To examine the effects of early emotional neglect on children's
affective development, we assessed children who had experienced
institutionalized care prior to adoption into family environments. One
task required children to identify photographs of facial expressions of
emotion. A second task required children to match facial expressions to
an emotional situation. Internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized
children had difficulty identifying facial expressions of emotion. In
addition, postinstitutionalized children had significant difficulty
matching appropriate facial expressions to happy, sad, and fearful
scenarios. However, postinstitutionalized children performed as well as
comparison children when asked to identify and match angry facial
expressions. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of
emotional input early in life on later developmental organization.The authors thank Paul Ekman and Linda Camras
for making their facial expression stimuli available to us. Dirk
Wilker, Ziggy Bialzik, and Craig Rypstat provided invaluable assistance
with computer programming and the computerized implementation of the
tasks reported in this article. We also appreciate the assistance of
Gabrielle Sowle, Marna Brown, Justin Martin, Susan Perlman, Kristi
Johnson, Anne Kolan, Erin Eatough, and Sarah Pluck in the collection of
these data. Linda Camras provided very helpful comments on an earlier
version of this manuscript. These experiments would not be possible
without the participation of many children and their families, for
whose collaboration we are extremely appreciative. A preliminary
version of these data were presented at the 2003 Biennial Meeting of
the Society for Research in Child Development. This research was
supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health to
Seth Pollak (MH 68858 and MH 61285). Alison Wismer Fries was also
supported by a National Institutes of Health Training Program in
Emotion Research (MH 18931).