{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/29813"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/29813","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Children's organization and development of emotion: attachment relationships, perceptual asymmetry, and executive functioning","abstract":"The goals of present study were to examine the unique and interactive effects of preschool children’s attachment security, perceptual asymmetry in the processing of emotion, and executive functioning (EF) on their recognition of different emotions, emotion expression, and social initiations among peers. A total of 65 three to five year-old children (37 girls, 28 boys) completed attachment story-stem doll plays, the Chimeric Faces Task (CFT) to assess perceptual asymmetry in the processing of emotion, and emotion recognition task. Head teachers of the children completed a standard EF. Observers documented children’s frequency of expressed affect and valence of social initiations among peers in the preschool classroom. Consistent with attachment theory, secure children were more likely to recognize different emotions and expressed positive emotions more often than insecure children. Children’s executive functioning was a unique predictor of children’s negative affect expression and initiations above and beyond perceptual asymmetry, child age, gender, and language ability. Finally, attachment security was found to moderate the relations between flexibility, a subscale of EF, and children’s positive affect expression. Children’s capacities to modify behavior and affect to new situations affected their experience of positive emotion only when they were insecure. In contrast, secure children expressed positive emotions frequently regardless of their EF flexibility. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of the interconnectedness between emotion and cognition. In addition, the findings highlight the notion that attachment security plays a crucial role in capacities to embrace and express positive emotions in addition to buffering the negative effects of EF inflexibility on experiencing positive emotion.","abstract_html":"The goals of present study were to examine the unique and interactive effects of preschool children’s attachment security, perceptual asymmetry in the processing of emotion, and executive functioning (EF) on their recognition of different emotions, emotion expression, and social initiations among peers. A total of 65 three to five year-old children (37 girls, 28 boys) completed attachment story-stem doll plays, the Chimeric Faces Task (CFT) to assess perceptual asymmetry in the processing of emotion, and emotion recognition task. Head teachers of the children completed a standard EF. Observers documented children’s frequency of expressed affect and valence of social initiations among peers in the preschool classroom. Consistent with attachment theory, secure children were more likely to recognize different emotions and expressed positive emotions more often than insecure children. Children’s executive functioning was a unique predictor of children’s negative affect expression and initiations above and beyond perceptual asymmetry, child age, gender, and language ability. Finally, attachment security was found to moderate the relations between flexibility, a subscale of EF, and children’s positive affect expression. Children’s capacities to modify behavior and affect to new situations affected their experience of positive emotion only when they were insecure. In contrast, secure children expressed positive emotions frequently regardless of their EF flexibility. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of the interconnectedness between emotion and cognition. In addition, the findings highlight the notion that attachment security plays a crucial role in capacities to embrace and express positive emotions in addition to buffering the negative effects of EF inflexibility on experiencing positive emotion.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Choi, Eunsil"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Human & Community Development","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Bost, Kelly","McElwain, Nancy L.","McBride, Brent A.","Wiley, Angela R.","Roisman, Glenn I."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-02-06T20:18:42Z","date_published":"2012-02-06T20:18:42Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:29Z","subjects":["Emotion Recognition","Emotion Expression","Attachment Relationships","Perceptual Asymmetry","Executive Functioning"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2011 Eunsil Choi"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29813","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Bost, Kelly","McElwain, Nancy L.","McBride, Brent A.","Wiley, Angela R.","Roisman, Glenn I."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Choi, Eunsil"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2012-02-06T20:18:42Z","2011-12"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Dissertation / Thesis","text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Human & Community Development"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Emotion Recognition","Emotion Expression","Attachment Relationships","Perceptual Asymmetry","Executive Functioning"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2011 Eunsil Choi"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29813"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["The goals of present study were to examine the unique and interactive effects of preschool children’s attachment security, perceptual asymmetry in the processing of emotion, and executive functioning (EF) on their recognition of different emotions, emotion expression, and social initiations among peers. 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