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

Background Current 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. Aim This study investigated the heterogeneity in children’s emotional responses to sad events, moving beyond variable-centered approaches that assume uniform emotionality. Method Using 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. Results Latent 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. Conclusion These 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.