General research interests
a) social-emotional development (e.g., attachment; peer relationships; ontogeny of disgust response)
b) social-cognitive development (e.g., emotion understanding in infancy and early childhood)
b) social-cognitive development (e.g., emotion understanding in infancy and early childhood)
Current RESEARCH focus
Infants’ responses to other people’s emotional expressions. What can this tell us about their emotion understanding in particular, but also their more general understanding of other people?
What is emotion understanding?
It includes (but is not limited to):
1. Referential intent = understanding what the emotion is about and/or what caused the emotion (Repacholi, 1998; Repacholi, 2009)
2. Emotional content = understanding emotions in terms of valence (e.g., positive v. negative) vs. understanding discrete emotions (i.e., the unique meaning associated with each different emotion) (Ruba, Meltzoff, & Repacholi, 2019)
3. Subjectivity = understanding that different people can have different emotional responses about the same object or event (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997)
4. Emotional eavesdropping = attending to emotional exchanges between other people and determining if the information is personally relevant (Repacholi & Meltzoff, 2007)
5. Emotion prediction = predicting another person’s emotions on the basis of their visual experiences (i.e., what they can or cannot see) (Repacholi et al., 2008)
1. Referential intent = understanding what the emotion is about and/or what caused the emotion (Repacholi, 1998; Repacholi, 2009)
2. Emotional content = understanding emotions in terms of valence (e.g., positive v. negative) vs. understanding discrete emotions (i.e., the unique meaning associated with each different emotion) (Ruba, Meltzoff, & Repacholi, 2019)
3. Subjectivity = understanding that different people can have different emotional responses about the same object or event (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997)
4. Emotional eavesdropping = attending to emotional exchanges between other people and determining if the information is personally relevant (Repacholi & Meltzoff, 2007)
5. Emotion prediction = predicting another person’s emotions on the basis of their visual experiences (i.e., what they can or cannot see) (Repacholi et al., 2008)
If you are interested in finding out more about our research, take a look at our publications. If you are a parent and would like to participate, click here.