Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/mnlqgcredy
EMOTIONAL SKILLS IN EARLY ADOLESCENCE - GENDER AND AGE DIFFERENCES
MARIJA DŽIDA
orcid.org/0000-0003-4969-2143
Abstract
The transition to adolescence brings numerous changes for children and adolescents.
Adequately developed emotional skills may be necessary for successful
coping with the challenges of that period. Emotional clarity is an emotional skill
defined as an understanding of one's own emotions. Previous research shows that
there are gender and age differences in emotional clarity in adolescence, but it
is not entirely clear when they occur. The aim of this research is to explore the
structure of the Croatian version of the Emotional Clarity Questionnaire and to
investigate whether there are gender and age differences in emotional clarity in
the period of transition to adolescence. The research was conducted as part of
the project titled: Child Well-being in the Family Context (CHILD-WELL), which is
financed by the Croatian Science Foundation. 1,548 children attending the third,
fourth, fifth, and sixth grades of the primary school participated in the project. In
this research, a shortened version of the Emotional Clarity Questionnaire was used
on a Croatian sample of children. The children also provided information about their
own negative emotionality. Analyzes showed that the shortened version of the
Emotional Clarity Questionnaire is comparable for boys and girls, and for children
in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades of elementary school. The results also showed
that there are no significant age differences in this developmental period. However,
there were consistent gender differences. Boys showed higher levels of emotional
clarity than girls from fourth to sixth grade. However, additional exploratory analyzes
revealed that gender differences are not present after controlling for children's
negative emotionality.
Keywords
emotional skills; emotional clarity; transition to adolescence.
Hrčak ID:
289705
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2022.
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