Emotions, conflicts and aggression during preschoolers' freeplay

This study addressed the connections among preschoolers' emotion displays and their aggressive and non-aggressive peer disputes. Observers recorded 37 4 1/2- to 5 1/2-year-olds' discrete emotion displays and emotional intensity, and several aspects of their dispute-related behaviour during freeplay using standardized checklists. Overall, children's baseline emotions (i.e. outside of disputes) and their emotions during disputes were somewhat interrelated, and these emotion displays were associated with children's participation in disputes with their peers, and to a lesser degree their continued post-dispute interactions. Emotion intensity was also related to rates of peer disputes. These findings were qualified, however, by the type of dispute (aggressive vs. non-aggressive conflicts) and the context of participants' emotions (baseline vs. dispute-related emotions). Overall, emotions were most clearly linked with children's initiation of aggression, and a combination of percentage baseline anger, aggression-related anger, and aggression-related happiness predicted nearly a quarter of the variance In children's initiation of aggression.