Construct Validity of the Emotion Matching Task: Preliminary Evidence for Convergent and Criterion Validity of a New Emotion Knowledge Measure for Young Children.

Current emotion knowledge measures examine only one component of the multifaceted construct. We examined the reliability and the construct validity of a new measure of emotion knowledge (EK), the Emotion Matching Task (EMT). The EMT consists of four parts which measure the components of receptive emotion knowledge, expressive emotion knowledge, emotion situation knowledge, and emotion expression matching. First, we compared the EMT and its parts to two widely used EK measures-the Kusche Emotional Inventory (KEI) and Denham's Affective Knowledge Test (AKT, 1986) in order to establish convergent validity. The EMT and its four parts were strongly correlated with both measures of emotion knowledge. Regression analyses revealed moderate to strong predictive validity for EMT. Compared to KEI and AKT, the EMT was a more robust predictor of teacher rated emotion regulation and parent reported effortful control. Compared to KEI and AKT, the EMT correlated similarly with verbal ability and age.