“One of the most important developments in children’s understanding of emotions is their growing awareness of the possible dissociations between facial expressions and how one actually feels” (Barbaro & Dissanayake, 2007, p. 1235). This item is intended to tap the understanding of display rules(DRs; sometimes referred to as ‘hidden emotions’; Wellman & Peterson, 2013 or ‘emotional disemblence’; Westby & Robinson, 2014). At its core, the understanding of DRs involves knowing that people can manage their expressions in such a way that what is displayed will differ from how someone feels(Zeman & Garber, 1996).The DRsthemselves are unwritten codes or principles governing whether an emotion should be expressed or concealed (Barbaro & Dissanayake, 2007) and the manner in which emotions may be expressed (Malatesta & Haviland, 1982). According to Ekman and Freisen (1969), DRs fall into one of four categories: 1) intensification of emotional expression (e.g., showing great pleasure when one is mildly pleased as when receiving a gift that was not particularly desired), 2) minimizing of emotional expressions (e.g., minimizing a show of pleasure when beating a competitor at a game so as not to be a bad winner), 3) neutralization of expression (e.g., giving a ‘poker face’ when a show of emotion would be non-adaptive) and, 4) substitution ofone emotional expression for another (e.g., converting a show of anger at a subordinateto a smile).
DRs can be similar across groups but also differ by culture, gender, age, family background, and situational and social context (Malatesta & Haviland, 1982; Matsumoto et al., 2008; Safdar et al., 2009;Shahaeian, Peterson, Slaughter, & Wellman, 2011; Underwood, Coie, & Herbsman, 1992; Zeman & Garber, 1996). Though rule-bound, this great flexibility in DRs suggests that their mastery is a result not only of increasing cognitive complexity but also a long series of developmental events that involve socializing experiences that accord with culturally-prescribed rules for emotional expressivity (Banerjee, 1997; Gnepp & Hess, 1986; Saarni, 1979; Zeman & Garber, 1996).Indeed, cultural norms for DRs are evident in the repeated finding that certain emotions (e.g., negative emotions like anger, fear) are more likely to be concealed than others (e.g., happiness; Fuchs & Thelen, 1998; Saarni, 1979; Underwood et al., 1992; Zeman & Garber, 1996).
The construal of DR-understanding as an Advanced theory of mind capacity (Peterson, Wellman, & Slaughter, 2012; Westby & Robinson, 2014) comports well with the notion that it requires complex recursive thinking about others’ mental representations of one’s self (e.g., “If I display pleasure, Mary will think I like the gift”; Barbaro & Dissanayake, 2007; Harris, Donnelly, Guz, & Pitt-Watson, 1986). It also fits well with research linking DR-understanding to competency with the appearance-reality (AR) distinction (essentially the understanding that an object may, in reality, be different than what it looks like; see description of item 11). In fact, DRs have been conceptualized as a subtype of the AR distinction: one that relates specifically to emotions. Whereas the AR distinctionfor the physical domain emerges in the preschool years, it may be later-emerging or later-consolidated for the emotion domain (Friend & Davis, 1993; Gross & Harris, 1988; Harris et al., 1986; but see Banerjee [1997] for contradictory results).
Harris (1989) argues that children’s early use of DRs is neither deliberate nor strategic and that children begin to internalize the meaning of DRs by recognizing the impact that their facial expressions have on others which can have a misleading and undesired effect. Because DRs are acquired from a long series of developmental events and socialization experiences, it makes sense that “4-year-olds have a limited or fragile grasp of the distinction between real and apparent emotion” (Harris et al., 1986, p. 903)and that this understanding is more systematic and accurate in older children. As Saarni (1979) reported, “10-year-olds exceed 6- and 8-year-olds in the number of spontaneously given display rules, complexity of reasoning, and use of norm maintenance as a reason for using a display rule” (p. 428).
DR-use and -understanding have been linked to inhibitory control and emotion regulation (Carlson & Wang 2007; Garner & Hinton, 2010). The use of DRs involves “the intentional control of emotional expression such that the external representation of affect differs from the internal affective state”(Zeman & Garber, 1996, pp. 957-958). Thus, DRsserveimportant internal- and social-regulatory functions for the developing child and are central to the broader construct of emotion regulation (i.e., the ability to control, manage, and modify one’s emotional experiences and expressions; BarbaroDissanayake, 2007; Reissland & Harris, 1991).
Understanding Display Rules in ASD
DR-use and –understanding have important social consequencesand have been linked to greater social adaptive functioning, prosocial behavior (Garner & Hinton, 2010; McDowell & Parke, 2000), and socio-emotional development (Hosie et al., 2000). Given the difficulties in emotion-regulation, social- and cultural-learning, and emotion recognition that are known to occur in ASD, it is not surprising that studies have demonstrated deficits in DR-use and DR-understanding in both high-functioning samples (Barbaro & Dissanyake 2007; Dennis, Lockyer, & Lazenby, 2000) and those with more limited language and intellectual abilities(McGee, Feldman, & Chernin, 1991; Yirmiya, Kasari, Sigman, & Munday, 1989). For example, compared to typically developing (TD) children, Barbaro and Dissanyake (2007) reported less effective emotional displays among children with ASD when ‘neutralization of affect’ (i.e., suppression of a smile) was required which may reflect attempts to (or difficulty in the ability to) regulate emotion. Similarly, Mcgee et al. (1991) reported that, compared to TD children, youngsters with ASD displayed emotions that were incongruent with context (e.g., showed happiness when playing alone versus with others; showed anger more often with adults than with peers as is more typical). Finally, Peterson and colleagues (Peterson & Wellman, 2005; Peterson, Wellman, & Slaughter, 2012) found that children with high functioning ASD were significantly delayed in their understanding of DRs (what Peterson et al., 2005, 2012 call ‘hidden emotions’) although they tended to perform better on a structured DR task compared to a standard false belief task which represented a departure from the developmental sequence observed in TD children and late deaf signing children who tend to master false beliefs before DRs. This led Peterson and Wellman (2005) to speculate that children with ASD may have “hacked out” the DR taskand may have devised some sort of “work-around” or “alternative strategies to take account of their peers’ real and apparent emotions to interact partially successfully with them, even though lacking a clear appreciation of mental states” (p. 514).Taken together, the research in this area suggests that “children with autism appear to have limited understanding of socially derived emotion. For them, facial expressions [may be] learned codes for particular emotions, but not forms of social communication that, through deception, can modify the beliefs of the person to whom the expression is directed” (Dennis et al., 2000, p. 377).
Understanding Display Rules in ADHD
As noted above,DR-use and -understanding have been linked to inhibitory control and emotion regulation: both of which are hallmark impairments of ADHD. This, combined with a large body of research revealing emotion recognition deficits in ADHD, suggests that DR-understanding would likely be disrupted in ADHD; yet, we are aware of only one study examining the comprehension of the DRs in this population. Hutchins et al. (2016) compared typically developing (TD) males, males with ASD, and males with ADHD for their comprehension of DRs using caregiver report (i.e., the Theory of Mind Inventory). Results revealed no statistically significant differences between the ASD and ADHD groups with both groups receiving significantly lower scores compared to the TD sample. These findings suggest that children with ADHD are at risk for poor DR-understanding as measured by caregivers’ perceptions of child ability. With this in mind, more research is needed to determine whether, or under which circumstances, children with ADHD might demonstrate challenges in this area. It is possible, as suggested by Hutchins et al. (2016), that DR-understanding is preserved when executive demands are low (e.g., as in structured laboratory-type tasks) and impaired when executive demands are high (e.g., as when children endeavor to solve theory of mind problems in everyday life).
Understanding Display Rules in DoHH
Several studies have assessed DR-understanding in children who are DoHH. Hosie et al., (2000) found that oral and late deaf signers (ages 2 – 17) were no different from typically developing (TD) children in their reported concealment of emotion. However, the DoHH group was less likely to report that they would conceal happiness and anger, less likely to produce reasons for concealing emotions, and less likely to cite prosocial reasons for emotion concealment. Hosie et al. (2000) concluded that performance was not related to language ability and that the understanding of DRs (especially those which function to protect the feelings of others) may be delayed in individuals who are DoHH. These results comport well with the findings of Rieffe and Meerum Terwogt (2006) who found that oral (sign-supported) deaf children (11-years) employed the communicative function of anger differently from hearing children. “Whereas hearing children used anger expression to reflect on the anguish that another child caused them, deaf children used it rather bluntly and explained less” (p. 1261).
In a series of studies on DoHH children, Peterson and colleagues found that DR-understanding (what they refer to as ‘hidden emotions’) was no different in TD children and deaf nativesigning children (Peterson et al., 2005) and while the typical developmental progression in the tasks studied was the same for TD and deaflate signing children, the latter group showed a significant developmental delay for the more advanced theory of mind achievements studied. These included seeing-leads-to-knowing (see description of item 9), false belief understanding (see description of items 8 and 12), and DR-understanding(in that order: Peterson et al., 2005; 2009;Peterson et al., 2012). Like Hosie et al. (2000), Peterson and colleagues concluded that the delays evident in DoHH children are likely a result of late signers’ restricted access to social interaction, language, and conversation about internal states.
For more information about emotion recognition in ASD, ADHD, and DoHH, see the description of the Emotion Recognition Subscale.
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