Positive emotions, such as happiness and joy, feel good. Beyond this momentary hedonic benefit, past research suggests that positive emotions can facilitate patterns of thought that are more sophisticated and creative than those that occur when one is experiencing neutral or negative emotions (Fredrickson, 2001; Isen, 2000). However, little research has examined the range of domains to which this "broadening" effect of positive emotions applies and the extent to which the effect depends on the age of the individual. The field of positive psychology, which has fostered much of this research, would benefit from greater consideration of developmental perspectives. Rather than enhancing the performance of young children, positive emotions may impair performance, at least in some domains. Because preschoolers are still developing the ability to regulate their emotions effectively, positive emotions may disrupt their focus, narrow their attention, and lead to more regressive and less adaptive functioning. This research examines the effect of positive emotions on preschoolers' performance of tasks in several socio-cognitive domains.;One hundred and eleven participants were randomized to a positive or neutral mood condition and tested individually. Four different parallel (positive vs. neutral) mood induction procedures were counterbalanced and used with each participant. Following each mood induction, the children completed tasks assessing accuracy in Emotional Understanding (Emotion Recognition, and Emotion Knowledge), Inhibitory Control (Stroop and Card Sort), Social Problem Solving, and Creativity abilities. On the Card Sort task children in the positive condition performed better than children in the neutral condition. On the Emotion Recognition task, there was a marginally significant effect of condition such that children in the neutral condition performed better as compared to children in the positive condition. On the Social Problem Solving, Stroop, and Creativity tasks there was no difference in performance based on condition. Possible explanations for the findings are discussed.
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