Differential parenting and children's social understanding

In the current study, a curvilinear association was examined between differential parenting and children's social understanding as measured using standardized assessments and behavioral observations. Social understanding was comprised of theory‐of‐mind and behavior indicating understanding of others’ minds (i.e., cognitive sensitivity and internal state talk and reasoning during sibling interactions). Data came from a community sample of 372 children (51.6% males; M age = 5.57, SD = 0.77), their younger siblings (M age = 3.14, SD = 0.27), and their mothers who were observed in their homes. We hypothesized that in families with higher levels of differential parenting, both favored and disfavored older siblings would display poorer social understanding, but that disfavored children would be more negatively impacted. Results from a hierarchical regression analysis indicated an inverse linear effect, rather than a curvilinear relationship, between being favored by mother and siblings’ social understanding. Specifically, disfavored older children showed higher levels of social understanding when interacting with their favored younger sibling. This relationship remained significant after controlling for variables such as age, SES, and language. Findings suggest that differential parenting plays a role in children's ability to understand others.     

Older sibling contribution to younger children's working memory and cognitive flexibility

We used structural equation modeling in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort (N = 17,020) to explore the influence of having an older sibling on kindergarten‐age focal children's cognitive self‐regulation. In model 1, we tested how having a sibling who is generally older than the focal child contributes to the focal child's working memory (WM) and cognitive flexibility (CF) upon entering kindergarten. In model 2, we assessed the contribution to the focal child's kindergarten WM and CF of having an older sibling in a non‐proximal age range (age 12–18) or not having siblings relative to having an older sibling in a proximal age range to the focal child (up to age 11). In model 3, we considered the contribution of having an older sister, an older brother, or both an older sister and an older brother of any age. Having an older sibling in general was associated with increased kindergarten WM, whereas having an older sister was related to increased WM and CF. Compared to having a proximal older sibling, having no siblings and having a non‐proximal older sibling were related to decreased WM and CF. Findings have implications for involving siblings in family interventions in early childhood.     

The influence of an older sibling on preschoolers’ lie‐telling behavior

In the present study, children’s (2‐ to 5‐years old) lie‐telling was examined in relation to theory of mind (first‐order false belief understanding), executive functioning (measuring inhibitory control in conjunction with working memory), and presence of siblings in the home (no siblings vs. siblings; younger siblings vs. older siblings).  Lie‐telling was observed using a temptation resistance paradigm. Overall, of the 152 (74.9%) children who peeked at the toy, 73 (48%) lied during the temptation resistance paradigm. Children with higher scores on measures of first‐order false belief understanding, and measures that relied on inhibitory control, were more likely to lie compared to their truthful counterparts.  Additionally, children with older siblings were more likely to lie to the research assistant, and this relationship was independent of performance on cognitive tasks. Overall, results demonstrate that having an older sibling has an independent, direct effect on the development of young children’s lie‐telling abilities, irrespective of cognitive ability. These findings support the argument that lie‐telling is a behavior that is facilitated by both cognitive and social factors.     

The Nature and Effects of Young Children's Lies

Children's use of deception in a naturalistic setting was observed longitudinally in 40 families when children were 2 and 4 years old, and again two years later. Goals included describing children's lying behavior and parents’ reactions to lies, and comparing lies to other false statements. Lies were commonly told to avoid responsibility for transgressions, to falsely accuse siblings, and to gain control over another's behavior. Unlike children's other false statements (e.g., mistakes, pretense), lies were distinctly self‐serving. Parents rarely addressed the act of lying itself but often challenged the veracity of lies or addressed the underlying transgression. Older siblings lied more often than younger ones, and parents who allowed older siblings to lie at Time 1 had children who lied more often at Time 2. Results are considered from a speech‐act perspective and in terms of children's developing understanding of mental states.     

Family Talk about Internal States and Children's Relative Appraisals of Self and Sibling

This study investigated associations between preschoolers' conversations about internal states and their spontaneous appraisals of self and sibling. Thirty‐two preschoolers (M age = 3.9 years) were observed during naturalistic home interactions with mothers and younger siblings. Various features of mothers' and children's internal state language were coded. Children who talked about internal states to the baby and who talked more about the baby's perspective tended to appraise their sibling negatively relative to self. In contrast, mothers' references to internal states, as well as their promotion and encouragement of the child's own internal state talk, were negatively related to the differences between children's negative appraisals of self and sibling. These results support the social‐constructivist notion that the quality of children's interactions with family members is related to how they construe themselves in comparison to their siblings.     

Individual Differences in Infants' Emotional Resonance to a Peer in Distress: Self–Other Awareness and Emotion Regulation

In this study, relations between emotional resonance responses to another's distress, emotion regulation, and self‐other discrimination were investigated in infants three‐, six‐, and nine‐months‐old. We measured the emotional reactions to the pain cry of a peer, along with the ability to regulate emotions and to discriminate between self and other body movements. We found evidence that infants do regulate their emotional resonance responses to another's distress. This relation is age specific, with younger infants using more primitive self‐soothing behaviors, while in older participants attentional based strategies relate to affect sharing reactions. Only nine‐month‐old infants have shown self‐other differentiation abilities, and these were significantly connected to their emotions in response to a peer's distress. These findings have implications for our understanding of early empathy development.     

‘Not a good person’: family stigma of mental illness from the perspectives of young siblings

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine family stigma as one form of the stigma of mental illness in child and youth mental health. Presented are the outcomes of a thematic content analysis of in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews conducted with seven (n = 7) young siblings, ages 13 to 21 years old, with a brother or sister identified as having a mental‐health issue. The focus of the interviews was on the ways the siblings experienced their other sibling's mental health and how those experiences shaped their sense of self and family. From the analysis, young siblings had predominately negative experiences, struggled with making sense of their brother or sister and the family as ‘flawed’ against the mental illness as ‘bad’ and experienced considerable family stress and overt family stigma. Current practice theories fail to consider the complexity of these factors and, in doing so, fail to adequately explain the nature and extent to which stigmatization occurs for immediate family members. The importance of peer support and understanding stigma in social work practice with children and their families is discussed.     

Children's Physiological Regulation and Sibling Conflict as Correlates of Children's Conscience Development

Children's conscience, including the ability to experience guilt and engage in rule‐compatible behavior, develops across early childhood. The current study investigated whether within‐family variation in children's baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and sibling conflict behavior were associated with individual differences in children's guilt and internalized conduct. Between‐family differences across sibling dyad gender compositions were also examined. A within‐family design that included 70 families with two siblings between the ages of 2 and 5 was utilized. Children's baseline RSA was measured while sitting quietly with their family. Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires that assessed siblings’ conflict behavior, guilt, and internalized conduct. Older siblings had higher levels of guilt and internalized conduct than younger siblings. Results from actor‐partner interdependence models indicated that there were no direct effects of children's baseline RSA. The interaction effects approached significance (p's ≤ .08) suggesting that older siblings’ conflict moderated the association between older siblings’ baseline RSA and both older and younger siblings’ guilt. In contrast, older siblings’ conflict was positively associated with older and younger siblings’ internalized conduct. Guilt and internalized conduct also differed for older and younger siblings in different dyad gender compositions. The results underscore the need for greater clarity regarding the function that siblings serve in promoting children's moral development during early childhood.     

Maternal Emotion-related Socialization and Preschoolers' Developing Emotion Self-awareness

Preschoolers' ability to demonstrate awareness of their own emotion is an important socio‐emotional competence which has received increasing attention in the developmental literature. The present study examined emotion self‐awareness of happiness, sadness, and anger in response to a delay of gratification task in 78 preschool children. Maternal emotion‐related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) including reported emotional expressivity, responses to her child's emotions, and observed emotion talk, were examined as predictors of children's emotion self‐awareness skill one year later. Results show that, after controlling for receptive language ability, supportive ERSBs were predictive of high self‐awareness of happiness whereas non‐supportive ERSBs were predictive of low self‐awareness of sadness. The results demonstrate that the concordance between observed and self‐reported emotion serves as a useful index of children's awareness of their emotional experience.     

Mainstream Discourse and the Construction of Public Understanding of Women's Employment

1949年后在妇女就业知识上存在着三种主流话语。一是计划经济时代，妇女就业知识以“革命话语”来叙述，实现了对妇女参加公共领域劳动的动员；二是从计划经济向市场经济转型的过程，妇女就业知识是以“素质话语”被叙述的，其在力图将妇女推回家庭领域的过程中压低了女性劳动力的价格；三是市场化时代，妇女就业知识以“男性强势话语”被表述，显示了市场经济与父权制的有机结合。与此同时，有关妇女就业知识的女性主体性也在形成，它显示出女性自主意识及其对人权话语的使用。

关键词: 革命话语素质话语男性强势话语

There have been three types of mainstream discourse relating to public understanding of women's employment since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The first was the “revolutionary discourse” that dominated the era of the planned economy. During this period, knowledge about women's employment was heavily influenced by revolutionary discourse, and women were mobilized to take up positions in virtually all areas of social life. The second occurred in the transition from a planned to a market economy. During this process, knowledge of women's employment was constructed by a so‐called “quality discourse,” which depressed women's wages in the course of driving them back into the home. The third important mode of discourse took place in the era of marketization, and saw knowledge about women's employment constructed by male‐centered hegemonic discourse in an organic union between the market economy and the patriarchal system. Meanwhile, female subjectivity in regard to knowledge about women's employment is taking shape. At the same time, women's sense of autonomy in relation to understanding of employment has started to grow and exhibits self‐awareness and use of the discourse of human rights.     

Self‐report of emotional experience and peer nominations of expressivity: Predictability of change in teacher‐rated social behavior

We investigated individual differences in self‐reported emotional experience and peer‐perceived expressivity among children in mid‐ to late‐elementary school years. Specifically, we examined the constructs’ correspondence and temporal stability and also compared the degree to which each predicts change in classroom social behavior over 2 years. Participants were 199 children (Mage = 10 years, Time 1) and their classroom teachers who have participated in two times of assessment. We used self‐report of emotional experience and peer nominations of expressivity regarding happiness, anger, and sadness. Teachers rated children's social skills, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems. The correspondence was generally small in magnitude between self‐reported experience and peer nominations of expressivity. The stability of peer nominations of emotional expressivity was medium and comparable to that of self‐reported experience with the exception of happiness. The predictability of change in social behavior was more robust for peer nominations of expressivity than for self‐reported experience. We discussed the relevance of different dimensions of emotionality as well as informants in understanding the predictability of social behavior from emotionality. We also discussed the role of sociodemographic variables in emotional experience and expressivity and offered practical implications of peer nominations in the assessment of children's emotionality.     

How Parenting Style Affects False Belief Understanding

This study investigated whether mothers facilitate false belief understanding, and if so, what strategies are particularly relevant. The mothers of 64 3- and 4-year-olds were given questionnaires eliciting information about mother's education, mother's occupation, number of younger and older siblings, the time the child spends with mother, and about how mothers deal with five disciplinary situations with their child. Three variables were positively correlated with belief understanding: age, number of older siblings, and number of times mothers said they would respond to the disciplinary situations by asking the child to reflect on the victim's feelings (How Feel responses). These three variables had an independent effect on belief understanding because each was significant after accounting for the influence due to the other two variables. In contrast, there was no significant positive relation between belief understanding and mothers who engaged their child in general discussion and exploration of the disciplinary issues, or who simply reprimanded the child without discussing the situation. The effects for number of older siblings and How Feel responses remained even after the influence due to the child's age, verbal mental age, time spent with the mother, and number of younger siblings was accounted for. The results are consistent with recent research showing that parent-child relations may be important for theory of mind understanding. More importantly, they provide insight into a specific strategy by which parents may help children learn about mental states.     

Sibling Relationships and Social-emotional Adjustment in Different Family Contexts

The aims of this study were to examine family type (nonstep, stepfather, stepmother, and single mother) and sibling type (full‐ and half‐siblings) differences in sibling relationship quality (positivity and negativity), and to investigate links between sibling relationship quality and child externalizing and internalizing problems. The sample included 192 families with a 5‐year‐old target child and an older sibling. In addition, 80 of these families included a third older child. Mothers and the older siblings (8 years and older) completed questionnaires and interviews regarding conflict and support in their sibling relationships, and parents and teachers reported on each child's social‐emotional adjustment. Sibling negativity (conflict, aggression) was highest in single‐mother families and full‐siblings were more negative than half‐ and stepsiblings. There was some evidence that sibling antagonism was associated with more child behavioral and emotional problems, but these effects were moderated by family type.     

Is the association between social capital and health robust across Nordic regions? Evidence from a cross‐sectional study of older adults

Nyqvist F, Nygård M. Is the association between social capital and health robust across Nordic regions? Evidence from a cross‐sectional study of older adults The study examined the association between structural and cognitive social capital and self‐rated health among 65‐ and 75‐year‐olds in Västerbotten in Sweden and Österbotten and Pohjanmaa in Finland. Data were retrieved from a cross‐sectional postal questionnaire survey conducted in 2005 and was answered by 3,370 persons, yielding a total response rate of 69 per cent. The association between self‐rated health and interpersonal trust and membership in organisations was tested by logistic regression analysis. The results showed that older adults in Västerbotten in Sweden experienced better self‐rated health than in Finland. Furthermore, interpersonal trust and active membership in organisations were associated with self‐rated health among 65‐ and 75‐year olds even after having controlled for the influence of region. We therefore conclude that the association between social capital and self‐rated health tends to be robust across contextually similar regions, but that further analyses are warranted in order to clarify the nature of this relationship. Key Practitioner Message: ?Health status can be indirectly strengthened through investments in social capital, such as group participation and active networks; ?When working with older adults, more focus needs to be put on how to develop trustful relationships; ?The Nordic welfare state, with its universal and subsidised social and health care services, has an indirect and positive effect on health among older adults.     

Children's Family Relationships Between Two and Five: Developmental Changes and Individual Differences

Developmental changes in children's relationships with their mothers and older siblings between 33 and 69 months of age were investigated in a longitudinal study of 47 families, through an examination of family conversations and affect expressed during unstructured home observations. Mother-child interaction decreased and sibling interaction increased markedly over the period. The prominence of reflective commentary in children's discourse increased while self-interested moves decreased with both partners; however differences in emotional expression and in patterns of change in the two relationships were marked, with more positive and negative emotion and play with siblings. Individual differences in the trajectory of these changes were correlated with early differences in social understanding, and with SES. The association between children's developing social understanding and these changes in relationships is discussed.     

Parent and Sibling Influences on the Quality of Children's Conflict Behaviours across the Preschool Period

Parent and sibling influences on children's development of conflict management strategies were examined. Data consist of naturally occurring, in‐home sibling disputes of 37 families at two time points. The siblings were approximately two and four years old at Time 1, and four and six years old at Time 2. Parents' and children's use of conflict strategies that reflect proactive autonomy assertions such as opposition and verbal and physical power were the focus of the current study. Results suggest that parents and siblings play an important role in shaping children's conflict behaviours over time. For instance, parents' reliance on unelaborated opposition to the child, and older siblings' increased use of physical power predicted decreases in younger siblings' ability to assert themselves during conflict. In addition, increased proportions of opposition from a younger sibling was associated with the older siblings using less verbal aggression and using more mature conflict strategies such as justifying their own behaviour to their younger sibling. As sibling conflict is a salient child rearing concern for parents, practical implications are discussed.     

Social Acceleration Theory and the Self

In recent years, there has been a rapidly growing body of work in the social sciences that underscores the prevalence of the phenomenon of ‘social acceleration'—the speeding up of social life— in many parts of the Western world. Although research on social acceleration has tended to analyze the phenomenon on a social‐structural level, there is also a need to investigate how social acceleration has ‘ramifications for the socially dominant forms of self‐relation’. One way to gain a more in‐depth understanding of this facet of social acceleration is to investigate the speeding up of social life through the prism of the self. The central argument of this article is that there are at least five images of the self which can be associated with the social acceleration phenomenon: (1) the ‘detached’ self, (2) the ‘reflexive’ self, (3) the ‘reinventive’ self, (4) the ‘stationary’ self and (5) the ‘decelerating’ self. By explaining how these kinds of self relate to the speeding up process, we seek to advance a more nuanced and sophisticated theory of social acceleration, which captures some of the complexities and paradoxes that the phenomenon involves.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Emotion Socialization and Children's Emotion Regulation: A Within‐Family Model

In the current study, we examined whether mothers' and fathers' reactions to young children's positive and negative emotions were associated with children's negativity and emotion regulation. We utilized a within‐family design with 70 families (mother, father, and two siblings between the ages of 2 and 5 years). Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires about their emotion socialization as well as children's negativity and emotion regulation. Results indicated that mothers' and fathers' unsupportive reactions to children's positive emotions were associated with children's negativity. Fathers' unsupportive reactions to children's emotional displays were differentially associated with older and younger siblings' emotion regulation. Fathers' unsupportive responses to children's positive and negative emotions also contributed jointly to children's emotion regulation. The results suggest that exploring the within‐family correlates of children's emotion regulation and negativity is useful for understanding children's emotional development.     

The Effect of Financial Incentives and Access to Services on Self-funded Admissions to Long-term Care

With the growth in the numbers and proportion of older people in the population the funding and incentive structures around long‐term care are of international concern. A study of the circumstances of self‐funded admissions to care homes allowed the comparison of self‐funders with publicly funded admissions to care homes in the UK, the influences on self‐funders in their decision to move into a care home and resources on which they were able to draw. These findings contribute to our understanding of the impact of current policy on self‐funders and our thinking about the way that future policy and practice changes could improve the way we use society's resources in the provision of long‐term care.     

Social Capital in Urban China: Attitudinal and Behavioral Effects on Grassroots Self‐Government*

Objectives. Studies of Western settings, in general, argue that social capital, defined as a set of civic norms and social networks among ordinary citizens, nurtures democratic governance at various levels. Does such a social capital exist in a transitional society such as China? If so, what kind of role does social capital play in affecting individuals' attitudinal and behavioral orientations toward fledging grassroots self‐government in that society? This study is intended to answer these questions, which are crucial for our understanding of China's sociopolitical development as well as for the application of social capital theories in non‐Western societies. Methods. This study is based on the data collected from a representative survey conducted in an urban area in China in 2004. Results. The findings from this study indicate that social capital among urban residents was abundant, and it nurtured the grassroots self‐government system through residents' attitudinal and behavioral orientations toward the system. Conclusions. These findings have strong implications for the future of local democratic governance and applicability of social capital theories in China.