Emotional knowledge in children from 4 to 8 years of age

It is well demonstrated that children show emotions from the very first moment of life. However, the age at which children become aware of their own emotions is still a very controversial matter. This work presents data analysis of children’s drawings about anger and happiness. The sample is composed by 170 American and Spanish scholar children. Ages ranges from 4 to 8 years old. The elements used by children to draw anger and happiness are facial gestures, specially the shape of the mouth. Results show some gender and cultural differences of non-essential characteristics of both emotions. In addition, it is also noted that there is a developmental pattern due to an increasing management of expression elements of the emotion.