Abstract

The purpose of this experimental research is to classifying the representative emotion words based on similarity and investigating the differentiation patterns of emotional dimensions inherited in the words so as to investigate the dimensions. 24 elementary school students, 24 middle school students and 24 high school students, 24 university students participated in classifying the representative emotion words based on similarity and investigating the differentiation patterns of emotional dimensions inherited in the words so as to investigate the dimensions. As a result, the emotional dimension of the elementary school students consisted of 1 dimension, which was called ‘pleasure-displeasure.’ The middle school students’ emotions had 2 dimensions: first was named ‘pleasure-displeasure,’ the second as ‘activation-inactivation third as ‘self-orientation and other- orientation.’ Lastly, the high school students’ emotions comprised 3 dimensions: the first was called ‘pleasure-displeasure,’ the second ‘activation-inactivation’ and the third ‘self-orientation and other-orientation,’ which match with the adults’ 3-dimention emotional structure. To provides important implications in that the interaction among various factors was revealed by investigating emotional development through differentiation of the dimensions inherent in emotion words.