The Study On The Development And Influential Factors Of Children’s Regret Emotion

Regret is experienced when we choose a course of action that produces consequencesthat turn out to be worse than the consequences that we imagine would have occurred. Inrecent years, the studies about children’s regret emotion have been raised rapidly in the worldand attracted lots of scholars’ attention. At present, in china, most of the researches about thechildren’s regret emotions are introduction of experiences, there are few empirical studies.Children’ regret emotion are based on counterfactual thinking, the degree of it is affected bythe anticipation of the regret and the contract effect. This study focuses on the characteristicsof the development of children’s emotional regret, and discussed the influence of the contracteffect and the regret anticipation on the children’s regret appearance. This study aimed toprovide guidance and basic for children’s emotional adjustment or intervene.This study uses open-ended questionnaires and depth interview to investigate141children who aged5-8, and to view the occur course of regret emotion. This study constructthe regret emotion code system by the collected performance components. To test thevalidation of this system, we used the method of field trials. Secondly, we used E-prime topresent gambling task paradigm to examine the different characteristics of the children’sregret emotions between age and gender. Meanwhile, we used the coding system for scoringto make it mutually confirmed. Finally, we investigate the relationship between children’regret emotion, the regret anticipation, and the contrast effects.The results show:(1) Children who aged6and7year old has had regret performance, itis general and has a certain age-specific. The regret coding system is mainly reflected in fouraspects, namely behavioral action, verbal expression, facial expressions and emotionalexpression, which also includes eight ingredients.(2) The regret emotion develops veryquickly when he is6~7years old. At this stage children obtain the counterfactual thinking andit is the key stage to the development of children’ regret emotional. After7years old, regretemotion growths steadily.(3) Children’s regret emotion there is no significant genderdifferences, the boys’ regret degree are more than girls.(4) The anticipation and the contractdegree both affect the regret emotion.