Children's Use and Knowledge of Display Rules for Anger Following Hypothetical Vignettes versus Following Live Peer Interaction

Our primary goal was to examine the correspondence between children's self-reported use and knowledge of display rules for anger following hypothetical vignettes versus following live peer interactions. Our secondary goal was to investigate whether children's self-reported experience and self-reported expression of anger were related their observed anger expression, considered an observational measure of use of display rules for anger. Participants were 274 second-grade children. Children were first interviewed about their use and knowledge of display rules for anger in game-playing situations depicted through hypothetical vignettes. Several months later, children interacted with a confederate in standardized games designed to simulate the vignettes and answered the same questions about display rules. Children's responses were moderately related across the two contexts. However, following the live interactions, compared to the hypothetical vignettes, children reported feeling less anger, expressing less anger, intending to hide their anger more, and dissembling their anger more. In addition, there were differences in the quality and quantity of strategies for hiding anger that children generated across the two contexts. Observations of anger expression were not related to self-reports of either the experience or expression of anger.     

Mothers' Emotions and Behavioral Support During Interactions with Toddlers: The Role of Child Temperament

This article examines mothers' support for children's interests and, specifically, emotional processes in mothers that may explain why they display different levels of support with children of different temperaments. We observed 114 mothers and their 14–27 month-old children during a laboratory interaction. Mothers rated children on three dimensions of temperament: activity, anger proneness, and social fearfulness. As expected, activity predicted mothers' anger, disappointment, and low support for children's interests. Social fearfulness predicted mothers' worry, low anger, low disappointment, and high support for children's interests. Mediational tests verified that (1) mothers' emotions often mediated the relation of child temperament to mothers' supportive behavior, and (2) children's compliance often mediated the relation of child temperament to mothers' emotions. Mothers tended to report negative emotion and to display relatively unsupportive behavior with children whose temperaments corresponded to attributes considered relatively undesirable for their sex.     

Knowledge Structures, Social Information Processing, and Children's Aggressive Behavior

Although a multitude of factors may be involved in the development of children's violent behavior, the actual aggressive act is preceded by a decision-making process that serves as the proximal control mechanism. The primary goal of this longitudinal study was to understand the nature of this proximal control mechanism involved in children's aggressive acts by focusing on two aspects of social cognitions: social information processing and stored knowledge (i.e., internal knowledge structures that are the latent memories of past events). It was hypothesized that: (1) children with hostile knowledge structures will display more biased patterns of aggressive social information processing than children whose knowledge structures are less hostile and negative; (2) children who display hostile knowledge structures will behave in chronically aggressive ways; and (3) the development of hostile knowledge structures and hostile patterns of social information processing contribute to the stability of aggressive behavior and thus partially mediate the relation between early and later aggressive behavior. 585 boys and girls (19% African-American) were followed from kindergarten through eighth grade. Results from this investigation support the hypotheses and are discussed in terms of the significance of the inclusion of knowledge structures in our theories of the mental processes involved in children's violent behaviour.     

Emotion Regulation in Low-income Preschoolers

The present study was concerned with identifying the causes of low-income preschoolers' negative emotions and their most common regulation responses. The relations of family socialization practices and temperament to the children's emotion regulation skills were also examined. Ninety predominantly minority low-income preschoolers (46 boys) and their mothers participated. During visits to the children's preschools, observers watched for expressions of anger and sadness, and recorded the causes of the displays and the children's reactions. Mothers reported on their emotion socialization and discipline practices and their children's temperament. Although the children expressed more anger than sadness, they used more constructive reactions in response to sadness and more non-constructive reactions in response to anger. Maternal reports of appropriate family emotion were associated with low levels of non-constructive regulation responses to anger and sadness whereas reports of inconsistent parental discipline were generally associated with non-constructive regulation responses. All in all, the findings of this study are in accord with findings on middle-income children and indicate that low- and middle-income children are more alike than different with regard to the regulation of negative emotion in the peer environment.     

Parental Control and Affect as Predictors of Children's Display Rule Use and Social Competence with Peers

Seventy‐six fourth‐grade children and their parents participated in a study of the linkages among parental control and positive affect, children's display rule use, and children's social competence with peers. Using observational measures of parental behavior and children's display rule use, it was found that parental positive affect and control were related to children's display rule use (including both positive and negative responses). Moreover, the links between parental affect and control and children's social competence one year later (as rated by teachers and peers) were found to be mediated by children's display rule use. Finally, fathers’ behavior was found to be particularly important in the prediction of children's display rule use. The importance of fathers in children's social and emotional development and the importance of examining multiple parental behaviors are discussed.     

Self-reported Use of Emotional Display Rules in the Netherlands and Iran: Evidence for Sociocultural Influence

Sociocultural differences in children's use and understanding of emotional display rules have been under-researched. In the present study, 56 Dutch and 56 Iranian children aged 10–11 years took part in a structured interview about their experiences of using emotional display rules. In comparison with the Dutch children, the Iranian sample was more likely to report having actually used emotional display rules themselves, more likely to identify family audiences for display rules, and less likely to identify peer audiences. In addition, they were more likely than the Dutch children to identify both prosocial and self-protective motives for concealing emotion from family audiences, and less likely to identify self-protective motives for concealing emotion from peers. Results are interpreted in the light of socialization processes involved in the development of emotion regulation.     

Do expressive mothers have expressive children? The role of socialization in children's affect expression

The effects of maternal expressiveness and children's gender on children's nonverbal expressiveness were assessed in two settings. In the laboratory, 30 boys and 30 girls of kindergarten age were unobtrusively videotaped while talking about happy, sad, and fearful experiences and while experiencing three social situations designed to elicit happy, disappointed, and apprehensive feelings. Videotapes were rated for emotion expression, using global ratings and EMFACS codes. In school, teachers rated these children's expression of four discrete emotions. In both the laboratory and school settings children were more positively expressive than negatively so, and positive and negative expressiveness were unrelated. In the laboratory children's positive expressiveness was consistent across the three social situations, but negative expressiveness varied across affective context. In both settings, children of low-expressive mothers were more positively expressive than children of high-expressive mothers, who tended to be more negatively expressive than children of low-expressive mothers. The difference in negative expression appeared most striking for anger. Gender was not predictive of children's expressiveness in either setting     

The relations of children’s emotion knowledge to their observed social play and reticent/uninvolved behavior in preschool: Moderation by effortful control

Using data from a study of 140 preschool children (39% female), we examined the relations between direct assessments of emotion knowledge and naturalistic observations of behavior during free‐play periods, and tested parent‐ and teacher‐reported effortful control as a moderator of these relations. Basic emotion recognition was unrelated to social play and reticent behavior, whereas situational understanding of emotions (thought to be a relatively sophisticated aspect of emotion knowledge) was negatively related to reticent/uninvolved behavior and marginally positively related to social play. Effortful control significantly moderated these relations, such that situational emotion understanding was more strongly related to reticent/uninvolved behavior and social play at low levels of effortful control, and unrelated to outcomes at high levels of effortful control. These results highlight the unique role of situational understanding in predicting children’s social competence and suggest that emotion knowledge is particularly important for children who struggle with effortful regulation skills.     

Parenting and children’s prosocial and problem behaviors in middle childhood: The role of Turkish mothers’ emotion socialization practices

Mechanisms by which the relations between different parenting behaviors and children’s prosocial and problem behaviors occur are the focus of the current study. Supportive and nonsupportive emotion socialization practices of mothers were considered as potential mediators. Further, the moderator role of gender was explored. Participants were 228 mothers of 6‐ to 11‐year‐old children living in Ankara, Turkey. Scales assessing parenting behaviors (specifically, positive parenting and inconsistent discipline), maternal reactions to children’s negative emotions, and prosocial and problem behaviors of children were completed by the mothers. The results revealed that supportive emotion socialization practices fully mediated the relation between positive parenting behaviors and both boys’ and girls’ prosocial behaviors. In contrast, nonsupportive emotion socialization practices partially mediated the relation between inconsistent parenting behaviors and problem behaviors, but only for girls. Findings indicated that girls were more vulnerable to their mothers’ inconsistent behaviors possibly because mother–daughter dyads are more likely to use emotion‐related language and to discuss emotions than mother–son dyads from a very early age.     

Parent–Child Emotional Communication and Children's Coping in Middle Childhood

Parent–child communication regarding children's negative emotions and coping were examined in a sample of 75 5th graders (53% boys) and their mothers and fathers. We predicted that emotionally open communication between a parent and his or her child would be related to children's use of constructive coping strategies. Parents reported on how they react to their child's negative emotions, and children reported on how much they share their negative feelings with each parent. Additionally, emotional communication was measured during a parent–child discussion task involving an event that was upsetting to the child. The results indicated that emotional communication, as reported by mothers, fathers, and children, as well as mother–child observed communication, were related to children's coping strategies. The findings point to a need to assess emotional communication using multiple measures that tap both the child's and the parents’ perspectives and that use different methodologies.     

European‐American and African‐American Mothers' Emotion Socialization Practices Relate Differently to Their Children's Academic and Social‐emotional Competence

The current study examines whether the relation between mothers' responses to their children's negative emotions and teachers' reports of children's academic performance and social‐emotional competence are similar or different for European‐American and African‐American families. Two hundred mothers (137 European‐American, 63 African‐American) reported on their responses to their five‐year‐old children's negative emotions and 150 kindergarten teachers reported on these children's current academic standing and skillfulness with peers. Problem‐focused responses to children's negative emotions, which have traditionally been considered a supportive response, were positively associated with children's school competence for European‐American children, but expressive encouragement, another response considered supportive, was negatively associated with children's competence for African‐American children. The findings highlight the need to examine parental socialization practices from a culturally specific lens.     

Peer Nominations of Emotional Expressivity Among Urban Children: Social and Psychological Correlates

The current study examined associations between peer nominations of children's expression of negative emotions and psychological, social, and behavioral correlates in a sample of 523 first graders. Children (85 percent African‐American) completed a peer nomination measure for expressing negative emotions. In addition, three other domains of functioning were assessed using multiple raters: internalizing symptoms (self, parent), externalizing behavior (parent, teacher), and social competence (parent, teacher). Regression analyses indicated that peer nominations of negative emotions predicted higher levels of teacher‐rated externalizing behavior and lower levels of teacher‐rated social competence. Peer nominations of emotions were significantly associated with teacher ratings but unrelated to self‐ and parent‐report measures. Adding to a small but growing literature, our findings underscore the importance of assessing peer perceptions of children's emotional expressivity and their associations to social and psychological functioning in an urban, predominantly African‐American sample.     

'I made some mistakes . . . but I love them dearly' the views of parents of children in informal kinship care

In-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 parents of children living with relatives in informal kinship care arrangements revealed the parents' views of the reasons for the informal kinship care arrangements, quality of their relationships with the children and their caregivers, their current and future roles in their children's lives, feelings experienced when with and away from the children, positive and negative aspects of kinship care, future goals and dreams for their children, and their assessments of their own strengths and challenges. Results of these interviews suggest several implications for social work practice and research.     

How Mood and Task Complexity Affect Children's Recognition of Others' Emotions

Previous studies examined how mood affects children's accuracy in matching emotional expressions and labels (label‐based tasks). This study was the first to assess how induced mood (positive, neutral, or negative) influenced five‐ to eight‐year‐olds' accuracy and reaction time using both context‐based tasks, which required inferring a character's emotion from a vignette, and label‐based tasks. Both tasks required choosing one of four facial expressions to respond. Children responded more accurately to label‐based questions relative to context‐based questions at the age of five to seven, but showed no differences at the age of eight, and when the emotional expression being identified was happiness, sadness, or surprise, but not disgust. For the context‐based questions, children were more accurate at inferring sad and disgusted emotions compared with happy and surprised emotions. Induced positive mood facilitated five‐year‐olds' processing (decreased reaction time) in both tasks compared with induced negative and neutral moods. Results demonstrate how task type and children's mood influence children's emotion processing at different ages.     

Emotion Situation Knowledge in Elementary School: Models of Longitudinal Growth and Preschool Correlates

We examined individual differences in developmental trajectories of emotion situation knowledge (ESK), at three time points throughout elementary school in a sample of children from economically disadvantaged families. Results showed that ESK and the subscales of joy, fear, anger, shame and interest exhibited positive growth from the first to the fifth grade, whereas scores on the sad subscale declined slightly. Preschool verbal ability predicted first grade scores for joy, fear, and anger, and growth in scores for shame across time. Preschool negative emotional intensity predicted slower growth in overall ESK and the anger and shame subscales. Taken together, these results broaden our basic knowledge of how children's use of situational cues to infer others' emotions develops in middle and late childhood.     

Mothers' interoceptive knowledge predicts children's emotion regulation and social skills in middle childhood

Interoception, often defined as the perception of internal physiological changes, is implicated in many adult social affective processes, but its effects remain understudied in the context of parental socialization of children's emotions. We hypothesized that what parents know about the interoceptive concomitants of emotions, or interoceptive knowledge (e.g., “my heart races when excited”), may be especially relevant in emotion socialization and in supporting children's working models of emotions and the social world. We developed a measure of mothers' interoceptive knowledge about their own emotions and examined its relation to children's social affective outcomes relative to other socialization factors, including self‐reported parental behaviors, emotion beliefs, and knowledge of emotion‐relevant situations and non‐verbal expressions. To assess these, mothers (N = 201) completed structured interviews and questionnaires. A few months later, third‐grade teachers rated children's social skills and emotion regulation observed in the classroom. Results indicated that mothers' interoceptive knowledge about their own emotions was associated with children's social affective skills (emotion regulation, social initiative, cooperation, self‐control), even after controlling for child gender and ethnicity, family income, maternal stress, and the above maternal socialization factors. Overall, findings suggest that mothers' interoceptive knowledge may provide an additional, unique pathway by which children acquire social affective competence.     

Secure attachment and social and personality outcomes: The moderating role of emerging adults’ autobiographical memories of parents

Schema-congruent positive autobiographical memories of past experiences with parents, a legacy of secure attachment, may operate jointly with secure attachment to predict social and personality outcomes. The current study examines the moderating role of emerging adults’ autobiographical memories of parents on the relations between maternal and paternal attachment and self-regulation, personal distress, and pathological narcissism. Undergraduates (N = 156, 66.7% female, 53.2% White, M_age = 19.3) completed a battery of measures assessing secure attachment, self-regulation, personal distress, and pathological narcissism (vulnerable and grandiose). Participants were instructed to recall brief autobiographical memories of experiences with their parental figures. Later, they were asked to name the primary emotion associated with each memory. These emotions were coded as positive, negative, or neutral in valence. For the final analysis, a positive emotion index was constructed by subtracting the number of negative memories from the number of positive memories. Regression models simultaneously examining four outcomes (self-regulation, personal distress, and vulnerable and grandiose narcissism) were examined for both female and male parental figures. Interactions between secure attachment and positive memories were only significant for maternal model outcomes. Secure attachment was positively related to self-regulation, and negatively related to personal distress and vulnerable narcissism, when more relative positive memories were recalled. Taken together, this study provides support for the continued influence of secure attachment on social and personality outcomes in emerging adulthood. Further, this influence of secure attachment appears buttressed by readily accessible positive (relative to negative) memories of female attachment figures.     

The Relations among Theory of Mind,Behavioral Inhibition,and Peer Interactions in Early Childhood

The current study examined relations among child temperament, peer interaction, and theory of mind (ToM) development. We hypothesized that: (1) children classified as behaviorally inhibited at 24 months would show less ToM understanding at 36 months in comparison to nonbehaviorally inhibited children; (2) children who displayed negative peer interaction behaviors in a peer dyadic interaction at 24 months would exhibit less ToM understanding at 36 months; and (3) behavioral inhibition (BI) and the degree of negative behaviors during a peer interaction would jointly influence ToM development, such that children with both heightened BI and negative peer interaction behaviors would exhibit worse ToM performance than behaviorally inhibited children who did not display negative social behaviors. Both BI and negative peer interaction behaviors were associated with passing fewer ToM tasks. The data revealed that children high in both BI and negative peer interaction behaviors passed fewer ToM tasks at 36 months of age than those high in BI and low in negative peer interactions or those low in BI.     

Connecting with Parents: Mothers' Depressive Symptoms and Responsive Behaviors in the Regulation of Social Contact by One- and Young Two-year-olds

When children act to involve mothers in positive interaction, they influence the amount, timing, and content of parent–child exchanges. By assessing children's smiling and positive initiation, we examined child behaviors that function to create positive interaction. In a non-clinical North American sample of 103 mothers and their 14- to 27-month-olds, we observed that children attempted to connect positively with mothers (1) more with age, (2) more frequently and quickly immediately after mothers were responsive, (3) more with mothers who were generally supportive, and (4) more with mothers low in depressive symptoms. When mothers were high in depressive symptoms, age-related increases in smiling and positive initiation were absent. Findings demonstrate the importance of maternal depression and responsiveness to child behaviors that involve mothers in ongoing activity. They suggest that both immediate cues and children's stored knowledge related to how mothers will respond may regulate children's positive connecting behaviors.     

Methods of, and Reasons for, Emotional Expression and Control in Children with Internalizing, Externalizing, and Somatic Problems in Urban India

Although cross-cultural research concerning children's emotions is growing, few studies have examined emotion dysregulation in culturally diverse populations. This study compared 6- to 8-year-old children's reported methods of expressing and controlling anger, sadness, and physical pain, and their justifications for doing so across four groups in urban India: those with internalizing problems (N = 31), externalizing problems (N = 32), somatic complaints (N = 25), and an asymptomatic control group (N = 32). Results revealed that in comparison to physical pain, Indian children were less likely to report expressing anger and sadness through direct facial/verbal means. Control-group children reported expressing anger and sadness through indirect verbal cues more so than pain, whereas the internalizing and externalizing groups considered their expressions of anger and sadness uncontrollable and reported crying and utilizing aggressive behaviors, respectively, more than the control group. The somatic complaints group considered emotions trivial and reported withdrawing more than the control group.