Children’s emotional responses to disrespect Amanda Chappell & Allyson Yarsinske Longwood University Introduce speakers Reason for study/interest/broader purpose

Previous Research The experience of disrespect Disrespect among undergraduates (Blincoe & Harris, 2011) Disrespect among children (Shwalb & Shwalb, 2006) In a population of undergraduate participants, it was found that gender influenced the way emotions were felt by the target when disrespected, anger, sadness

Research Questions Does the actor and target gender matter to the population experiencing the disrespect? Researchers have found that adults experienced anger when disrespected. Will children also report more anger than other emotions? Expand the previous research Deservingness and intentionality

Participants 183 children (92 females) Family criteria Care givers in a relationship for more than two years at least one child between 6 and 12 years old The children were participating in a larger longitudinal study of families and sleep Researcher tracked sleep for 1 week for both adults & 1 child. At the end of the week they come to the lab for surveys and interactions tasks The mean age was 8.54 (SD = 1.86). Six (18.4%), seven (16.8%), eight (15.6%), nine (15.6%), and ten (15.1%) 11 year olds at 12.3% and 12 year olds at 6.1% of the sample. Family of origin demographics: heterosexual couples, majority married (82.3%), Caucasian (male – 70.3%; female – 77%)

Method Each child described a time when he or she was disrespected Type of disrespect Actor & target gender Each child answered a series of Likert-type scale questions Emotions they felt (sadness and anger) Deservingness Did you deserve to be disrespected? Intentionality Did X disrespect you on purpose? Describe process of collecting disrespect information -research assistant asks child to describe a time when he/she was disrespected. No additional direction or specification of what disrespect is Children tells story which is recorded by research assistant and observer then reseracher leads children verbally through questions Set of questions that covered elements of the event like who was involved and where and when WE FOCUSED ON How did you code the type of disrespect?

Examples of Disrespect Verbal “My Friend Susie and I were fighting over a friend who had yelled at me. Susie sided with the other friend and told me I was wrong.” – age 9-12 Physical “My brother hit me, then he kicked me and he screamed at me and some other day when he woke up from his nap, I said, “Hello Thomas, how was your nap?” He made a growling noise.” – age 6-8 ACTOR & TARGET coding discussed here too Ignored “My dad did not take care of me and just watched TV.” – age 6-8

Materials Gender of actor Interrater Reliability Questionnaire Kappa = .87 Questionnaire Emotions felt Not at all A little Some A whole lot Talk about scale used, similar to deservingness and intentionality. We focused on anger and sadness

Statistical Plan & Anticipated Results 2x2 Factorial ANOVAs for Anger & Sadness Correlational Analyses Anger Deservingness Anger Intentionality Connect hypotheses to test/variables Correlational analysis If the child feels less anger, then they will perceive the disrespect to be more deserving If the child feels more anger, then they will perceive the disrespect to be more intentional Correlational analysis One-way ANOVAs If a boy were disrespected by a boy actor, then he will feel more anger. If a boy were disrespected by a girl actor, then he will feel more sadness then if he were disrespected by a boy actor “Our expectation is…” if a boy were disrespected by a boy actor, then he will feel more anger if a boy were disrespected by a girl actor, then he will feel more sadness then if he were disrespected by a boy actor if the child feels less anger, then they will perceive the disrespect to be more deserving if the child feels more anger, then they will perceive the disrespect to be more intentional

ANOVAs Type of disrespect on anger, F(2, 137) = 5.91, p = .003, η2 = .08 Post hoc Verbal (M = 2.02, SD = 1.06) > Ignored (M = 1.30, SD = .91), p = .008 Physical (M = 2.10, SD = 1.07) > Ignored, p = .004 Type of disrespect on sadness was not significant, F(2, 137) = 1.93, p = .16 The type of disrespect elicited more anger, with a significant difference between verbal and physical and ignored

ANOVAs Actor or target gender on anger or sadness No main effects (ps > .62 ) or interaction (ps > .64) Type of disrespect on intentionality, F(2, 137)= 2.66, p = .07, η2 = .04 Physical > Ignored, p = .08 Type of disrespect on deservingness, F(2, 136) = .43, p = .65 No effect Mirroring the setup for previous ANOVA slide in talking about possible effects of DR type on intentionality Find the smallest p value for all these main effects and interactions of gender and report the smallest as all ps are greater than that one

Table 1. Correlation of Emotions, Intentionality and Deservingness Measure Anger Sadness Intentionality Deservingness 1 .29** .26** -.07 - .02 -.09 .03 M 1.91 1.72 1.57 2.23 SD 1.07 1.19 1.28 .97 Fully describe all correlational patterns and make clear whether hypotheses were supported or not We found that anger correlated with sadness and intentionality. Anger was particularly linked to intentionality. Hypotheses If the child feels less anger, then they will perceive the disrespect to be more deserving If the child feels more anger, then they will perceive the disrespect to be more intentional ** p < .01.

Discussion Future Research Children reported more anger Children did not feel deserving of disrespect Children perceived disrespect to be intentional Different age groups experience disrespect Social learning Benefits for educators Overall, the children reported more anger than sadness when disrespected. verbal and physical disrespect elicited more anger than being ignored. Children almost never felt that they deserved to be disrespected the emotions of anger and sadness did not correlate with deservingness Children perceived most disrespectful acts to be intentional anger was correlated positively with intentionality. Directly comparing how different age groups experience disrespect Important for educational professionals working with young children and parents with multiple young children.

Thank You Dr. Peggy Keller, Dr. Lauren Gilbert, and members of the University of Kentucky Family & Child Development Lab Data collection was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health https://fcdl.as.uky.edu/ Dr. Sarai Blincoe, our advisor