Abstract
Objectives
We aimed to provide evidence of the cross-cultural validity of the Emotion Matching Task (EMT), as a measure of emotion knowledge in preschool children in different cultures, namely, the United States, Italy, and Spain. In particular, we analyzed: (1) the psychometric properties of the scale in each of the three subsamples; (2) the relations between sex, age, verbal ability, and EK, in the overall sample and in the three different cultures; (3) the pattern of acquisition of the various dimensions of emotion knowledge in the overall sample and in the three different countries.
Methods
Participants were 500 children from Spain (N = 180), the United States (N = 158), and Italy (N = 162) from 36 to 72 months (mean age = 53.75), attending several schools and childcare centers in the three countries. Children were administered the EMT and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT).
Results
The EMT demonstrated adequate reliability indices for all three countries. Controlling for the influence of sex, age, and verbal ability, the results revealed between-country differences in all four dimensions of emotion knowledge. The pattern of acquisition of EK was similar in the three cultures.
Conclusions
These results point to the EMT as an appropriate tool for measuring EK in young children from different cultures. Cross-culturally valid measures are needed to evaluate EK in multicultural contexts, and to test the cross-cultural effectiveness of interventions aimed at encouraging emotional competence.
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Acknowledgements
This research project was supported in part by grant BF 109.346 from the Basque Government Department of Education, Universities and Research’s Training Program for Research Staff.
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NAA, AIV, CZ, RDM, UP, and KFS designed and executed the study, assisted with the data analyses, wrote the paper, and edited the final manuscript.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The research was approved by the ethics committee of University of the Basque Country (Spain); of the Italian Psychology Association (Italy), and of the University of Delaware Internal Review Board (US). This research did not receive any funds.
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Alonso-Alberca, N., Vergara, A.I., Zappulla, C. et al. Cross-Cultural Validity of the Emotion Matching Task. J Child Fam Stud 29, 1159–1172 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01634-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01634-y