Suchergebnisse

Children's social interactions are crucial for healthy and adaptive social and emotional development. Free play situations, like the school break, represent an important opportunity for children as they learn how to negotiate, take their losses, be a part of a group, and not stand alone. Yet how to measure children's social interactions in groups outside or at large playgrounds? Traditionally, questionnaires and observations are used in order to gain a systematic insight into children's social behavior when they move around in groups; however, these methods can be both unreliable and intrusive. To increase the construct validity of these measures, we have applied a new method to follow children's dynamics at the playground, using radio frequency identification devices (RFID). In this case, we describe how this method works, what it can measure, how it adds to current methods, and the limitations of each of these measures (questionnaires, observations, and RFID sensors). Finally, we give suggestions for the use of RFID sensors and for further development in this area.

Little is known about bicultural adolescents' emotional competence. The aim of the present study was to examine anger communication by comparing thirty‐eight 16‐year‐old Moroccan‐Dutch adolescents with 40 Dutch and 40 Moroccan peers using hypothetical anger‐eliciting vignettes. Findings show that although Moroccan and Dutch adolescents were equally likely to feel angry, they differed in their anger communication in accordance with their cultural models: Moroccan adolescents were more likely to express their anger indirectly than their Dutch counterparts, whereas Dutch adolescents were more likely to react directly or aggressively. Critically, the anger communication styles of the Moroccan‐Dutch youngsters fell in between the two monocultural groups.

AbstractEmpathy is an important building block for social interactions, that not only allows individuals experience and understand others' affective states, but also to helpfully respond to them. Although empathy can already be observed from infancy, only one questionnaire has been specifically developed to examine young children's empathy. This study translated and validated the original Dutch Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue) into Portuguese. A total of 250 caregivers of preschool typically developed children, aged between 3 and 6 years old, participated in this study. To assess the validation, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted, and internal consistency and concurrent validity were tested. The outcomes confirmed that the Portuguese version of the EmQue is also organized in a three‐factor structure (i.e., Emotion Contagion, Attention to Others' Feelings, and Prosocial Actions). The validation required the exclusion of five of the original items. The internal consistencies of the three EmQue scales for this Portuguese version were good. Associations between the three empathy scales with emotion recognition and prosocial behaviors were in accordance with previous research confirming concurrent validity. Divergent validity assessed through the association of the three empathy scales with aggression was partially confirmed.

AbstractAlthough having universal aspects, development of a sense of fairness, a milestone in children's social development, is influenced by social and cultural forces. Yet, it scarcely has been studied in children who are at risk for their social development, let alone in deaf and hard‐of‐hearing (DHH) children, who have limited access to linguistic and social input. This study examined for the first time equity preferences in DHH children compared with hearing counterparts. About 179 children (8–11 years) and early adolescents (12–14 years) played four economic allocation games where they distributed coins between themselves and another child. Participants with and without hearing loss were similar in conditions that entailed non‐costly prosociality or self‐maximization. However, DHH participants showed weaker inequity aversion in more complex conditions: DHH children were more willing to allow other players to receive more coins than themselves, compared with hearing children and to DHH or hearing adolescents, and DHH adolescents were less willing to share resources when it was self‐costly, compared with all other groups. Findings are discussed in light of the tension between norms of social comparison and norms of prosociality, and how they are reflected in developmental trajectories for inequity aversion when access to these norms is limited.

AbstractSociocultural 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.

AbstractMoral emotions such as pride, guilt and shame play an important role in the social‐emotional development of preschool children. However, there are not many instruments available for measuring moral emotions in the preschool age. Moreover, relatively few research had examined cross‐cultural validity of measures for moral emotions. The present study tested the Chinese version of the Moral emotion questionnaire (MEQ) upon a group of (N = 182) Chinese preschool children aged from 2 to 6 years. The Chinese MEQ is a parent‐report translated from Dutch, assessing behavioural responses of pride, guilt and shame in preschool children. Confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory goodness‐of‐fit indexes for a three‐factor structure (Pride, Guilt, Shame) with 15 loading items. For concurrent relations, the results suggested an adaptive role of pride and guilt and a maladaptive role of shame in the social‐emotional development of preschool children. We could conclude that the 15‐item Chinese MEQ is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring pride, guilt, and shame in 2–6‐year‐old children in the Chinese context.

Adolescence is a time of increased sensitivity to peer influence, which creates vulnerabilities but also opportunities. In this study, we examined the influence of peers on prosocial behavior in 12‐ to 16‐year‐old adolescents (N = 197). We utilized a public goods game in which participants made decisions about the allocation of coins between themselves and the group. Participants received manipulated peer feedback on a subset of decisions. Results indicate a significant interaction between feedback condition (prosocial, antisocial, or no feedback) and allocation choices: Prosocial behavior increased after prosocial feedback and decreased after antisocial feedback. These findings support the idea that peer influence creates not only vulnerabilities, but also opportunities for healthy prosocial development and social adjustment learning.

AbstractTwo studies compared popular and rejected children's reasoning regarding social interactions involving negative emotions. The first study, with 23 rejected and 23 popular 10‐ to 11‐year‐olds, involved hypothetical social scenarios where a classmate 'victim' was likely to experience a negative emotion. Although popular and rejected children both recognized negative emotions and were equally likely to suggest helping behaviour to aid the victim, there were gender effects on the type of helping behaviour suggested. Specifically, popular girls were significantly more likely to offer comforting behaviour than advice whereas popular boys offered advice more than comfort; no such preferences were exhibited by the rejected children. Furthermore, popular girls were significantly more likely than other children to refer to emotional states when justifying their helping response. In the second study, 30 popular and 30 rejected eight‐ to 10‐year‐olds identified the motives behind story characters' efforts to mask negative emotions. Popular girls were more likely to identify the target motives than rejected girls, but no such difference was apparent for the boys. The results are discussed in the light of evidence regarding gender differences in peer interaction patterns.

AbstractThe association between empathy and friendship quality in children and adolescents is well established, but longitudinal studies are lacking. Because social interactions typically involve language, these relations might be moderated by children's communication problems. The current study examined the interrelation of friendship quality (positive and negative) and empathy (affective, cognitive, and prosocial motivation) development of 317 children (8–16 years old) at three time points across 18 months. Of these children 112 had a developmental language disorder (DLD). Results confirmed a bidirectional relation between empathy and friendship quality across time. Cognitive empathy and prosocial motivation contributed to the development of more positive friendship features in children with and without DLD. For children with unstable friendships, more cognitive empathy was related to fewer negative friendship features. Positive friendship features in turn contributed to higher empathy on all three aspects. Negative friendship features were related to higher affective empathy and lower prosocial motivation in both groups, but did not predict empathy development across time. These results imply that positive friendship features are important for development of empathic skills and vice versa that empathy enables children to grow in friendship quality in children with and without DLD.