Emotion Dynamic During Sad Events: The Relation Among Attachment Security, Loneliness and Sadness-Related Emotional Profiles.

BackgroundCurrent theoretical models emphasize sadness as a functional and multifaceted emotion, yet research often neglects the heterogeneity of children's co-occurring emotional responses to sad events.AimThis study investigated the heterogeneity in children's emotional responses to sad events, moving beyond variable-centered approaches that assume uniform emotionality.MethodUsing a person-centered approach grounded in the core affect framework, the primary aim was to identify distinct configurations of sadness, anger, fear, and confusion in middle childhood. A secondary aim explored whether mother's and father's attachment security and loneliness predicted membership in emotional profiles. A total of 174 children (age range: 7-11 years-old; M = 8.79, SD = 1.03; 55.9% female) participated.ResultsLatent Profile Analysis identified four distinct profiles: Sadness-Focused Response, Anxious Sadness, Emotional Overwhelming, and Externalized Sadness. ANOVAs revealed that sadness-focused profile showed higher loneliness than Emotional Overwhelming. Furthermore, Externalized Sadness showed lower attachment security for both mother and father than Sadness-Focused Response and Anxious Sadness.ConclusionThese findings underscore that sad events elicit qualitatively different emotional configurations, highlighting the need for tailored assessment and intervention strategies based on distinct emotional response patterns.