Abstract

OTTA, Emma  and  SARRA, Simone. A study about the smile and the laughing in children of four and five years old. Psicol. USP [online]. 1990, vol.1, n.1, pp. 13-24. ISSN 1678-5177.

Smiling has been more widely investigated than laughing and both have been the focus of studies specially in the mother-infant interaction. In the present study, older children (4-5 ys) were observed while interacting, and, following CHEYNE'S (1976) suggestion, three categories of smiles were recognized: with no teeth exposure, with upper teeth exposure, with upper and lower teeth exposure. Laughter, which was not examined by that author, was added to this analysis. A group of 19 children (8 boys, 11 girls) was followed through a focal-Individual Sampling Method. Each Focal-Individual was submitted to six ten-minute observation sessions. It was verified that the upper teeth exposure category was significantly more frequent than the other forms of expression. The frequencies of the smile with upper and lower teeth exposure and the laughter were equivalent and both were more frequent than the smile with no teeth exposure. A significant negative correlation between the smile with no teeth exposure and that with upper teeth exposure, and also a significant positive correlation between the smile with upper and lower teeth exposure and laughter were found. Our results confirm Cheyne's suggestion that smiling is an heterogeneous motivational category, although the pattern of correlations found was not exactly the same: Cheyne found a negative correlation between the smile with no teeth exposure and the smile with upper and lower teeth exposure.

Keywords : Laughter; Non verbal communication; Smiles.

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