total COVID-19 lockdown (Pandemic sample), compared with children who did not experienced such a lockdown (Control sample). Both samples were community samples of 5–6-year-old children from middle-SES families, drawn from the same city and preschools and matched on age, sex, non-verbal intelligence (Raven), and mother tongue ( N = 673 in total). Children in both samples were assessed twice (at ages 5; 6 and 6; 6 years) for their understanding of a wide range of emotional components using the Russian version of the Test of Emotion Comprehension. Results The lockdown was negatively associated with children's one-year development of emotion understanding. Although children in both samples made developmental gains, improvement in the Control sample was substantial and consistent with typical developmental trajectories, whereas gains in the Pandemic sample were minimal and almost stagnant by comparison. Discussion A possible explanation for these findings is that the lockdown disrupted the virtuous circle between children's emotion understanding and their social interactions, with interactions within the immediate family becoming predominant and those outside the family sharply reduced. We hypothesize that social interactions beyond the immediate family play an important protective role in the development of emotion understanding, and that their prolonged absence may be particularly consequential in collectivistic societies. In this view, restricting children's social interactions to their immediate family could constitute a risk factor for the development of emotion understanding. Limitations and future directions are also discussed (long-term follow-up, direct measures of cultural values and practices, etc.).