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Authors: Jose Pedro Espada Sanchez, Mireia Orgilés, Marina Serrano-Ortiz (Miguel Hernandez University)
Background: Behavioural inhibition is characterized by heightened shyness and withdrawal in response to novel objects, unfamiliar situations, and unknown people. It is considered a risk factor for anxiety disorders. Understanding how this trait relates to emotional perception is crucial, as difficulties in recognizing and interpreting emotions can impact children's social interactions and emotional well-being. This study aimed to explore the relationship between behavioural inhibition and emotion recognition in preschoolers.
Methods: The study involved 449 children aged 4 to 6 years. Parents completed the Behavioural Inhibition Questionnaire (30 items) to assess their child’s level of inhibition. Children participated in a task where they were required to recognize emotions (anger, happiness, sadness, and fear) from a set of pictures.
Results: Small but significant negative correlations were found between emotion recognition accuracy and social novelty inhibition with peers (r = -0.128, p = 0.007), inhibition in performance situations (r = -0.152, p = 0.001), separation inhibition (r = -0.104, p = 0.027), and inhibition in physical challenges (r = -0.113, p = 0.017). These findings suggest that higher behavioural inhibition is weakly associated with lower accuracy in emotional perception among young children.
Discussion: While the observed correlations were modest, they suggest that children with lower behavioural inhibition may demonstrate greater adaptability in social and emotional contexts. Higher emotional competence could be linked to increased social confidence, facilitating smoother interactions and reducing the tendency to inhibit behaviours or emotions. These insights could help inform interventions aimed at enhancing emotion recognition and social adaptation in children with anxiety-related traits.
| Conflict of interest | None |
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