Our Research
Welcome to the Tel-Aviv Emotional Development Lab's research section. Here, you can explore the latest findings and ongoing studies related to emotional development in children. Our research aims to shed light on the developmental pathways through which humans construct their emotional world.
Emotion Representation from Childhood to Adolescence (ERCA)
What do we feel when we argue with a friend, succeed or fail a test, spend time with family, or meet someone new? During the transition from late childhood to early adolescence, youth experience increasingly diverse and complex emotional situations. To navigate these situations, they need to develop refined and specific emotional concepts to help them understand what they feel. In the ERCA study, we investigate how young people develop their emotions over time, how these emotions relate to bodily responses, and how parents, friends, and other important people shape these processes. Participants - 8-13 years old children and adolescents - share their emotional experiences with us through computer games, questionnaires, and physiological measures that capture bodily reactions. We also ask participants to report on their emotions in daily life outside of the lab, to understand how emotions unfold over time in the real world.
Emotion Representation in Early Childhood
How do young children understand and talk about their own emotions? In this study, we investigate how asking 5-8 years-old children to focus on their inner feelings affects the way they think about their emotions. By doing so, we hope to learn which kinds of conversations best support children’s growing emotional understanding. Children share their emotional experiences with us through a fun computer game, and parents help by providing additional information about their child through short questionnaires.