Word associations and the development of emotion and affective state nouns in elementary school students / Verbalne asocijacije i razvoj imenica za emocije i afektivna stanja kod učenika osno

Ana Petrović Dakić

University of Belgrade, Faculty of teacher Education

ana.petrovic@uf.bg.ac.rs

The importance of art education for the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children and youth

Abstract

Although abstract words, including those for emotions and other affective states, have recently been the focus of cognitive research (among others, in a series of works from the laboratories led by Barsalou, McRae or Vigliocco, and those from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen), comparative research on their development during elementary school has been limited.

Yet, how and to what extent children adopt those words is important from a practical, real-life point of view – a well-developed emotional vocabulary helps people better express their feelings and deal with them in stressful situations. This is especially important for children since they should be forming a good basis for healthy emotional relationships with themselves and the environment.

With this in mind, we have collected school-aged children's word associations for nouns for emotions (like happiness) or states with an affective charge (hope) to examine how they change as the children grow. The number of respondents of a certain age was between 700 and 800 respondents (700 < n < 800) to obtain the most valid results and the most complete picture of the associative field of a certain word. Students from 23 urban and rural centers responded to the stimulus words via questionnaire. Afterward, their answers were collected, and associative dictionaries were compiled based on them. They were divided by age and gender of the respondents.

We analysed the content of these fields, thus determining how the perception of certain words develops or even emerges (as in the case of jealousy). As often happens with abstract words in general, they make a loose group. Still, a general tendency can be seen in the age-related development towards more stereotypical reactions and in linking these concepts to concrete situations, in accordance with the theories of grounded cognition.

Key words

Ana Petrović Dakić

University of Belgrade, Faculty of teacher Education

ana.petrovic@uf.bg.ac.rs

Važnost umjetničkog obrazovanja

Sažetak 

Iako su apstraktne riječi, uključujući i one za emocije i druga afektivna stanja, u posljednje vrijeme u žiži kognitivnih istraživanja (između ostalih, u nizu radova iz laboratorija koje vode Barsalou, McRae ili Vigliocco te onih s Instituta za psiholingvistiku Max Planck u Nijmegenu), njihov razvoj nije toliko usporedno praćen kod djece različite dobi.

No, to kako ih i koliko djeca usvajaju bitno je ne samo sa znanstvene, već i s praktične životne strane – bolji emocionalni rječnik pomaže ljudima i da bolje izraze svoje osjećaje te i da se s njima nose u stresnim situacijama. To je kod djece posebno važno kao dobra osnova za zdrave emotivne odnose i sa sobom, i s okolinom.

Imajući to na umu, odlučili smo prikupiti verbalne asocijacije djece školske dobi na neke od riječi za emocije (sreća) ili stanja s afektivnim nabojem (nada) kako bismo ispitali kako se one mijenjaju kako djeca rastu. Broj ispitanika određene dobi bio je velik (između 700 i 800 ispitanika; 700 < n < 800) kako bi se dobili što valjaniji rezultati i što cjelovitija slika asocijativnoga polja pojedine riječi. Učenici s 23 urbana i ruralna punkta odgovarali su na poticajne riječi putem ankete. Njihovi su odgovori prikupljeni i prema njima su sastavljeni asocijativni rječnici, podijeljeni, osim po razredu, i po iskazanom spolu ispitanika.

Nakon toga, pristupilo se analizi sadržaja ovih polja te se moglo utvrditi kako se doživljaj određenih riječi razvija ili čak, u slučaju nekih (poput ljubomora), i tek stvara. Kao što često biva s apstraktnim riječima općenito, vidno je da je u pitanju difuzna skupina. No, kao opća tendencija može se zamijetiti razvoj u smjeru stereotipnijih odgovora, kao i vezanje ovih pojmova za konkretne situacije, u skladu s teorijama utemljene kognicije.

Ključne riječi

apstraktne imenice; emocionalna pismenost; kognitivni razvoj; psiholingvistika; utemeljena kognicija