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How is envy depicted in picture books?The effectiveness of picture books for emotional education 
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Envy can motivate self-improvement, but it can also lead to low self-esteem and interpersonal problems. It is particularly important to teach children how to handle envy appropriately. However, adults are unlikely to express envy in daily conversation, making it difficult for children to acquire the language used to describe it. We examined how picture books use words related to envy and evaluated their effectiveness as tools for emotional education. Previous research primarily focused on analyzing the frequency of emotion words. Our database of full-text picture books enables us to analyze their contexts, such as events that trigger envy. Our findings revealed that the various situations in which envy arises in daily life are also depicted in picture books. Picture books help children develop emotional understanding and interpersonal skills by allowing them to imagine characters' feelings while learning to express and respond to their own.
[1]A. Nakai, S. Fujita, N. Watanabe, T. Hattori, T. Kobayashi, “How is envy depicted in picture books?: An examination of the frequency and context of envy-related words,” Proceedings of the 33rd annual meeting of Japan Society for Research on Emotions, PS1-21, 2025. (in Japanese)
Ayaka Nakai, Child Development Research Group, Innovative Communication Laboratory