In recent decades, emotion recognition has become an important topic in child development research. This is because it is an essential skill for proper social functioning and is an important prerequisite for healthy emotional and social development of the child. Most studies to date have focused on children living in normal conditions, so we have less information about how these skills develop in children who grow up in hostile environments, such as during war. The new study from INPSY researchers looked at how war trauma affects children's ability to recognise basic emotions such as joy, sadness or fear.
Members of INPSY: Oleksandra Loshenko from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Petr Palíšek, Ondřej Straka, Michal Jabůrek, Šárka Portešová and Anna Ševčíková collaborated on the study. Their research focused on whether children aged 8-12 living in a war zone in Ukraine recognize emotions differently than their peers living in the safety of the Czech Republic. The aim of the research was to find out whether children exposed to war perceive negative emotions (fear or anger) as more intense and whether they are less accurate in identifying other emotions than children who grow up outside the conflict.
The research took the form of an online questionnaire that focused on the recognition of basic emotions based on photos and video clips. A total of 729 children participated in the research, 419 of whom were from Ukraine and 310 from the Czech Republic. Children from Ukraine lived in areas that were directly affected by the war, such as the Chernihiv region. Children from the Czech Republic came from the areas of South Moravia and Moravian-Silesia.
The results of the research are surprising
The authors expected that children growing up in war-torn Ukraine would perceive fear and anger (basic negative emotions) more intensely than other emotions. However, this was not confirmed in the study, as children from Ukraine were not more likely to rate negative emotions as more intense and were instead able to discriminate between the intensity of emotions as well as children from the Czech Republic. Thus, the results suggest that children in war zones remain as attentive and sensitive to the intensity and type of emotions expressed as children from safe environments.
Another interesting finding is that Ukrainian children were able to identify all basic emotions as well as Czech children, suggesting that unsafe war environments may not interfere with a child's ability to recognize emotions. Ukrainian children were even better at recognising positive emotions. A possible explanation may be that children in dangerous environments may compensate for their experiences of war by increasing their focus on the positive aspects of life.
In conclusion, this study suggests that, despite expectations, children from the war zone in Ukraine did not differ significantly in their recognition of basic emotions compared to their peers in the Czech Republic. However, the author team notes that the research did not measure the degree or intensity of traumatic experiences that might be related to some aspects of emotion recognition. It also points to the need for further research that addresses the long-term effects of war trauma on children's emotional development and better takes into account children's individual war experiences.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Recommended citation:
Loshenko, O., Palíšek, P., Straka, O., Jabůrek, M., Portešová, Š., & Ševčíková, A. (2024). Impact of the War in Ukraine on the Ability of Children to Recognize Basic Emotions. International Journal of Public Health, 69. https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2024.1607094
