Adopting the Emotions Course in the Italian Context: A Pilot Study to Test Effects on Social-Emotional Competence in Preschool Children

The purpose of this study was to adopt the Emotions Course (EC) in the Italian context and to examine preliminarily its effectiveness in accelerating the social-emotional competence and reducing maladaptive behaviors in preschool children. The study involved 143 children (73 males and 70 females) aged 3–5 years (M = 4.4 years, SD = .74), divided into two groups: 1) an experimental group (N = 69; 34 males and 35 females), consisting of classes in which teachers realized the EC, integrating it in their usual educational plan; 2) a control group (N = 74; 39 males and 35 females), consisting of classes in which teachers exclusively followed their usual educational plan that did not include the EC. Guided by previous studies (Izard et al. in Early Education and Development 15:407–422, 2004; Izard et al. in Development and Psychopathology 20:369–397 2008a), we hypothesized that, compared to the control condition, in the treatment group the EC would show greater increases in emotion knowledge (Hypothesis 1) and emotion regulation/utilization (Hypothesis 2), and greater increases in social competence along with greater decreases in externalized and internalized behaviors (Hypothesis 3). Results of hierarchical linear modeling analyses confirmed the first two hypotheses and partially supported the third. The results showed that children increased emotion knowledge, emotion regulation/utilization and social competence.