Abstract
This study examined whether young children understand that it is possible to express sadness even when one does not really feel sad. The participants, 40 4- and 6-year old children, listened to 8 stories in which it was appropriate for the protagonist to hide his/her real emotions (negative or positive). Hiding of emotions was based on either pro-social or self-protective motivation, and the protagonist instead expressed other emotions (happiness or sadness). Participants were asked questions about the protagonist's real and expressed emotions, and the emotions another story character inferred that the protagonist felt. The results showed that 6-year olds recognized real and apparent emotional expressions more accurately than did 4-year olds, in almost all cases. These findings were consistent with the results of previous studies. In the present study, the most important finding was that the ability of 6-year olds to recognize others' false expression of sadness because of self-protective motivation differed from that of 4-year olds. However, the results also showed that it was difficult even for 6-year olds to distinguish between real and apparent expressions of emotion, when the protagonist expressed false sadness because of pro-social motivation.
