Child emotional expression and its relationship with family functioning in Kuito-Bié, Republic of Angola

Abstract

Background: the study of emotions is important because of the way they interact in the reality of the individual, their daily life, in each individual experience, and particularly in their family environment.
Objective: to characterize the relationship between emotional expression and family functioning of Angolan children from 8 to 10 years old, from a correlational study.
Methods: a descriptive-correlational study was conducted in the municipality of Kuito, province of Bié, Republic of Angola, between September and July 2016. Theoretical methods were used: analytical-synthetic, inductive-deductive, historical-logical and systemic- structural; empirical: observation and interview for the application of psychological assessment instruments: questionnaire of childhood emotions and test of perception of family functioning.
Results: about the frequency with which emotions were expressed in schoolchildren, the intermediate response "sometimes" predominated in most emotions; among the pleasures they mentioned joy; while the unpleasant ones were anxiety and sadness, expressed from manifestations of extraverbal and verbal nature. In functional families, semi-expressive and expressive styles prevailed, while dysfunctional styles were distinguished by using a repressive or expressive style that was out of adjustment, with the prevalence of authoritarianism and permissiveness.
Conclusions: emotional expression and its relationship with family functioning in children aged 8 to 10 years of Kuito-Bié, Republic of Angola was characterized and a direct link between pleasurable emotions and functional families was determined, while most of the unpleasant emotions were manifest in dysfunctional family environments.