Improving Emotion Comprehension and Social Skills in Early Childhood through Philosophy for Children

Abstract

The relationship between emotion comprehension and social competence from very young ages has been addressed in numerous studies in the field of developmental psychology. Emotion knowledge in childhood seems to have its roots in the conversations and explanations children hear about what emotions are and how to manage them. Given that behavioral interventions often do not achieve medium-term improvements or generalization to other contexts, this study evaluates the results of an intervention using the Thinking Emotions program. This program uses Philosophy for Children (P4C) as the work format and is based on the idea that reflection and dialogue among peers is one of the most effective ways to interiorize significant knowledge. The program was applied during one school year in two preschool classrooms (one class of 4-year-olds and one class of 5-year-olds). Comparisons of the pre- and post-treatment measures of the control (N=28) and experimental (N=32) groups show significant improvements in emotion comprehension and social competence in the 5-year-old children and improvements related to social competence in the 4-year-olds.