The relation of young children's vicarious emotional responding to social competence,regulation, and emotionality

Abstract

The relation of preschool and kindergarten children's vicarious emotional responding to their social competence, regulation (attentional and coping styles), and emotionality (negative emotional intensity and dispositional negative affect) was examined. Vicarious responding was assessed by means of facial reactions to a film about a peer in a social conflict and children's reported negative affect to viewing peers' real-life negative emotion. Mothers and teachers reported on children's regulation and emotionality, social competence was assessed with sociometric nominations, teachers' reports, and observations of children's real-life anger reactions. Facial concerned attention during the film was associated with various measures of social competence, regulation, and low or moderate negative emotionality. Although negative vicarious emotional responding in real contexts was infrequently related to measures of interest, girls who reported intense negative vicarious emotional responses were relatively unregulated and low in social competence. Finally, with age, regulation of vicarious emotional responding was increasingly related to children's sociometric status and to girls' coping at school. Thus, as they get older, children's abilities to regulate emotions may take on increasing importance in others' evaluations of their social competencies.     

Effects of perceived similarity on vicarious emotional conditioning

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that perceived similarity between observers and models enhances vicarious emotional conditioning. Subjects were led to believe that they were either similar to the model in beliefs and attitudes, different from him or were given no information about him. They then underwent a vicarious classical conditioning procedure by witnessing the model express pain reactions in conjunction with a neutral stimulus. Observers developed emotional reactions to the neutral stimulus alone after seeing it paired with modeled pain expressions. Preceived similarity, however, had no significant effect on either the level of vicarious conditioning or the rate of extinction. Subjects who had no information concerning the model displayed stronger autonomic responses to the model's pain expressions, and more frequent and intense autonomic responses to the conditioned stimulus during tests for acquisition and extinction. In correlational analyses, subjects in the latter condition also yielded a significant positive relationship between self-reported arousal and vicarious emotional conditioning. The obtained findings were interpreted in terms of the emotion arousing properties of unfamiliarity.     

The effect of modification of expressive displays on vicarious emotional arousal

Several recent experiments have demonstrated that modulation of the facial expressive response is accompanied by changes in autonomic arousal and subjective response to painful stimuli. The present study asked whether facial self-regulation may also bring about changes in covert vicarious emotional experience. Three groups of subjects were exposed to a videotaped model displaying intermittent pain to shock in a differential vicarious autonomic conditioning paradigm. Subjects in the inhibit and amplify groups were asked, respectively, (a) to inhibit their facial muscles or (b) to pose a facial response of pain when the model was shocked. It was predicted that the inhibit group would show less autonomic arousal to the model's expressive display (empathy) and less conditioning (as measured by skin conductance and heart rate change), and the amplify group more empathy and conditioning, than a third group who was given no facial instruction. In fact, the amplify group showed more skin conductance arousal, heart rate acceleration, and activity in response to the model's expressive display of pain than did the other two groups (which were not different from each other), but no more autonomic or facial conditioning. The overall pattern of physiological data is interpreted as generally supportive of a facial feedback theory of emotion: where significant between-groups' differences were obtained in facial activity, as in vicarious instigation, autonomic arousal differences also emerged; where no expressive differences were obtained, as in vicarious conditioning, no differences in autonomic arousal were found.     

Personality correlates of attributional style

Previous research, much of it based on the learned helplessness model of depression, suggested that a wide variety of personality variables might be related to attributional style. The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson et al., 1982) and Comrey Personality Scales (CPS; Comrey, 1970) were administered to 329 subjects, and their scores were subjected to correlational and multiple regression analysis. The CPS scales were also factor analyzed, and the resulting scores were correlated with ASQ scores. Results indicated that a variety of personality variables have statistically significant relationships with attributional style, that these variables show significant positive relationships with internal, stable, and global attributions for positive events and significant negative relationships with these same attributions for negative events, and that an Activity-Extraversion-Stability factor demonstrates the strongest relationships with attributional style. Findings are interpreted within a revised theoretical framework, and emphasis is placed on understanding the personality correlates of attributional style for adequate interpretation of the concept.     

Personality correlates of life values

The present study sought to determine whether significant relationships exist between life value preferences and personality traits and to describe the nature of any relationships identified. Administered to 310 undergraduate and graduate students were the 16 PF personality inventory and a 55-item Life Values Inventory which assessed values governing life styles and orientations. A factor analysis of the Life Values Inventory resulted in the identification of 14 life values dimensions. Factor scores for these 14 dimensions were then employed in a canonical analysis and a factor analysis with the 16 PF scores. The canonical analysis yielded results significant at the .001 level. The factor analysis yielded 10 factors, many of which displayed shared common-factor variance between Life Values and 16 PF variables. The interpretation of that shared variance identified several personality correlates of life values that suggested causal and developmental interactions of some value in describing and explaining human behavior.     

Personality correlates of assertive behavior

The present research studied the relationships between assertive behavior and two personality variables: extroversion and need for approval (nApp). Assertive behavior was measured in two role-play situations: an authority situation and an equal situation. It was found that extroverts behaved more assertively than introverts. nApp was negatively related to assertive behavior for females, while for males no correlation was found between nApp and assertive behavior in the authority situation and a positive correlation was found in the equal situation. It was concluded that extroversion and nApp are contributing factors in assertive behavior and that nApp moderates assertiveness differentially for males and females.     

Personality correlates of physical fitness

In this article, I examine the relation between personality and physical fitness. One group (N = 97) of male adults completed the Hogan Personality Inventory and five nationally recognized physical fitness batteries. A second group (N = 35) completed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and a set of medical and physical performance assessments. Results indicate that physical fitness must be defined in multidimensional terms and that fitness is related to self-confidence and self-discipline. Measures of psychopathology were unrelated to measures of health and fitness. These data suggest that the personal qualities associated with fitness are also those that promote and extend health.     

Personality correlates of dissociative experiences

This study investigated the prevalence of dissociative experiences in a normal British sample. The Dissociation Experiences Scale of Bernstein and Putnam was used to measure these experiences. The relationship between dissociative experiences and personality variables measured by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was a major focus of the study. It was found that the degree of dissociative experiences was related to neuroticism, but not to any other variable.     

Personality and emotional intelligence in teacher burnout

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between teacher's personality types, emotional intelligence and burnout and to predict the burnout levels of 147 teachers in the city of Mashhad (Iran). To this end, we have used three inventories: Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), and Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-I). We used Homogeneity Analysis and Multiple Linear Regression to analyze the data. The results exhibited a significant relationship between personality types and emotional intelligence and the three dimensions of burnout. It was indicated that the best predictors for emotional exhaustion were neuroticism and extroversion, for depersonalization were intrapersonal scale of emotional intelligence and agreeableness, and for personal accomplishment were interpersonal scale and conscientiousness. Finally, the results were discussed in the context of teacher burnout.     

Personality correlates of logical and sociomoral judgment

This study examined the relation of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) to stages of logical and sociomoral judgment. Logical judgment was measured using adaptations of the pendulum and correlations tasks of Inhelder and Piaget; moral judgment was scored using the standard Kohlberg interview. In a sample of 143 adults, logical and sociomoral judgment were correlated .30 to .50 with most of the Class I (Factor 2) CPI scales, those capturing social poise and interpersonal adequacy, and Class III (Factor 3) CPI scales, those capturing achievement potential and intellectual efficiency. The findings offer support for a cognitive interpretation of competence and ego development.     

Electrophysiological correlates of encoding and retrieving emotional events

This study examined the impact of emotional content on encoding and retrieval processes. Event-related potentials were recorded in a source recognition memory task. During encoding, a posterior positivity for positive and negative pictures (250-450 ms) that presumably reflects attentional capturing of emotionally valenced stimuli was found. Additionally, positive events, which were also rated as less arousing than negative events, gave rise to anterior and posterior slow wave activity as compared with neutral and negative events and also showed enhanced recognition memory. It is assumed that positive low-arousing events enter controlled and elaborated encoding processes that are beneficial for recognition memory performance. The high arousal of negative events may interfere with controlled encoding mechanisms and attenuate item recognition and the quality of remembering. Moreover, topographically distinct late posterior negativities were obtained for the retrieval of the context features location and time that support the view that this component reflects processes in service of reconstructing the study episode by binding together contextual details with an item and that varies with the kind of episodic detail to be retrieved.