Anger in response to challenge: children’s emotion socialization predicts approach versus avoidance

Negative emotion is typically associated with avoidance behavior; however, recent advances in the adult literature show that unlike some emotions (sadness, shame), anger predicts both approach and avoidance. Here we propose that socialization to suppress anger will play a role in whether children who express anger respond to a performance challenge with approach or avoidance. Children (N = 79; M _age  = 11.4 years) reported perceptions of parental use of positive conditional regard (PCR) to socialize anger suppression and worked on four unsolvable puzzles. We measured change in verbalized puzzle-solving strategies during failure, and coded emotion expression on the final puzzle. We examined whether negative emotion type (shame/sadness vs. anger) and PCR for anger predicted change in strategy use, and whether the association between level of PCR for anger and approach-avoidance (change in strategy use) depended on type of negative emotion expressed. Neither emotion expression nor level of PCR anger predicted strategy use; however, type of negative emotion moderated the association between PCR anger and change in strategy use, controlling for NCR anger. For children who displayed anger, low PCR was associated with increased strategy use, and high PCR was associated with decreased strategy use. We discuss the role of emotion socialization in shaping approach and avoidance motivation.     

Adults’ and children’s monitoring of story events in the service of comprehension

When reading narratives, adults monitor shifts in time, space, characters, goals, and causation. Shifts in any of these dimensions affect both moment-by-moment reading and memory organization. The extant developmental literature suggests that middle school children have relatively sophisticated understandings of each of these dimensions but does not indicate whether they spontaneously monitor these dimensions during reading experiences. In four experiments, we examined the processing of event shifts by adults and children, using both an explicit verb-clustering task and a reading time task. The results indicate that middle school children’s and adults’ post-reading memory is organized using these dimensions but that children do not monitor dimensions during moment-by-moment reading in the same manner as adults. These differences were not a function of differentially difficult texts for children and adults, or between-group differences. The findings have implications for models of adult and child text processing and for understanding children’s developing narrative comprehension.     

Developmental differences in children’s interpersonal emotion regulation

Previous research on interpersonal emotion regulation (ER) in childhood has been rather unsystematic, focusing mainly on children’s prosocial behaviour, and has been conducted in the absence of an integrative emotion theoretical framework. The present research relied on the interpersonal affect classification proposed by Niven et al. (Emotion, 9:498–509, 2009) to investigate children’s use of different interpersonal ER strategies. The study drew on two samples: 180 parents of children aged between 3 and 8 years reported about a situation where their child was able to change what another person was feeling in order to make them feel better. In addition, 126 children between 3- and 8-years old answered two questions about how they could improve others’ mood. Results from both samples showed age differences in children’s use of interpersonal ER strategies. As expected, ‘affective engagement’ (i.e., focusing on the person or the problem) and ‘cognitive engagement’ (i.e., appraising the situation from a different perspective) were mainly used by 7–8 years-old, whereas ‘attention’ (i.e., distracting and valuing) was most used by 3–4 and 5–6 years-old. ‘Humor’ (i.e., laughing with the target) remained stable across the different age groups. The present research provides more information about the developmental patterns for each specific interpersonal emotion regulation strategy.     

The role of motion and intensity in deaf children’s recognition of real human facial expressions of emotion

There is substantial evidence to suggest that deafness is associated with delays in emotion understanding, which has been attributed to delays in language acquisition and opportunities to converse. However, studies addressing the ability to recognise facial expressions of emotion have produced equivocal findings. The two experiments presented here attempt to clarify emotion recognition in deaf children by considering two aspects: the role of motion and the role of intensity in deaf children’s emotion recognition. In Study 1, 26 deaf children were compared to 26 age-matched hearing controls on a computerised facial emotion recognition task involving static and dynamic expressions of 6 emotions. Eighteen of the deaf and 18 age-matched hearing controls additionally took part in Study 2, involving the presentation of the same 6 emotions at varying intensities. Study 1 showed that deaf children’s emotion recognition was better in the dynamic rather than static condition, whereas the hearing children showed no difference in performance between the two conditions. In Study 2, the deaf children performed no differently from the hearing controls, showing improved recognition rates with increasing rates of intensity. With the exception of disgust, no differences in individual emotions were found. These findings highlight the importance of using ecologically valid stimuli to assess emotion recognition.     

Use of a reference group in researching children’s views of psychotherapy in Malta

This paper explores the process and outcomes of a children’s reference group within the context of child psychotherapy research in residential care. The reference group was set up to consult children about the design of a research project which seeks to evoke, represent and understand children’s views of psychotherapy. No work to date has explored the experience of reference groups in the context of child psychotherapy in residential care in Malta. The paper contextualises the research within the literature on reference groups in child research, which identifies the potential of reference groups as a participative and co-reflexive activity which can inform research design. The paper critically examines the nature and conduct of the reference group by acknowledging the specific context of this work rather than assuming this is necessarily positive. It does so by specifying and evaluating the outcomes of the reference group in line with its aims. The paper draws on the recordings of the reference group meetings and reference group field notes taken by the researcher as key data which were thematically analysed. The main outcomes of the reference group include children’s contribution to the design of data collection methods especially in terms of not relying only on words during data collection. Children also identified key ethical issues from the point of view of young psychotherapy service users, especially in relation to issues of trust within a residential care context. Children also reviewed and appraised research information material. The reference group process drew from the researcher’s and participants’ contexts and contributed significantly to the researcher’s reflexive process especially in terms of acknowledging his power and positioning as an adult and his dual role as a practitioner/researcher.     

The development of children’s sympathy,moral emotion attributions,and moral reasoning in two cultures

The current study investigated the development of children’s sympathy, moral emotion attributions, and moral reasoning in two cultures: Chile and Switzerland. One hundred seventy-six children in two age groups (i.e., 6 and 9 years old) were asked to report their sympathy. Moral emotion attributions and moral reasoning were measured using two hypothetical moral transgressions (i.e., omitting a prosocial duty, stealing from another child). Younger Chilean children reported higher levels of sympathy than younger Swiss children. Across cultures, older children attributed more moral emotions than did younger children. Younger Swiss children used more moral reasoning following judgements about rule violations than did younger Chilean children. The findings are discussed from both a developmental and cross-cultural perspective.     

Barriers to children’s walking to school in Iranian and Chinese samples

Factors that contribute to children’s walking to school have been investigated in previous research, which primarily focussed on socio-economic variables in high income countries. There is a general lack of studies which have examined mode choice differences on school trips in low and middle income countries. Focusing on parental social cognitive variables in addition to household socio-economic characteristics, the present study is among the first to compare barriers to children’s walking in daily commuting to schools across samples from two middle income countries: Iran and China. A self-administered questionnaire was devised and distributed among primary school pupils (7–9 years old) in Mashhad, Iran and Nanjing, China. The children were asked to take the questionnaires to their parents to complete and return the filled forms. A total of 671 (response rate of 90 percent) and 224 (response rate of 82 percent) completely filled questionnaires were returned in Mashhad and Nanjing, respectively. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that parents in Mashhad perceived higher risk and reported more worry of children being involved in road crashes when walking to school. Analyses revealed more safety favourable parental attitudes in the Chinese sample, compared to the Iranian sample. Parental attitudes towards transport safety were safer in the sample from Nanjing as compared to Mashhad. Hierarchical binary logistic regression showed that walking time from home to school and parental worry about road crashes were negatively associated with children’s walking to school in both samples. In the Iranian sample, results suggested that while household car ownership and higher family income were associated with a decreased probability that a child walk to school, the total number of children in the household increased the probability of walking to school.     

Social skill in third and sixth grade children: A moderator of lifetime stressful life events and behavior problems?

We investigated relationships among stressful lifetime life events, social skill, and behavior problems in children. Participants were 159 third graders, 138 sixth graders, and their mothers. Mothers reported on their children's life events, social skill, and behavior problems. Children self-reported on their social skill and behavior problems. Increased numbers of stressful life events significantly predicted increased behavior problems in third and sixth graders. Increased social skill significantly predicted decreased behavior problems in third and sixth graders. Social skill served a stress-protective role for third but not sixth graders; third graders with increased life events and better social skill had fewer behavior problems than their less socially skilled peers. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed, and suggestions for future resilience research are presented.     

Comparison of video- and EMG-based evaluations of the magnitude of children’s emotion-modulated startle response

We investigated the reliability and validity of a video-based method of measuring the magnitude of children’s emotion-modulated startle response when electromyographic (EMG) measurement is not feasible. Thirty-one children between the ages of 4 and 7 years were videotaped while watching short video clips designed to elicit happiness or fear. Embedded in the audio track of the video clips were acoustic startle probes. A coding system was developed to quantify from the video record the strength of the eye-blink startle response to the probes. EMG measurement of the eye blink was obtained simultaneously. Intercoder reliability for the video coding was high (Cohen’sκ = .90). The average within-subjects probe-by-probe correlation between the EMG- and video-based methods was .84. Group-level correlations between the methods were also strong, and there was some evidence of emotion modulation of the startle response with both the EMG- and the video-derived data. Although the video method cannot be used to assess the latency, probability, or duration of startle blinks, the findings indicate that it can serve as a valid proxy of EMG in the assessment of the magnitude of emotion-modulated startle in studies of children conducted outside of a laboratory setting, where traditional psychophysiological methods are not feasible.     

Altruistic values in children’s spirituality: a study of children’s responses to the terror attacks in Oslo and on Utøya and issues of education

In reactions to the terror attacks in Oslo and on Utøya on July 22, 2011, belief in an open society, hope and altruism played an important part. This has led to research on the role of such values in Norwegian democracy. The present study explores messages given by children right after the event, using an approach based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s philosophy of dialogue. Several issues of educational significance are discussed: the meaning of ritual in children’s thinking, coping with offending, death, and understanding children’s spiritual and religious thinking when confronted with a critical event. It is argued that hope and altruism seem to be natural parts of children’s spirituality, but these values are not self-evident in a society. This is a challenge to education.     

Exercise,affect, and university students’ appraisals of academic events prior to the final examination period

ObjectivesTo assess whether exercise was associated with increased positive and decreased negative affect for university students during academically demanding times.DesignWithin-subjects daily diary study.MethodsFifty-nine university students completed the LTEQ [Godin, G., & Shephard, R.J. (1985). A simple method to assess exercise behavior in the community. Canadian Journal of Applied Sport Science, 10, 141–146], cognitive appraisals of daily events [Lazarus, R. S. (1999). Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer], and the PANAS [Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070] for 14 days immediately prior to the final examination period.ResultsOur hypotheses were partially supported as threat appraisals were significantly associated with decreased positive affect on days closer to the final examination period. Contrary, to our hypotheses exercise was not independently associated with increased positive and decreased negative affect. However, the interaction between exercise and day was significant as participants experienced increased positive affect during the last 3 days of data collection immediately preceding the final exam period. There was also a significant exercise by threat interaction with follow-up tests showing the exercise/negative affect relationship was significantly moderated by threat appraisals only when academic events were appraised as mildly threatening.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that exercise behavior might be an effective way for college students to cope with stress especially during academic demanding times.     

A response to Martina and Wimmer’s review of The Given

In this paper I respond to Martina and Wimmer’s review of The Given, focusing on their criticisms of the awareness of awareness thesis.     

The latency of response in relation to Bloch’s law at threshold’

Bloch’s law failed to hold for latencies of response in a threshold experiment where frequencies ofresponse did, nevertheless, obey the law. Dark-adapted Ss were instructed to respond as soon as they detected flashes of various luminances and durations. The frequency of response increased with increases in stimulus energy (luminance times duration); it was constant when energy was constant. The latency of response, measured from stimulus onset. varied inversely with energy; it also varied inversely with the luminance of flashes that were constant in energy. The results were consistent with data from earlier threshold and simple reaction time experiments.     

Parents’ reactions to children’s stuttering and style of coping with stress

PurposeThe aim of the research was to determine: (a) how parents react to their child’s stuttering, (b) what stress coping strategies they utilise, as well as (c) whether stress coping style depends on parents’ reaction to their child’s stuttering.MethodsThe research involved 23 mothers and 23 fathers of children who stutter (CWS) at the age of three to six years old. The Reaction to Speech Disfluency Scale (RSDS), developed by the authors, was used in the research. To determine the parents’ coping the Coping Inventory in Stressful Situations (CISS) by N.S. Endler and D.A Parker was applied.ResultsThe strongest reactions are observed on the cognitive level. Stronger cognitive, emotional and behavioural reactions are observed in the mothers towards their disfluently speaking sons and in the fathers towards their daughters. Having analysed the profiles of coping styles, it can be noticed that the task-oriented coping is most frequently adapted by the fathers. The mothers most often use the avoidance-oriented coping. No relevant correlation was observed between the fathers’ coping style and their reactions to the child’s disfluent speech. As far as the mothers are concerned, it has been proved that an increase in behavioural reactions correlates with the avoidance-oriented coping.ConclusionThe cognitive reactions of the parents’ towards their child’s stuttering were most frequent, while the emotional ones were the least frequent. Confronted with a stressful situation, the fathers most often adapt the task-oriented coping, whereas the mothers use the avoidance-oriented coping. Educational objectives: the reader will be able to (1) learn what the key reactions of parents to their children’s stuttering are, (2) describe stuttering as a stress factor for the parents, (3) describe the factors which influence parents’ reactions to their child’s stuttering and their coping style.     

Sport and children’s spirituality: an Australian perspective

The benefits of sport and physical activity are endorsed by a number of professionals as a means of improving children’s health and their sense of well-being, and their unity with the natural world, other people and the Transcendent. For children, sport is a spiritual source of joy and wonder. Using Champagne’s ‘spiritual modes of being’, my recent study of Victorian children demonstrated their heightened sensory awareness, enriched relationships and robust sense of personal identity, arising from active and passive participation in sport. The children in the study seemed to benefit in each of these areas from Australian culture’s high value of sporting participation and achievement.     

Sad or fearful? The influence of body posture on adults’ and children’s perception of facial displays of emotion

The current research investigated the influence of body posture on adults' and children's perception of facial displays of emotion. In each of two experiments, participants categorized facial expressions that were presented on a body posture that was congruent (e.g., a sad face on a body posing sadness) or incongruent (e.g., a sad face on a body posing fear). Adults and 8-year-olds made more errors and had longer reaction times on incongruent trials than on congruent trials when judging sad versus fearful facial expressions, an effect that was larger in 8-year-olds. The congruency effect was reduced when faces and bodies were misaligned, providing some evidence for holistic processing. Neither adults nor 8-year-olds were affected by congruency when judging sad versus happy expressions. Evidence that congruency effects vary with age and with similarity of emotional expressions is consistent with dimensional theories and "emotional seed" models of emotion perception.     

Legal and psychological perspectives on children’s competence to testify in court

Young children are often called as witnesses to crimes they were victims of or observed. Because of their immaturity, child witnesses are sometimes more heavily scrutinized than adult witnesses before being allowed to testify in court, for example, through competency screening. This review discusses the psychology and US law relevant to decisions about children’s testimonial competency. Legally, a child is competent to provide in-court testimony if the presiding judge finds that the child can understand and answer basic interview questions, observe and recall pertinent events, understand the difference between truths and lies, and be affected by the moral obligation to tell the truth on the stand. We review the legal foundation and current practice of testimonial competence standards and discuss issues in the current system. We then review developmental psychology literature on children’s capabilities and individual differences in each domain of testimonial competency as well as the limited body of literature on competency exams. Finally, we make empirically-based recommendations and conclusions and highlight the need for further research and policy reforms related to children’s testimonial abilities.     

Divergent effects of instructed and reported emotion regulation strategies on children’s memory for emotional information

ABSTRACT

Distraction can reduce adults’ memory for emotion-eliciting information, whereas reappraisal can preserve or enhance it. Yet, when given instructions to use specific emotion regulation (ER) strategies, adults report using other strategies too. The consequences of non-instructed strategy use within instructed ER paradigms are rarely examined. We investigated how both instructed and non-instructed but reported strategies related to memory for emotional information in childhood. Older (N?=?69; 8- to 10-year-olds; 24 girls) and younger (N?=?65; 5- to 7-year-olds; 35 girls) children received instructions to use cognitive distraction, reappraisal, or do nothing (control) before and after viewing a negative emotional film clip. Children were later interviewed about what they remembered about the film, and reported the ER strategies they used during it. Memory did not vary across instructed ER strategy conditions, and reported strategies did not relate to memory differently for older and younger children. Consistent with adult work, reported cognitive distraction related to poorer memory. Different reappraisal types were reported, but only situation-focused reappraisal was linked to better memory. In sum, children’s reported cognitive distraction and reappraisal strategies related to memory for emotional information differently. Thus, ER strategies divergently relate to what children remember about their emotional experiences.     

Some cognitive and social correlates of children’s fluency in riddle-telling

Cognitive and social correlates of riddle-telling were investigated in a matched-pairs design. Fluent riddle-tellers from two age groups (six to eight years and eight to eleven years) were matched with their peers who told few riddles or none at all. The children’s cognitive abilities were measured on nine verbal and four nonverbal tasks, and their social adjustment estimated by teacher reports and sociometric tests. Riddle-tellers in the younger age group were further advanced cognitively and less well-adjusted socially than their peers who did not know any riddles. Only cognitive correlates of riddle-telling were found for children in the older age group. The results suggest the need for future investigations of riddle-telling to consider both cognitive and social factors and to expect different patterns of correlates according to children’s degree of experience in riddle-telling.