The Portrayal of Anger and Anger Management in Children's Picture Books

Abstract

Through a comprehensive analysis of a sample of 80 children’s picture books, this study highlights the importance of embedding language to describe anger experiences and elements of social information processing (SIP) within stories to enhance young children’s understanding of anger arousal within themselves and others, as well as of anger management strategies. This study identified anger-eliciting situations, physiological and behavioral reactions, coping strategies proposed by helpers or the main character, along with other themes related to emotion socialization within the books. The current study identifies gaps in the portrayal of SIP mechanisms within stories, which underscores a need to emphasize the role of emotion dysregulation and of SIP biases during interpersonal conflicts as it is critical to foster regulation, reappraisal, and problem-solving skills among readers. The depiction of anger arousal and its escalation, predominantly through illustrations, is explored, along with implications for emotion understanding and cultural considerations of emotion expression. Picture book stories convey beliefs and values about anger by normalizing the emotion while promoting constructive regulation and expression through addressing the arousal in the body, delaying reactive responses, and using cognitive coping strategies. Overall, the current study has implications for caregivers and clinicians, in that becoming aware of how anger experiences are portrayed in picture books can aid in book selection based on a match with an individual child’s experiences and temperament to maximize its use as a tool for social-emotional learning and anger management in young children.