Sherri C Widen
Biographic Data
| ID | 1662376 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sherri C Widen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sherri C |
| FAMILY NAME | Widen |
| SIGNATURE | WIDEN S C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7324-6517 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Differentiation and Language Acquisition in Children’s Understanding of Emotion
This chapter provides evidence of two processes that contribute to the acquisition of emotion categories (represented by their labels). The first is a process in which children gradually differentiate an early, valence-based (i.e., feels good vs. feels bad) emotion understanding into more discrete categories, while also learning to link the various components of emotion (e.g., causes, consequences, behaviors, facial expressions, labels) until the…
How are schools implementing a universal social–emotional learning program? Macro- and school-level factors associated with implementation approach
Introduction For universal SEL programs to contribute to positive learning environments, all school staff must be involved in implementing the program (CASEL, 2020). The first aim of the current study was to examined school/district- and macro-level factors associated with two approaches to SEL program implementation observed in schools: (1) classroom teachers as instructors of SEL lessons (i.e., teacher-facilitated) or (2) school counselors as i…
Reaching unconnected caregivers: Using a text-message education program to better understand how to support informal caregivers roles in child development
Informal caregivers (family, friends, and neighbors) spend many hours each week with the children in their care and can have a significant impact on the children’s social-emotional and academic development. Unfortunately, many informal caregivers lack the knowledge of how to do so. We conducted a qualitative 2-year study to investigate informal caregivers’ motivations, assets, and needs. The caregivers received text messages to help them support …
The word disgust may refer to more than one emotion
Contrary to a common presupposition, the word disgust may refer to more than one emotion. From an array of 3 facial expressions (produced in our lab), participants (N = 44) in Study 1 selected the one that best matched 11 types of emotion-eliciting events: anger, sadness, and 9 types of disgust (7 types of physical disgust plus moral disgust and simply feeling ill). From an array of 4 facial expressions (two from Matsumoto & Ekman, 1988; two prod…
Context is more powerful than we think: Contextual cues override facial cues even for valence
Context-the external situation-overrides facial information when judging the emotion from spontaneous facial expressions, even on valence. Observers (N = 60) judged the emotion in each of 15 facial expressions of athletes in the 2012 Olympics who had just won or lost their respective event. Observers were given either correct, incorrect, or no information about the results of the event. Context consistently overrode facial information, regardless…
What Made Sahar Scared: Imaginary and Realistic Causes in Palestinian and American Children’s Concept for Fear
Young children associate fear with monsters, ghosts, and other imaginary creatures more than with real threats to safety, such as robbers or bullies – at least in Western societies. Cross-cultural studies are rare, are limited to older children, and have not asked if the role of the imagination extends to emotions other than fear. In this study, young Palestinian and American children (60 in each group, 3–7 years, age- and sex-matched) were asked…
Children’s Interpretation of Facial Expressions: The Long Path from Valence-Based to Specific Discrete Categories
According to a common sense theory, facial expressions signal specific emotions to people of all ages and therefore provide children easy access to the emotions of those around them. The evidence, however, does not support that account. Instead, children’s understanding of facial expressions is poor and changes qualitatively and slowly over the course of development. Initially, children divide facial expressions into two simple categories (feels …
Children's recognition of disgust in others
Disgust has been theorized to be a basic emotion with a facial signal that is easily, universally, automatically, and perhaps innately recognized by observers from an early age. This article questions one key part of that theory: the hypothesis that children recognize disgust from its purported facial signal. Over the first 5 years, children experience disgust, produce facial expressions of disgust, develop a concept of disgust, understand and pr…
What emotion does the “facial expression of disgust” express
The emotion attributed to the prototypical "facial expression of disgust" (a nose scrunch) depended on what facial expressions preceded it. In two studies, the majority of 120 children (5-14 years) and 135 adults (16-58 years) judged the nose scrunch as expressing disgust when the preceding set included an anger scowl, but as angry when the anger scowl was omitted. An even greater proportion of observers judged the nose scrunch as angry when the …
Can an anger face also be scared? Malleability of facial expressions
Do people always interpret a facial expression as communicating a single emotion (e.g., the anger face as only angry) or is that interpretation malleable? The current study investigated preschoolers' (N = 60; 3-4 years) and adults' (N = 20) categorization of facial expressions. On each of five trials, participants selected from an array of 10 facial expressions (an open-mouthed, high arousal expression and a closed-mouthed, low arousal expression…
In Building a Script for an Emotion, Do Preschoolers Add Its Cause Before Its Behavior Consequence
An emotion concept is a script in which an emotion event is an ordered sequence of subevents from situational cause through bodily changes to behavioral consequence. As children build a script for each emotion, in what order do they add each subevent? Preschoolers (N = 108, three to five years), were asked to name the protagonist's emotion in stories consisting solely of either a cause or a consequence of one of six emotions. More children correc…
The “disgust face” conveys anger to children
What does the "facial expression of disgust" communicate to children? When asked to label the emotion conveyed by different facial expressions widely used in research, children (N = 84, 4 to 9 years) were much more likely to label the "disgust face" as anger than as disgust, indeed just as likely as they were to label the "angry face" as anger. Shown someone with a disgust face and asked to generate a possible cause and consequence of that emotio…
Differentiation in preschooler's categories of emotion
Two studies (N = 68, ages 2;0-3;11; N = 80, ages 2;6-4;11) explore the idea that, rather than starting with a separate mental category for each discrete emotion, children start with two broad categories (positive and negative) and then differentiate within each until adult-like categories form. Children generated emotion labels for (a) facial expressions or (b) stories about an emotion's cause and consequence. Emotions included were happiness, an…
A closer look at preschoolers' freely produced labels for facial expressions
A Label Superiority Effect in Children's Categorization of Facial Expressions
In three studies (N's = 360, 68, 160), children (2 to 7 years of age) were asked to categorize various facial expressions. The emotion category was specified to the child by its label (such as happy ), its facial expression (such as a smile), or both. From the youngest to the oldest children and for all 3 emotion categories examined (happiness, anger, and sadness), results showed a Label Superiority Effect: emotion labels resulted in more accurat…
A closer look at preschoolers' freely produced labels for facial expressions
A Label Superiority Effect in Children's Categorization of Facial Expressions
In three studies (N's = 360, 68, 160), children (2 to 7 years of age) were asked to categorize various facial expressions. The emotion category was specified to the child by its label (such as happy ), its facial expression (such as a smile), or both. From the youngest to the oldest children and for all 3 emotion categories examined (happiness, anger, and sadness), results showed a Label Superiority Effect: emotion labels resulted in more accurat…
Reaching unconnected caregivers: Using a text-message education program to better understand how to support informal caregivers roles in child development
Informal caregivers (family, friends, and neighbors) spend many hours each week with the children in their care and can have a significant impact on the children’s social-emotional and academic development. Unfortunately, many informal caregivers lack the knowledge of how to do so. We conducted a qualitative 2-year study to investigate informal caregivers’ motivations, assets, and needs. The caregivers received text messages to help them support …
What Made Sahar Scared: Imaginary and Realistic Causes in Palestinian and American Children’s Concept for Fear
Young children associate fear with monsters, ghosts, and other imaginary creatures more than with real threats to safety, such as robbers or bullies – at least in Western societies. Cross-cultural studies are rare, are limited to older children, and have not asked if the role of the imagination extends to emotions other than fear. In this study, young Palestinian and American children (60 in each group, 3–7 years, age- and sex-matched) were asked…
Children's recognition of disgust in others
Disgust has been theorized to be a basic emotion with a facial signal that is easily, universally, automatically, and perhaps innately recognized by observers from an early age. This article questions one key part of that theory: the hypothesis that children recognize disgust from its purported facial signal. Over the first 5 years, children experience disgust, produce facial expressions of disgust, develop a concept of disgust, understand and pr…
A Label Superiority Effect in Children's Categorization of Facial Expressions
In three studies (N's = 360, 68, 160), children (2 to 7 years of age) were asked to categorize various facial expressions. The emotion category was specified to the child by its label (such as happy ), its facial expression (such as a smile), or both. From the youngest to the oldest children and for all 3 emotion categories examined (happiness, anger, and sadness), results showed a Label Superiority Effect: emotion labels resulted in more accurat…
A closer look at preschoolers' freely produced labels for facial expressions
The “disgust face” conveys anger to children
What does the "facial expression of disgust" communicate to children? When asked to label the emotion conveyed by different facial expressions widely used in research, children (N = 84, 4 to 9 years) were much more likely to label the "disgust face" as anger than as disgust, indeed just as likely as they were to label the "angry face" as anger. Shown someone with a disgust face and asked to generate a possible cause and consequence of that emotio…
Differentiation in preschooler's categories of emotion
Two studies (N = 68, ages 2;0-3;11; N = 80, ages 2;6-4;11) explore the idea that, rather than starting with a separate mental category for each discrete emotion, children start with two broad categories (positive and negative) and then differentiate within each until adult-like categories form. Children generated emotion labels for (a) facial expressions or (b) stories about an emotion's cause and consequence. Emotions included were happiness, an…
Can an anger face also be scared? Malleability of facial expressions
Do people always interpret a facial expression as communicating a single emotion (e.g., the anger face as only angry) or is that interpretation malleable? The current study investigated preschoolers' (N = 60; 3-4 years) and adults' (N = 20) categorization of facial expressions. On each of five trials, participants selected from an array of 10 facial expressions (an open-mouthed, high arousal expression and a closed-mouthed, low arousal expression…
In Building a Script for an Emotion, Do Preschoolers Add Its Cause Before Its Behavior Consequence
An emotion concept is a script in which an emotion event is an ordered sequence of subevents from situational cause through bodily changes to behavioral consequence. As children build a script for each emotion, in what order do they add each subevent? Preschoolers (N = 108, three to five years), were asked to name the protagonist's emotion in stories consisting solely of either a cause or a consequence of one of six emotions. More children correc…
What emotion does the “facial expression of disgust” express
The emotion attributed to the prototypical "facial expression of disgust" (a nose scrunch) depended on what facial expressions preceded it. In two studies, the majority of 120 children (5-14 years) and 135 adults (16-58 years) judged the nose scrunch as expressing disgust when the preceding set included an anger scowl, but as angry when the anger scowl was omitted. An even greater proportion of observers judged the nose scrunch as angry when the …
Children’s Interpretation of Facial Expressions: The Long Path from Valence-Based to Specific Discrete Categories
According to a common sense theory, facial expressions signal specific emotions to people of all ages and therefore provide children easy access to the emotions of those around them. The evidence, however, does not support that account. Instead, children’s understanding of facial expressions is poor and changes qualitatively and slowly over the course of development. Initially, children divide facial expressions into two simple categories (feels …
Children's recognition of disgust in others
Disgust has been theorized to be a basic emotion with a facial signal that is easily, universally, automatically, and perhaps innately recognized by observers from an early age. This article questions one key part of that theory: the hypothesis that children recognize disgust from its purported facial signal. Over the first 5 years, children experience disgust, produce facial expressions of disgust, develop a concept of disgust, understand and pr…
The word disgust may refer to more than one emotion
Contrary to a common presupposition, the word disgust may refer to more than one emotion. From an array of 3 facial expressions (produced in our lab), participants (N = 44) in Study 1 selected the one that best matched 11 types of emotion-eliciting events: anger, sadness, and 9 types of disgust (7 types of physical disgust plus moral disgust and simply feeling ill). From an array of 4 facial expressions (two from Matsumoto & Ekman, 1988; two prod…
Context is more powerful than we think: Contextual cues override facial cues even for valence
Context-the external situation-overrides facial information when judging the emotion from spontaneous facial expressions, even on valence. Observers (N = 60) judged the emotion in each of 15 facial expressions of athletes in the 2012 Olympics who had just won or lost their respective event. Observers were given either correct, incorrect, or no information about the results of the event. Context consistently overrode facial information, regardless…
What Made Sahar Scared: Imaginary and Realistic Causes in Palestinian and American Children’s Concept for Fear
Young children associate fear with monsters, ghosts, and other imaginary creatures more than with real threats to safety, such as robbers or bullies – at least in Western societies. Cross-cultural studies are rare, are limited to older children, and have not asked if the role of the imagination extends to emotions other than fear. In this study, young Palestinian and American children (60 in each group, 3–7 years, age- and sex-matched) were asked…
Reaching unconnected caregivers: Using a text-message education program to better understand how to support informal caregivers roles in child development
Informal caregivers (family, friends, and neighbors) spend many hours each week with the children in their care and can have a significant impact on the children’s social-emotional and academic development. Unfortunately, many informal caregivers lack the knowledge of how to do so. We conducted a qualitative 2-year study to investigate informal caregivers’ motivations, assets, and needs. The caregivers received text messages to help them support …
Differentiation and Language Acquisition in Children’s Understanding of Emotion
This chapter provides evidence of two processes that contribute to the acquisition of emotion categories (represented by their labels). The first is a process in which children gradually differentiate an early, valence-based (i.e., feels good vs. feels bad) emotion understanding into more discrete categories, while also learning to link the various components of emotion (e.g., causes, consequences, behaviors, facial expressions, labels) until the…
How are schools implementing a universal social–emotional learning program? Macro- and school-level factors associated with implementation approach
Introduction For universal SEL programs to contribute to positive learning environments, all school staff must be involved in implementing the program (CASEL, 2020). The first aim of the current study was to examined school/district- and macro-level factors associated with two approaches to SEL program implementation observed in schools: (1) classroom teachers as instructors of SEL lessons (i.e., teacher-facilitated) or (2) school counselors as i…
Psychology (15 works) · Developmental psychology (12 works) · Cognitive psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Communication (10 works) · Facial expression (10 works) · Anger (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Communication (8 works) · Disgust (7 works)