Children's responses to social atypicality among group members – advantages of a contextualized social developmental account

Abrams, Rutland, Palmer, Ferrell, and Pelletier (2014) showed that better second‐order mental state understanding facilitates 6–7‐year‐olds' ability to link a partially disloyal child's atypicality to inclusive or exclusive reactions by in‐group or outgroup members. This finding is interpreted in terms of predictions from the developmental subjective group dynamics model. We respond to thoughtful commentaries by Rhodes and Chalik, Patterson, and Rakoczy. Children face a significant developmental challenge in becoming able to recognize and interpret social atypicality in intergroup contexts. Researching that ability to contextualize judgements raises new questions about the nature of peer inclusion and exclusion, about children's social cognition, and about the way that social cognitive development and social experience combine. Rather than individual‐focused cognition taking priority over category‐based cognition, we argue the two become more systematically integrated during development. We note that loyalty is but one example of typicality, and we also consider the role of more advanced perspective taking among older children, and the role of multiple classification skill among younger children, as well as potential implications for intervention to reduce peer victimization and prejudice.     

The impact of onlooking and including bystander behaviour on judgments and emotions regarding peer exclusion

We investigated judgments and emotions in contexts of social exclusion that varied as a function of bystander behaviour (N = 173, 12‐ and 16‐year‐olds). Adolescents responded to film vignettes depicting a target excluded by a group with no bystanders, onlooking bystanders, or bystanders who included the target. Adolescents were asked to judge the behaviour and attribute emotions to the excluding group, the excluded target, and the bystanders. Younger adolescents judged the behaviour of the excluding group as more wrong than older adolescents when there were no bystanders present, indicating that the presence of bystanders was viewed as lessening the negative outcome of exclusion by the younger group. Yet, bystanders play a positive role only when they are includers, not when they are silent observers. This distinction was revealed by the findings that adolescents rated the behaviour of onlooking bystanders as more wrong compared with the behaviour of including bystanders. Moreover, all adolescents justified the inclusive behaviour more frequently with empathy than the onlooking behaviour. Adolescents also anticipated more empathy to including bystanders than to onlooking bystanders, as well as anticipated more guilt to onlooking bystanders than including bystanders. The findings are discussed in light of the role of group norms and group processes regarding bystanders' roles in social exclusion peer encounters.     

Associations between young children's emotion attributions and prediction of outcome in differing social situations

Associations between young children's attributions of emotion at different points in a story, and with regard to their own prediction about the story's outcome, were investigated using two hypothetical scenarios of social and emotional challenge (social entry and negative event). First grade children (N=250) showed an understanding that emotions are tied to situational cues by varying the emotions they attributed both between and within scenarios. Furthermore, emotions attributed to the main protagonist at the beginning of the scenarios were differentially associated with children's prediction of a positive or negative outcome and with the valence of the emotion attributed at the end of the scenario. Gender differences in responses to some items were also found.     

The role of maltreatment experience in children's understanding of the antecedents of emotion

The ability to understand the causes and likely triggers of emotions has important consequences for children's adaptation to their social environment. Yet, little is currently known about the processes that contribute to the development of emotion understanding. To assess how well children understood the antecedents of emotional reactions in others, we presented children with a variety of emotional situations that varied in outcome and equivocality. Children were told the emotional outcome and asked to rate whether a situation was a likely cause of such an outcome. We tested the effects of maltreatment experience on children's ability to map emotions to their eliciting events and their understanding of emotion–situation pairings. The present data suggest that typically developing children are able to distinguish between common elicitors of negative and positive events. In contrast, children who develop within maltreating contexts, where emotions are extreme and inconsistent, interpret positive, equivocal, and negative events as being equally plausible causes of sadness and anger. This difference in maltreated children's reasoning about emotions suggests a critical role of experience in aiding children's mastery of the structure of interpersonal discourse.     

社会责任感调节群际替代性排斥中旁观者第三方惩罚

为了考察群体身份对替代性排斥中旁观者惩罚行为的影响,并考察旁观者社会责任感的调节作用,采用数量估计任务对58名不同社会责任感大学生创设群体身份,观看网络掷球游戏形成群际替代性排斥,随后评估游戏中各玩家的愤怒情绪,并采用第三方惩罚来表达对各玩家表现的愤怒。结果发现高社会责任旁观者对替代性排斥体验到更强愤怒情绪,并对排斥者施加更高惩罚;高社会责任感个体对排斥组内成员的组外排斥者惩罚强度高于组内排斥者,而低社会责任感个体对排斥组外成员的组外排斥者惩罚强度显著高于组内排斥者。结果表明旁观者社会责任感调节其在群际替代性排斥中的第三方惩罚。     

Morality‐ and identity‐related antecedents of children's guilt and shame attributions in events involving physical illness

It is theorised that guilt‐ and shame‐related appraisals vary on two separate dimensions. Guilt implies an appraisal that one has either committed a moral transgression or that one has otherwise been involved in the creation of a morally wrong outcome. Shame implies one's appraisal that the current event or condition reflects negatively on one's identity. To test these claims, 206 7‐ to 16‐year‐old children gave shame and guilt ratings of three types of events that were drawn from the domain of physical illness and that were designed to elicit primarily guilt, primarily shame, or both emotions. The 12‐year‐olds and older children's ratings were fully consistent with our hypothesis. Younger children's greatest difficulty was in not attributing shame to protagonists who were involved in causing a moral wrong without there being the threat of an unwanted identity.     

Training parents to help their children read: A randomized control trial

Background . Low levels of literacy and high levels of behaviour problems in middle childhood often co‐occur. These persistent difficulties pose a risk to academic and social development, leading to social exclusion in adulthood. Although parent‐training programmes have been shown to be effective in enabling parents to support their children's development, very few parent interventions offer a combination of behavioural and literacy training. Aims . This paper (1) reports on a prevention programme which aimed to tackle behaviour and literacy problems in children at the beginning of school, and (2) presents the effects of the intervention on children's literacy. Sample . One hundred and four 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children selected from eight schools in an inner city disadvantaged community in London participated in the intervention. Methods . This is a randomized control trial with pre‐ and post‐measurements designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention. The behavioural intervention consisted of the ‘Incredible Years’ group parenting programme combined with a new programme designed to train parents to support their children's reading at home. Results . Analyses demonstrated a significant effect of the intervention on children's word reading and writing skills, as well as parents' use of reading strategies with their children. Conclusion . A structured multicomponent preventive package delivered with attention to fidelity can enable parents to support their children's reading at home and increase their literacy skills. Together with the improvement in child behaviour, these changes could improve the life chances of children in disadvantaged communities.     

Parents' emotion‐related beliefs and behaviours in relation to children's coping with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks

To assess relationships between parental socialization of emotion and children's coping following an intensely emotional event, parents' beliefs and behaviours regarding emotion and children's coping strategies were investigated after a set of terrorist attacks. Parents (n=51) filled out the Parents' Beliefs about Negative Emotions questionnaire and were interviewed within two weeks of the attacks. Their elementary and middle school‐aged children were interviewed eight weeks later. First, parents' beliefs were related to two kinds of parental behaviours. Parents' beliefs about both the value of and the danger of children's emotions were positively related to their discussion with their children. Parents' belief about children's emotions as dangerous was also negatively related to parents' expressiveness with their children. Second, parents' beliefs were related to five kinds of coping strategies reported by their children. Parents' belief about children's emotions as valuable predicted children's problem‐solving, emotion‐oriented, and support‐seeking coping following the terrorist attacks. Parents' belief about children's emotions as dangerous predicted children's avoidance and distraction coping following the attacks. Parents' beliefs about the importance of children's emotions may foster a family atmosphere that facilitates children's coping with intensely emotional events. Results support differentiated, multi‐faceted analysis of the broader construct of parental beliefs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Croyances de contrôle et rendement scolaire chez des élèves francophones du primaire au Québec

Recent research in educational psychology, both in the United States and Europe, suggested that students' control beliefs must be considered to understand interindividual variations in students' personal engagement in learning and academic achievement. The present study was conducted with 780 French-speaking elementary school children from grade four to six. The objectives were to examine: (1) the relation between dimensions of control beliefs, (2) whether there were age-related changes in children's control beliefs, and (3) the relation between control beliefs and academic achievement across school grades. Results showed that the relations between dimensions of control beliefs and children's judgements about their importance in school achievement were stable across school grades. No relation was found between children's judgements about usefulness of specific means and academic achievement, but children's beliefs about their capacity to use these means was a powerful predictor of academic achievement. The discussion focuses on similarities and dissimilarities of these findings with those of studies conducted in the United States and Europe.     

Associations of Mother–Child Reminiscing about Negative Past Events,Coping, and Self‐Concept in Early Childhood

Parent–child reminiscing conversations in early childhood have received theoretical attention as a forum for children's self‐concept development, but this has been little addressed in empirical work. This study examines associations between emotion reminiscing and children's self‐concepts and, building from the reminiscing and personality development literatures, also explores the role of children's coping. Sixty 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children and their mothers completed reminiscing conversations about events in which the child had experienced negative emotion, children completed an age‐appropriate assessment of their self‐concept, and mothers and teachers reported on children's coping strategies. Children's self‐perceived timidity was associated with their explanations for negative emotions during reminiscing. Children's self‐perceived negative affect was associated with fewer emotion resolutions during reminiscing, and with distinctive patterns of coping. Both reminiscing and coping made unique contributions to children's self‐concepts, and findings also suggest that coping may in some contexts indirectly connect reminiscing with self‐concept. These findings suggest that reminiscing conversations both reflect children's characteristics and provide a context for learning about their characteristics, along with strategies for emotion management. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children’s developing views of social excluders: A dissociation between social evaluation and partner preference

When facing social exclusion, children seek to strengthen existing social connections and form new ones. This study asked whether they also make strategic choices about the targets of their affiliative goals. Three- to six-year-olds (N = 69; 36 female; mostly non-Hispanic White) observed characters acting inclusively or exclusively. All ages viewed excluders more negatively than includers, but only five- and six-year-olds preferred includers as play partners. Despite easily detecting and remembering exclusion events, younger children expressed no play partner preference. Children's verbal justifications revealed that older children choose partners more carefully and draw on a richer understanding of exclusion. More generally, the initial dissociation between social evaluation and preference formation underscores that these are distinct processes with different developmental trajectories.     

The desirability of beliefs: preschoolers' appreciation of fact beliefs and subsequent emotions

In this study, we investigated the extent to which preschool children's own knowledge about reality biases their understanding that others' beliefs about reality govern others' emotions and not reality itself. Therefore, an increasing tension was created between the beliefs of the protagonist and the participant, by providing varying degrees of evidence about the validity of the protagonist's belief. Children of between 4 and 5 years of age were asked to predict the protagonist's emotion, given the protagonist's desire and the protagonist's belief. The results show that, to a certain extent, preschool children take others' beliefs into account when predicting others' emotions. When the outcome is clear, children probably feel tied to reality, and in the case of false beliefs, their knowledge about reality biases their emotion predictions, as was also evident in ‘false belief’ research (Wimmer H, Perner I. 1983. Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition 13: 103–128). However, when it is uncertain what the actual outcome will be, then it is not the likelihood of others' beliefs but the desirability of the outcome that biases children's predictions of others' emotions. In other words, when the actual outcome is yet unclear, 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds show a tendency for wishful thinking in their predictions of others' emotions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Child and family correlates of toddlers' emotional and behavioral responses to a mishap

This study evaluated the unique and joint contributions of internal state language, externalizing behavior, and maternal talk about emotions to the prediction of toddlers' empathy‐related responsiveness. The empathy‐based guilt reactions of 47 toddlers (27 boys) were observed in response to distress that they thought they had caused. In addition, mothers reported on the children's internal state language, externalizing behavior, and empathy‐based guilt. In a separate observation, the mothers discussed emotional expressions with their children, and the functional significance of their emotional discourse was considered. Results revealed that toddlers' internal state language ability was positively related to their attempts to comprehend another's affective state and to maternal reports of children's sympathy reactions. There was also an unexpected inverse relation between externalizing behavior and arousal level. In terms of the parent measures, maternal explanations of emotions were positively related to children's attempts to comprehend another's affective state, whereas mothers' directives for children to label emotions were positively related to children's expressed emotional concern for others. The implications of these findings for understanding empathy and guilt development in young children are discussed. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Two routes to perspective: Simulation and rule‐use as approaches to mentalizing

We review evidence relating to children's ability to acknowledge false beliefs within a simulation account according to which our focus is set by default to the world as we know it: hence, our current beliefs assume salience over beliefs that do not fall into this category. The model proposes that the ease with which we imaginatively shift from this default depends on the salience of our current belief, relative to the salience of the belief that is being simulated. However, children do use a rule‐based approach for mentalizing in some contexts, which has the advantage of protecting them from the salience of their own belief. Rule‐based mentalizing judgements might be faster, cognitively easier and less prone to error, relative to simulation‐based judgements that are much influenced by salience. We propose that although simulation is primary, rule‐based approaches develop as a shortcut; we thus grow from individuals capable of using only simulation into individuals capable of both techniques.     

Coparenting and Children's School Readiness: A Mediational Model

We examined the long‐term direct and indirect links between coparenting (conflict, communication, and shared decision‐making) and preschoolers' school readiness (math, literacy, and social skills). The study sample consisted of 5,650 children and their biological mothers and fathers who participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Birth Cohort. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for background characteristics, we found that our conceptual model of the pathways from coparenting to child outcomes is structurally the same for cohabiting and married families. Controlling for a host of background characteristics, we found that coparenting conflict and shared decision‐making were negatively and positively, respectively, linked to children's academic and social skills and co‐parental communication was indirectly linked to academic and social skills through maternal supportiveness. Coparenting conflict was also indirectly linked to children's social skills through maternal depressive symptoms. The overall findings suggest that for both cohabiting and married families, the context of conflicted coparenting may interfere with the development of children's social competencies and academic skills, whereas collaborative coparenting promotes children's school readiness because mothers are more responsive to their children's needs. These findings have implications for programs aimed at promoting positive family processes in cohabiting and married families.     

Sex differences in the relation of children's height and weight to academic performance and others' attributions of competence

The purposes of the present study were to examine the relation of elementary-school girls' and boys' height and weight to (a) teachers' and peers' perceptions of the children's independence and academic, athletic, and social competence; and (b) children's achievement test scores and grades. Teachers rated kindergarteners' through fourth graders' competence both at the beginning of the school year and four months later; first and third graders rated their peers' competence once midyear. In general, size and/or bulk were positively related to teachers' attributions of competence, grades, and achievement test scores for boys, especially for the older boys. Heaviness was negatively related to teachers' ratings of females' competence (especially athletic competence and especially for older girls). Moreover, large size (height not controlling for weight) was positively related to younger but not older children's nominations of males for athletic ability. The results are discussed in terms cultural stereotypes and their implications for the development of children's competence.     

The multifaceted phenomenon of ‘happy victimizers’: A cross‐cultural comparison of moral emotions

This study examines whether German and Portuguese 5‐ to 6‐, and 8‐ to 9‐year‐old children distinguish between the feelings attributed to a victimizer or to themselves if they were the victimizers in two hypothetical moral violations (stealing and breaking a promise), and how they morally evaluate the emotions they attribute to victimizers and the person of the victimizer. The results showed that in spite of some developmental and cultural differences, children's attribution of negative emotions was substantively more frequent when they made attributions to themselves. Furthermore, most children judged the positive (immoral) emotions they had attributed to victimizers as not right and evaluated the person of the hypothetical victimizer negatively. The results clarify contradictory findings in the field and may provide a better understanding of the moral and developmental meaning of the positive and negative emotions attributed in acts of victimization.     

Children's utilization of emotion expectancies in moral decision‐making

This study investigated the relevance of emotion expectancies for children's moral decision‐making. The sample included 131 participants from three different grade levels (M = 8.39 years, SD = 2.45, range 4.58–12.42). Participants were presented a set of scenarios that described various emotional outcomes of (im)moral actions and asked to decide what they would do if they were in the protagonists' shoes. Overall, it was found that the anticipation of moral emotions predicted an increased likelihood of moral choices in antisocial and prosocial contexts. In younger children, anticipated moral emotions predicted moral choice for prosocial actions, but not for antisocial actions. Older children showed evidence for the utilization of anticipated emotions in both prosocial and antisocial behaviours. Moreover, for older children, the decision to act prosocially was less likely in the presence of non‐moral emotions. Findings suggest that the impact of emotion expectancies on children's moral decision‐making increases with age. Contrary to happy victimizer research, the study does not support the notion that young children use moral emotion expectancies for moral decision‐making in the context of antisocial actions.     

Attachment and preschool children's understanding of maternal versus non‐maternal psychological states

There is growing evidence that insecurely attached children are less advanced in their social understanding than their secure counterparts. However, attachment may also predict how individual children use their social understanding across different relationships. For instance, the insecure child's social‐cognitive difficulties may be more pronounced when the psychological states of an attachment figure are being considered. In the current study, forty‐eight 4‐ to 5‐year‐old children were asked about their mothers' emotions and false beliefs, as well as those of non‐attachment figures. The Separation Anxiety Test (SAT) was administered to assess children's attachment representations. Children's SAT scores predicted their overall performance on the false belief and causes of emotion tasks, even after controlling for age and verbal ability. More interestingly, however, children with high scores on the Avoidance dimension of the SAT experienced greater difficulty understanding maternal false beliefs relative to those of an unfamiliar adult female. Thus, although attachment insecurity may hinder social‐cognitive development in general, the findings suggest that there are more specific effects as well. Attachment representations that are characterized by high levels of avoidance appear to interfere with children's ability to fully engage their social‐cognitive skills when reasoning about maternal mental states.