Office: McGuinn 428
Phone: (617) 552-6768
Email: widensh@bc.edu
Website: www2.bc.edu/~widensh
Academic Interests: My research interests focus on children's understanding of emotion and how that knowledge develops and changes in the preschool years (2 to 5 years of age). While young children's understanding of emotion differs from adults', it is nonetheless systematic. Part of my research focuses on identifying the nature of children's understanding of emotion and tracing its developmental path as it becomes more adult-like. Another area I am interested in is the power of different cues in tapping children's knowledge of emotion. Thus, we have compared the power of facial expressions, labels and emotion-evoking events. These two areas of research have focused on 'basic' emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust. My third area of interest is children's understanding of other emotions, such as love, shame, guilt, pride, and so on. Children's understanding of these emotions is later-emerging and based on their understanding of the 'basic' emotions.
Undergraduate Institution/Degrees: University of British Columbia, BA, MA
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