The Emotional Leap: How Preschoolers' Flexible Minds Shape Their Empathy

Redacción HC
01/05/2024

By the age of five, children's brains are not just growing — they're leaping. Between the ages of 3 and 6, kids develop two crucial abilities: cognitive flexibility, the capacity to shift between rules or perspectives, and emotion understanding, the skill of recognizing and interpreting others' emotions. These twin faculties form the backbone of early socialization, empathy, and self-control. But how exactly do they develop during the preschool years? Do they influence each other? And do boys and girls differ in their developmental pace?

A recent study led by Mengxia Li from Southern Federal University in Russia, published in Frontiers in Psychology (2024), explores these questions through a developmental lens. Drawing on data from over 500 children in China, the research provides one of the most detailed snapshots yet of how thinking flexibility and emotional insight evolve hand in hand — and what that means for early education.

Mapping the Preschool Mind: What Was Studied

The study followed 532 children aged 3 to 6 years, grouping them in six-month age bands and comparing their performance on two types of tasks:

• Cognitive flexibility was assessed using the Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) task, which challenges children to sort cards by one rule (e.g., color), then switch to another (e.g., shape).
• Emotion understanding was measured through:
  • Recognition of facial expressions (happy, sad, angry, fear),
  • Situational tasks exploring emotional causes (external events, desires, beliefs, contextual cues).

Advanced statistical analyses — including ANOVA, Pearson correlations, and multiple regression — were used to examine developmental patterns, gender differences, and the degree to which one skill predicted the other.

Key Findings: From Cards to Compassion

Cognitive Flexibility Soars with Age

Children's ability to switch cognitive rules dramatically improves between ages 5 and 6, with success rates exceeding 90%. Girls slightly outperformed boys in flexibility, though the difference was modest.

"The preschool period marks a qualitative leap in executive function," the authors note.

Emotional Insight Follows a Sequence

Emotion understanding didn't emerge all at once. The study confirmed a stepwise progression:

• By age 3, children could already identify happiness, sadness, and anger in facial expressions.
• Fear recognition matured later, around age 5—especially among girls, who showed stronger performance than boys.
• Understanding external causes and desires came first, followed by situational cues and, later, beliefs — the most abstract emotional trigger.

Girls Lead in Emotional Sophistication

Consistent with past studies, girls outperformed boys in recognizing fear and interpreting belief-based emotional cues. This supports the idea that gender socialization and neurological factors may influence early emotional development.

Flexibility Predicts Emotion Skills — But Not All

Statistical models revealed a significant predictive role of cognitive flexibility:

• Children with higher flexibility also showed better recognition of facial expressions and understanding of desires and external causes.
• However, no significant prediction emerged for understanding based on beliefs or complex contextual cues — suggesting that more advanced emotion reasoning may depend on additional cognitive faculties like theory of mind.

"Cognitive flexibility appears to support empathy by enabling children to shift perspectives," explains Li.

Real-World Applications: Games, Classrooms, and Parent Workshops

Building Emotional Skills Through Play

The findings suggest that rule-switching games, such as role-playing or "opposite day" activities, not only boost mental agility but also enhance emotional awareness.

• For educators: integrating cognitive-emotional games into the curriculum could serve dual purposes.
• For parents: playful activities at home (e.g., "how would you feel if...?" games) can foster flexible thinking and empathy.

Early Screening and Intervention

Children who show delayed development in either domain may benefit from early interventions. Identifying deficits in flexibility or emotional comprehension can help flag social challenges before they escalate.

Culturally Responsive Education

While the study was conducted in China, the principles are globally relevant. In Latin American preschools, for example, incorporating bilingual emotion vocabulary and culturally relevant play routines could support this development across diverse populations.

Research Limitations and Future Directions

Like many developmental studies, this one had limitations:

• A cross-sectional design captures a snapshot, not a timeline — longitudinal follow-up would offer deeper insight.
• The DCCS task only taps a narrow slice of flexibility; future research might explore real-world adaptability.
• Cultural specificity: results from Chinese preschools may not generalize without cross-cultural replication.

Li recommends future studies examine cross-cultural patterns, integrate longitudinal tracking, and consider parent-child interaction styles to further refine our understanding of this dual development.

Conclusion: Empathy Starts with Flexibility

This study brings much-needed clarity to how preschoolers develop the building blocks of empathy. As children become more cognitively agile, they also become more emotionally attuned — at least in the earlier stages of understanding emotions.

For educators, psychologists, and parents alike, the message is clear: nurturing flexible minds helps shape kind hearts. Supporting both domains in tandem may be the key to raising not only smarter children — but also more compassionate ones.

Topics of interest

Education