A new study has demonstrated that even kindergarteners seem to understand that having positive thought will make you feel better. It also showed how a parents’ own feeling of optimism could play a major role in determining if their children could understand how thoughts influence emotions. The study was conducted by researchers at Jacksonville University and the University of California, Davis.
During the study 90 children, whose ages ranged from 5 to 10 years old, listened to six illustrated stories. In the stories two characters feel the same emotions after experiencing something positive, like getting a new puppy or something negative like spilling milk or something ambiguous like meeting a new teacher. After each experience one character has positive thoughts about the event while the other has pessimistic thoughts. Researchers would describe the thoughts of the characters in the story and ask the children about each of the character’s emotions. The children were then asked to predict the different emotions of each character in similar situations.
The results illustrated children as young as 5 had the ability to predict that people would feel better after having positive thoughts than after having negative thoughts. They demonstrated insight when it came to the influence of positive versus negative thoughts and emotions during ambiguous circumstances. As the children grew older they developed increased understanding concerning the links between emotions and feelings.
During the study children struggled to understand how having positive thoughts could help in a bad situation like falling down and getting hurt. The strongest predictor of a child’s knowledge, when it came to the benefits of positive thinking, was not the child’s own level of hope and optimism, but the level of their parents. The findings indicate the importance of a parent’s role when helping their child learn to use positive thinking to feel better when facing difficult situations. Researchers feel the study results illustrated the importance for parents to be a role model of positive thinking when it comes to facing different situations.
Source
Press Release
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239692.php
Study
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01706.x/full