We examined the extent to which children’s emotion-sharing relationships were unique from friendships. We also examined the association between emotional experience and emotion sharing as well as the association between emotion sharing and prosocial behavior. Participants were 456 children (M_age = 10.6 years) from the Midwestern United States. Peer nominations and self-report were used to assess study constructs. Despite considerable convergence between friendships and emotion-sharing relationships, children did not share emotions with 31% of close friends and 20% of emotion-sharing partners were not close friends, indicating divergence of the two relationships. Experience of happiness was positively associated with emotion sharing; emotion sharing was positively associated with prosocial behavior. Compared with boys, girls identified more partners and more same-gender peers for emotion-sharing relationships and they shared feelings with friends to a greater extent. We discussed emotion sharing as a compelling means for the development of children’s affective and social competence.

我们研究了在多大程度上儿童的情感共享关系在友谊中是独特的。我们还研究了情感体验与情感共享之间的关联以及情感共享与亲社会行为之间的关联。参加者为456名儿童（M_岁）= 10.6年）。同行提名和自我报告被用来评估研究结构。尽管友谊和情感共享关系之间有相当大的融合，但孩子们并未与31％的密友分享情感，而20％的情感共享伙伴不是密友，这表明两种关系存在分歧。幸福的经历与情感分享成正相关；情感共享与亲社会行为呈正相关。与男孩相比，女孩在情感共享方面找到了更多的伴侣和更多的同性同龄人，并且她们在更大程度上与朋友分享了情感。我们讨论了情感共享是发展儿童情感和社会能力的一种令人信服的手段。