El desarrollo de la comprensión emocional, la teoría de la mente y el papel mediador del lenguajeun estudio longitudinal en preescolares

Abstract

Abstract The present study analyzes the relationships between emotional understanding, theory of mind and language throughout the preschool years. By emotional understanding we mean the understanding we have about the emotional world and its implications when it comes to relating to others. Likewise, theory of mind can be defined as the ability to attribute beliefs, desires, intentions and emotions to oneself and to others to explain and predict behavior. In recent years, an important theoretical body has been generated on the relationship between both skills, and their relationship with linguistic development has also been valued, however, there are no clear conclusions about how these skills are linked at this stage of development. In this period of development important skills emerge for mentalistic knowledge, language has a close relationship with it and emotional competence undergoes an important deployment in its evolution, in terms of its acquisition of emotional terms, regulation and management of emotional expression. This study could not be done without considering theoretical perspectives on the development of emotional understanding. We essentially address two theories, the theory of Pons and Harris (Harris, 2008; Pons et al., 2004; Pons & Harris, 2005) who perceive the development of emotional understanding from a hierarchical structure, where a previous phase gives rise to the configuration of the following in terms of its complexity; the second theory, more affiliated with the constructionist perspective (Widen & Russell, 2008a, 2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2013) from which emotions are lay concepts whose acquisition occurs thanks to the experience of the individual within their social context. Therefore, these concepts are acquired thanks to scripts that help in the configuration of the meaning of the different emotions. To achieve the proposed objectives, an ex post facto longitudinal developmental design is proposed. The sample is made up of 106 children (50 girls and 56 boys) from the 2nd cycle of Early Childhood Education. The assessment of the variables is carried out in 3 waves, at the beginning of each school year. In order to analyze the relationship established between emotional understanding and theory of mind, a longitudinal panel model with 3 waves and 2 variables (3W2V) is proposed. To introduce language as a mediating variable and due to the impossibility of doing so in the longitudinal model, a half-longitudinal model is chosen. On the other hand, and in a complementary way, cross-sectional analyzes are presented for each of the waves, aiming at studying the mediating effect of language in the relationship between emotional understanding and theory of mind. To know the nature of the organization of emotional understanding, testing the two aforementioned approaches, data analyzes are carried out by components and by emotions. The results reveal that: 1) there is a close relationship between emotional understanding and theory of mind throughout the preschool years; 2) Emotional understanding seems to have greater predictive power on theory of mind than the other way around; 3) language plays a fundamental mediating role in the relationship between emotional understanding and theory of mind; 4) Regarding the nature of emotional understanding, the models that understand script-based emotional understanding better fit our data. Our findings maintain a clear direction, suggesting the precedence of emotional understanding over theory of mind in the preschool years. Language maintains, at the beginning of this period, a close relationship with emotional understanding, to later "ally" in the development of the theory of mind and serves as a link in the emergence of both abilities and their relationship. On the other hand, our results support the theories that advocate for script-based emotional understanding, which are developed gradually based on the child's experience and socio-cultural context.