Publication Date

1984

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Gnepp, Jackie E.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

LCSH

Ambiguity; Personality and situaton; Affect (Psychology); Child psychology

Abstract

The present study investigates children's ability to explain ambiguity in situational cues to affect, and to seek personal dispositional information to resolve such ambiguity. Previous research has investigated children's ability to infer emotions when personal information is presented in conflict with situational information. These studies have all used affectively unambiguous situations, and have used personal information to indicate that the story characters have atypical appraisals of the story situations. The present study uses the personal information to disambiguate situational information which is affectively ambiguous. Kindergarten, second-grade, and fifth-grade children were assigned to three conditions. Children in the unambiguous condition heard stories containing ambiguous situational information and disambiguating personal information. This condition was used to examine children's ability to use personal information to resolve ambiguity in situational cues. Children in the ambiguous condition heard stories containing ambiguous situational information. This condition was used to check on the ambiguity to justify multiple emotional reactions to the ambiguous story situations. Children in the question heard stories containing ambiguous information, and were allowed to ask questions to resolve the ambiguity. The condition was used to examine children's ability to seek personal dispositional information to resolve ambiguity in situational cues to affect. The results suggest that kindergarten males are less able than other children to explain ambiguity in situational cues to affect. Kindergarten children are also less efficient than older children at seeking personal dispositional information. Finally, the results suggest that kindergarten females may have somewhat difficulty than kindergarten males in asking questions to seek additional information.

Comments

Bibliography : pages 55-59.

Extent

vii, 122 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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