Do Children acquire Concepts for Complex Emotions Abruptly?

Two studies are reported on the question of whether children acquire concepts for more complex emotions, such as jealousy and pride, in an all-or-nothing manner rather than feature by feature. In the first study, 96 children between 4 and 7 years of age were asked to describe situations that would evoke happiness, pride, gratitude, shame, worry, and jealousy. Children were also asked whether each emotion felt good or bad. In the second study, 4 and 5-year-olds rated the same emotions for feelings of pleasure and arousal. Together, the results suggested that before a complete concept, children attain a partial conceptualisation of each complex emotion: They understand the pleasure and arousal associated with the emotion, but have no knowledge of the kind of situation that evokes it. Even 4-year-olds knew the pleasure and arousal associated with pride, gratitude, shame, worry, and jealousy-thus demonstrating that children's understanding quickly moves beyond the simpler emotions.