The Influences of Sex and Gender-Role Identity on Moral Cognition and Prosocial Personality Traits

The relations of sex and gender-role identity to moral thought and prosocial personality traits were examined. Two hundred and nine men and women rated the importance of real-life, care-related, justice-related, and mixed (both care- and justice-related) moral dilemmas. Responses on the real-life and mixed dilemmas also were scored for care and justice orientations. Women and feminine persons viewed moral conflicts as more important than did men and masculine people. On the mixed dilemmas, women scored higher than men on care reasoning, whereas men scored higher than women on justice reasoning. Regardless of sex or gender role, relational real-life dilemmas evoked higher importance and care reasoning scores than did nonrelational ones. Women and persons high in femininity showed more empathic concern for other people. Masculine persons scored lower on personal distress, whereas androgynous persons reported more helpful behaviors than did all others.     

A Prospective Analysis of Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Patients

The objective of this study was to assess prospectively the frequency of near-death experiences (NDEs) in patients suffering a cardiac arrest, to characterize these experiences, and to assess their impact on psychosocial and spiritual attitudes. We prospectively evaluated all patients who suffered a cardiac arrest at Barnes-Jewish Hospital from April 1991 through February 1994, excluding those in the surgical intensive care unit, using a scale designed to specify criteria for NDEs, a recorded interview regarding the experience, an experience rating form, and a follow-up questionnaire regarding psychosocial attitudinal life changes. Of the 174 patients who suffered a cardiac arrest, 55 patients survived, of whom 30 patients were interviewable. Of those 30 patients interviewed, seven (23 percent) had a NDE, and four others (13 percent) reported an NDE during a prior life-threatening illness. The experiences were most frequently characterized by ineffability, peacefulness, painlessness, lack of fear, detachment from the body, and no sense of time or space. Significant differences were noted in the follow-up psychosocial assessment between patients who experienced an NDE and those who did not with regard to personal understanding of life and self, attitudes toward others, and changes in social customs and religious/spiritual beliefs. Of importance, patients reported it was beneficial to receive psychosocial support before hospital discharge after having an NDE. The results suggest that NDEs are fairly common in cardiac arrest survivors. The experiences consisted of a number of core characteristics and changed psychological, social, and spiritual awareness over both the short and long term.     

Prosocial development in early adulthood: a longitudinal study

Consistency of measures of a prosocial personality and prosocial moral judgment over time, and the interrelations among them, were examined. Participants and friends' reports of prosocial characteristics were obtained at ages 21-22, 23-24, and 25-26 years. In addition, participants' prosocial judgment was assessed with interviews and with an objective measure of prosocial moral reasoning at several ages. Reports of prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding in childhood and observations of prosocial behavior in preschool also were obtained. There was interindividual consistency in prosocial dispositions, and prosocial dispositions in adulthood related to empathy/sympathy and prosocial behavior at much younger ages. Interview and objective measures of moral reasoning were substantially interrelated in late adolescence/early adulthood and correlated with participants' and friends' reports of a prosocial disposition.     

Dispositional emotionality and regulation: their role in predicting quality of social functioning

Individual differences in emotionality and regulation are central to conceptions of temperament and personality. In this article, conceptions of emotionality and regulation and ways in which they predict social functioning are examined. Linear (including additive) and nonlinear effects are reviewed. In addition, data on mediational and moderational relations from a longitudinal study are presented. The effects of attention regulation on social functioning were mediated by resiliency, and this relation was moderated by negative emotionality at the first, but not second, assessment. Negative emotionality moderated the relation of behavior regulation to socially appropriate/prosocial behavior. These results highlight the importance of examining different types of regulation and the ways in which dispositional characteristics interact in predicting social outcomes.     

The relations of effortful control and reactive control to children's externalizing problems: a longitudinal assessment

In this study, we examined the role of negative emotionality as a moderator of the relations of effortful control and overcontrol (versus undercontrol) with children's externalizing problem behaviors; we also examined the longitudinal relations among these variables. Teachers' and parents' reports of children's negative emotionality, effortful control, overcontrol and externalizing problem behaviors were obtained at T1 (N=199; M age=89.51 months) and again 2 (T2) and 4 years (T3) later. In addition, children's effortful control was assessed with an observed measure of persistence. In a T3 concurrent structural equation model, effortful control, but not overcontrol, was negatively related to children's T3 externalizing problem behaviors. In regression analyses, the negative relation between T3 effortful control and externalizing problem behaviors was strongest at high levels of T3 negative emotionality. In the best-fitting longitudinal structural equation model, both T1 effortful control and T1 overcontrol negatively predicted externalizing problems at T1, whereas T3 effortful control (but not T3 overcontrol) was significantly negatively related to T3 externalizing problem behaviors when controlling for T1 externalizing problem behaviors.     

Longitudinal relations among parental emotional expressivity,children's regulation,and quality of socioemotional functioning

The role of regulation as a mediator of the relations between maternal emotional expressivity and children's adjustment and social competence was examined when children (N = 208) were 4.5 to just 8 years old (Time 1, T1) and 2 years later (Time 2, T2). At T2, as at T1, regulation mediated the relation between positive maternal emotional expressivity and children's functioning. When T1 relations and the stability of variables over time were controlled for in a structural equation model, T2 relations generally were nonsignificant, although parents' dominant negative expressivity predicted high regulation. In contrast, in regressions, the findings for parent positive expressivity, but not negative expressivity, held at T2 when T1 variables were controlled. Thus, relations for negative expressivity, but not positive expressivity, changed with age.     

The relation of children's everyday nonsocial peer play behavior to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning

The relations of children's nonsocial behavior to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning were examined in a short-term longitudinal study. Parents (primarily mothers) and teachers rated children's effortful regulation, emotionality, asocial behaviors, problem behaviors, and social acceptance, and children's nonsocial play behaviors were observed for two semesters. Peers also rated likability. Children's observed reticent activities were related to adults' ratings of high regulation, low externalizing problems, and high asocial behavior, as well as to low anger and low positive emotion. On the other hand, solitary play was associated with low positive emotion and low regulation over time and with high asocial behavior and high peer exclusion. Peer rejection mediated the relation of internalizing emotions (anxiety, low positive emotion) and regulation to solitary play later in the school year, and asocial play mediated the relation of internalizing emotions to both solitary and reticent play behavior.     

Preschoolers' effortful control and negative emotionality, immediate reactions to disappointment, and quality of social functioning

Relations among effortful control/low negative emotionality, immediate reactions in a situation that usually calls for the masking of disappointment (i.e., the use of display rules), and social competence/adjustment were investigated for 78 preschool children (mean age=4.87 years). Parents, teachers, and peers rated children on negative emotionality and/or effortful control as well as on social competence/adjustment. Children who were rated by parents and teachers as high on effortful control/low on negative emotionality expressed fewer immediate verbal/gestural indicators of disappointment in the presence of an unfamiliar adult and were perceived by their parents, teachers, and peers as socially competent and well adjusted. The pattern of findings was consistent with the view that children's immediate verbal/gestural reactions to disappointment partially mediated the relations between effortful control (as reported by parents) and social competence/adjustment.