Are prosocial tendencies relevant for developmental psychopathology? The relations of prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding to externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and autism spectrum disorder.

The field of developmental psychopathology tends to focus on the negative aspects of functioning. However, prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding - positive aspects of functioning- might relate to some aspects of psychopathology in meaningful ways. In this article, we review research on the relations of three types of developmental psychopathology- externalizing problems (EPs), internalizing problems (IPs), and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) - to empathy-related responding (e.g., affective and cognitive empathy, sympathy, personal distress) and prosocial behavior. Empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior generally have been inversely related to EPs, although findings are sometimes reversed for young children and, for empathy, weak for reactive aggression. Some research indicates that children's empathy (often measured as emotional contagion) and personal distress are positively related to IPs, suggesting that strong sensitivity to others' emotions is harmful to some children. In contrast, prosocial behaviors are more consistently negatively related to IPs, although findings likely vary depending on the motivation for prosocial behavior and the recipient. Children with ASD are capable of prosocially and empathy-related responding, although parents report somewhat lower levels of these characteristics for ASD children compared to neurotypical peers. Issues in regard to measurement, motivation for prosociality, causal relations, and moderating and mediating factors are discussed.

Peers' Emotionality and Children's Academic Achievement in Second Grade: Testing the Moderating Role of Children's Behavioral Self-Regulation.

Although there is interest in the role of peers in children's schooling experiences, few researchers have examined associations and related underlying processes between peers' emotionality, an aspect of temperament, and children's academic achievement. This study evaluated whether target children's (N = 260) own self-regulation, assessed with two behavioral measures, served a moderating function for associations between peers' emotionality and children's own academic achievement in second grade. There was a positive association between peers' positive emotionality and reading scores for children with higher self-regulation. Peers' negative emotionality was negatively related to target children's reading scores, particularly for children with higher self-regulation levels, but was unrelated to math scores. Peers' positive and negative emotionality did not predict math scores, and there was no strong evidence for the moderating role of target children's self-regulation in this association. This study highlights the potential role of children's self-regulation in modulating peer effects on academic achievement, particularly reading.

White children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black peers: The role of children's effortful control and parents' implicit racial attitudes.

White children's effortful control (EC), parents' implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction were examined as predictors of children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black recipients. Data were collected from 171 White children (55% male, Mage = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) and their parent in 2017. Prosocial behavior toward White peers was predicted by children's higher EC. When predicting prosocial behavior toward Black peers and prosocial disparity (the difference between White and Black recipients), parents' implicit racial attitudes moderated the relation between children's EC and children's prosocial behavior. Specifically, children's EC was positively associated with prosocial behavior toward Black peers (and negatively related to inequity in prosocial behavior) only when parents exhibited less implicit racial bias.

Parents' color-blind racial ideology and implicit racial attitudes predict children's race-based sympathy.

We examined the relation of White parents' color-blind racial attitudes (a global composite score and its subscales) and their implicit racial attitudes to their young children's race-based sympathy toward Black and White victims. One hundred and nighty non-Hispanic White children (54% boys, Mage = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) reported their sympathy in response to short films depicting bullying toward White or Black children. Their primary caregivers' (mostly mothers') color-blind racial ideology (CBRI) was assessed through a questionnaire (reflecting global color blindness, as well as denial of institutional racism, White privilege, and blatant racial issues), and their implicit racial attitudes were assessed with a computerized test. Children's sympathy toward Black victims and their equitable sympathy (difference score toward Black vs. White victims) was predicted by parents' color blindness, implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction. Results indicated several interaction effects, such that parents' denial of blatant racial attitudes and global CBRI were negatively related to children's sympathy toward Black victims and equitable sympathy toward Black versus White victims, only when the parents held implicit racial attitudes that favored White people. In addition, parents' denial of White privilege was negatively related to children's sympathy toward Black victims. The findings are discussed in terms of potential ways to shape children's race-based sympathy and compassion, particularly with an eye toward ways White parents might socialize sympathy toward historically marginalized youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

White children's empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior toward White and Black children.

Relations among White (non-Latinx) children's empathy-related responding, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes toward White and Black peers were examined. In 2017, 190 (54% boys) White 5- to 9-year-old children (M = 7.09 years, SD = 0.94) watched a series of videos that depicted social rejection of either a White or Black child. Empathy-related responses, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes were measured using multiple methods. Results showed that younger children showed less facial concern toward Black than White peers and greater increases with age in concern and prosocial behaviors (sharing a desirable prize) for Black, compared to White, targets. Children's facial anger increased with age for White but not Black targets. The findings can extend our understanding children's anti-racism development.

Longitudinal relations between behavioral engagement and academic achievement: The moderating roles of socio-economic status and early achievement.

This study investigated developmental trajectories of observationally coded engagement across the early elementary years and whether these trajectories were associated with children's academic achievement. Furthermore, we evaluated if these relations varied as a function of children's family socio-economic status and early reading and math skills. Data were collected from 301 children who were studied from kindergarten (Mage = 65.74 months; 49% boys) to 2nd grade. Children's behavioral engagement was observed in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade. Reading and math skills were assessed via standardized tests in kindergarten and 2nd grade. Growth mixture models identified two classes of behavioral engagement: most children (87.0%) displayed relatively high behavioral engagement in the fall of kindergarten and decreased significantly across time (referred to below as high-decreasing class), and other children (13.0%) exhibited moderate behavioral engagement in the fall of kindergarten that was stable across time (referred to below as moderate-stable class). After controlling for academic skills in kindergarten and demographic variables (i.e., child age, sex, ethnicity, and family socio-economic status), children in the high-decreasing class displayed higher reading skills, but not math skills, than children in the moderate-stable class. Additional analyses revealed that differences in reading skills between the two classes were present only for children from low socio-economic status families or for children low in kindergarten reading skills. The findings suggest that economically or academically at-risk students might benefit more than their peers from high behavioral engagement.

Being helpful to other-gender peers: School-age children's gender-based intergroup prosocial behaviour.

Promoting prosocial behaviour towards those who are dissimilar from oneself is an urgent contemporary issue. Because children spend much time in same-gender relationships, promoting other-gender prosociality could help them develop more inclusive relationships. Our goals were to better understand the development of school-age children's intergroup prosocial behavior and the extent to which elementary school-age children consider their own and the recipient's gender in prosocial behaviour. Participants included 515 3rd, 4th and 5th graders (263, 51.1% boys, Mageinyears  = 9.08, SD = 1.00) surveyed in the fall (T1) and spring (T2). We assessed children's prosociality using peer nominations. Children became more prosocial toward same-gender peers over time but prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers remained stable. We found that gender mattered: Children showed an ingroup bias in prosociality favouring members of their own-gender group. Having other-gender friendships positively predicted children's prosocial behaviour towards other-gender peers over time. Children's felt similarity to other-gender peers was not directly, but indirectly, related to more prosocial behaviour toward other-gender peers. Findings shed light on potential pathways to fostering school-age children's intergroup prosocial behaviors.

Effortful Control and Extensive Observations of Negative Emotion as Joint Predictors of Teacher-Student Conflict in Childhood.

Studies with extensive observations of real-life emotions at school are rare but might be especially useful for predicting school-related outcomes. This study evaluated observations of negative emotion expressivity in lunch and recreation settings across kindergarten, first grade, and second grade (N = 301), kindergarten teachers' reports of children's effortful control, and kindergarten and second grade teachers' reports of their perceived conflict with children. In latent growth curve analyses, we tested whether individual trajectories of negative expressivity from kindergarten to second grade, based on estimated slopes, predicted teacher-student conflict in second grade, and whether effortful control in kindergarten moderated this association. RESEARCH FINDINGS: Negative expressivity levels in kindergarten significantly predicted higher levels of teacher-student conflict in second grade, controlling prior teacher-student conflict. Furthermore, greater increases in negative expressivity from kindergarten to second grade were associated with higher teacher-student conflict in second grade especially for children who had difficulties with effortful control in kindergarten. PRACTICE OR POLICY: Results from this study have the potential to inform programs focused on reducing teacher-student conflict. The findings highlight the possibility of targeting both effortful control and negative emotion in the early elementary school transition as a means to improve teacher-student relationships.

Perceptual Access Reasoning (PAR) in Developing a Representational Theory of Mind.

An important part of children's social and cognitive development is their understanding that people are psychological beings with internal, mental states including desire, intention, perception, and belief. A full understanding of people as psychological beings requires a representational theory of mind (ToM), which is an understanding that mental states can faithfully represent reality, or misrepresent reality. For the last 35 years, researchers have relied on false-belief tasks as the gold standard to test children's understanding that beliefs can misrepresent reality. In false-belief tasks, children are asked to reason about the behavior of agents who have false beliefs about situations. Although a large body of evidence indicates that most children pass false-belief tasks by the end of the preschool years, the evidence we present in this monograph suggests that most children do not understand false beliefs or, surprisingly, even true beliefs until middle childhood. We argue that young children pass false-belief tasks without understanding false beliefs by using perceptual access reasoning (PAR). With PAR, children understand that seeing leads to knowing in the moment, but not that knowing also arises from thinking or persists as memory and belief after the situation changes. By the same token, PAR leads children to fail true-belief tasks. PAR theory can account for performance on other traditional tests of representational ToM and related tasks, and can account for the factors that have been found to correlate with or affect both true- and false-belief performance. The theory provides a new laboratory measure which we label the belief understanding scale (BUS). This scale can distinguish between a child who is operating with PAR versus a child who is understanding beliefs. This scale provides a method needed to allow the study of the development of representational ToM. In this monograph, we report the outcome of the tests that we have conducted of predictions generated by PAR theory. The findings demonstrated signature PAR limitations in reasoning about the mind during the ages when children are hypothesized to be using PAR. In Chapter II, secondary analyses of the published true-belief literature revealed that children failed several types of true-belief tasks. Chapters III through IX describe new empirical data collected across multiple studies between 2003 and 2014 from 580 children aged 4-7 years, as well as from a small sample of 14 adults. Participants were recruited from the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. All participants were native English-speakers. Children were recruited from university-sponsored and community preschools and daycare centers, and from hospital maternity wards. Adults were university students who participated to partially fulfill course requirements for research participation. Sociometric data were collected only in Chapter IX, and are fully reported there. In Chapter III, minor alterations in task procedures produced wide variations in children's performance in 3-option false-belief tasks. In Chapter IV, we report findings which show that the developmental lag between children's understanding ignorance and understanding false belief is longer than the lag reported in previous studies. In Chapter V, children did not distinguish between agents who have false beliefs versus agents who have no beliefs. In Chapter VI, findings showed that children found it no easier to reason about true beliefs than to reason about false beliefs. In Chapter VII, when children were asked to justify their correct answers in false-belief tasks, they did not reference agents' false beliefs. Similarly, in Chapter VIII, when children were asked to explain agents' actions in false-belief tasks, they did not reference agents' false beliefs. In Chapter IX, children who were identified as using PAR differed from children who understood beliefs along three dimensions-in levels of social development, inhibitory control, and kindergarten adjustment. Although the findings need replication and additional studies of alternative interpretations, the collection of results reported in this monograph challenges the prevailing view that representational ToM is in place by the end of the preschool years. Furthermore, the pattern of findings is consistent with the proposal that PAR is the developmental precursor of representational ToM. The current findings also raise questions about claims that infants and toddlers demonstrate ToM-related abilities, and that representational ToM is innate.

Second-by-second infant and mother emotion regulation and coregulation processes.

Context-appropriate infant physiological functioning may support emotion regulation and mother-infant emotion coregulation. Among a sample of 210 low-income Mexican-origin mothers and their 24-week-old infants, dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM) was used to examine whether within-infant vagal functioning accounted for between-dyad differences in within-dyad second-by-second emotion regulation and coregulation during free play. Vagal functioning was captured by within-infant mean and variability (standard deviation) of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during free play. Infant emotion regulation was quantified as emotional equilibria (within-person mean), volatility (within-person deviation from equilibrium), carryover (how quickly equilibrium is restored following a disturbance), and feedback loops (the extent to which prior affect dampens or amplifies subsequent affect) in positive and negative affect during free play; coregulation was quantified as the influence of one partner's affect on the other's subsequent affect. Among infants with lower RSA variability, positive affect fluctuated around a higher equilibrium, and negative affect fluctuated around a lower equilibrium; these infants exhibited feedback loops where their positive affect dampened their subsequent negative affect. As expected, infants with higher mean RSA exhibited more volatility in positive affect, feedback loops between their positive and negative affect, and stronger mother-driven emotion coregulation. The results highlight differences in simultaneously occurring biological and emotion regulation.

Longitudinal transactional relations among young children's defiance and committed compliance and maternal assertive control.

The main goal of this study was to more closely understand the direction of relations between maternal behavior and young children's defiance and committed compliance. We examined 256 mother-child dyads to explore developmental transactional relations between maternal assertive control, children's committed compliance, and children's defiance at 18 (T1), 30 (T2), and 42 (T3) months of age. After controlling for maternal gentle control, SES, and child sex, results showed parent effects for children's committed compliance, such that T1 maternal assertive control negatively predicted T3 committed compliance. Furthermore, toddlers' behavior predicted T3 parenting; that is, toddlers' T1 defiance positively predicted T3 maternal assertive control. Results of the present study indicate relatively long-term prediction (to 42 months) from both parent and child behaviors at 18 months of age, and the findings have implications for understanding the bidirectional and complex processes that account for young children's adaptive and maladaptive behaviors.

Similarities and differences between actigraphy and parent-reported sleep in a Hispanic and non-Hispanic White sample.

OBJECTIVE: Despite concerns about the inaccuracy of parents' reports of children's sleep, it remains unclear whether the bias of parents' reports varies across racial/ethnic groups. To address this limitation, the current study systematically investigated the concordance among parent-reported sleep questionnaires, sleep diaries, and actigraphy-based sleep in a sample of Hispanic and non-Hispanic White children. METHODS: Parents of 51 Hispanic and 38 non-Hispanic White children (N = 89; Mage = 6.46, SD = 0.62; 50.6% male) reported their child's bedtime and wake time on school days using sleep diaries and questionnaires. Children's sleep also was assessed with actigraphy for five consecutive school days. RESULTS: Parents reported longer sleep duration, earlier bedtime, and later wake time using sleep diaries and questionnaires compared to actigraphy-based assessments. Larger discrepancies between diaries and actigraphy of sleep duration, and between questionnaires and actigraphy of wake time were found in non-Hispanic White children, compared to Hispanic children. CONCLUSIONS: Although parents tended to overestimate their child's sleep as compared to actigraphy, parents of Hispanic children may be more accurate in some estimates of children's sleep than parents of non-Hispanic White children. Researchers, clinicians, and parents should be aware of the potential biases in parents' reports and estimates of their child's sleep and that the degree of bias could vary across racial/ethnic groups.

The relations of White parents' implicit racial attitudes to their children's differential empathic concern toward White and Black victims.

The goal of this study was to investigate the relations between White parents' implicit racial attitudes and their children's racially based bias in empathic concern toward White and Black victims of injustice as well as the moderating role of children's age in this relation. Children aged 5-9 years (N = 190) reported how sorry (i.e., sympathy) and nervous (i.e., personal distress) they felt after watching sympathy-inducing videos in which either a White (non-Hispanic) child or a Black child was teased by peers. Participants' primary caregivers (mostly mothers) completed a computerized Implicit Association Test to assess their implicit racial attitudes. Parents' implicit race bias was associated with their children's reported sympathy toward Black victims and their sympathetic bias (i.e., relative sympathy toward White vs. Black victims); however, results were moderated by children's age. Specifically, parents with higher implicit race bias tended to have children with lower levels of sympathy toward Black victims for younger children and higher levels of sympathetic bias for younger and average-aged children but not for older children. Older children tended to report relatively high levels of sympathy toward Black victims and low levels of sympathetic bias regardless of their parents' implicit attitudes. The importance of parents' implicit attitudes in understanding young children's race-based moral emotional responses and the implications for intervention work are discussed.

Introduction to the special issue: Socialization of emotion and self-regulation: Understanding processes and application.

Over 20 years ago, Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad (1998; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Cumberland, 1998) published a landmark article focusing on the socialization of children's emotion and self-regulation, including emotion regulation. In this special issue, our goal was to compile current evidence delineating the impact of emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) on children's emotion, self-regulation, and developmental outcomes. The work in this issue highlights the processes involved in predicting both parents' ERSBs as well as children's developmental outcomes. Researchers have moved beyond testing individual "pieces" of the socialization of emotion model and now use innovative and sophisticated methods for testing larger models, allowing for more causal interpretations. Special issue contributors focused on longitudinal studies including ERSBs, reviews of the literature extending the original model, and the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve the emotional lives of children and their families. We focus on some of the major themes of the special issue and conclude with recommendations for policies and programs to promote youths' effective emotion-related outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's mu suppression is sensitive to witnessing others' social victimization.

Empathy has been a key focus of social, developmental, and affective neuroscience for some time. However, research using neural measures to study empathy in response to social victimization is sparse, particularly for young children. In the present study, 58 children's (White, non-Hispanic; five to nine years old) mu suppression was measured using electroencephalogram methods (EEG) as they viewed video scenarios depicting social injustices toward White and Black children. We found evidence of increased mu suppression in response to social victimization; however, contrary to well-documented findings of ingroup racial bias in empathic responses among adults, we found no evidence of racial bias in mu suppression in young children. Implications of these findings for neuroscience research on empathy and the development of ingroup bias are discussed.

Longitudinal relations among household chaos, SES, and effortful control in the prediction of language skills in early childhood.

Previous research has shown that home environment plays an important role in children's early language skills. Yet, few researchers have examined the unique role of family-level factors (socioeconomic status [SES], household chaos) on children's learning or focused on the longitudinal processes that might explain their relations to children's early language skills. The goal of this study was to investigate the longitudinal relations from family SES, household chaos, and children's effortful control (EC) to children's language skills during early childhood, controlling for stability of the constructs. At Time (T1 i.e., 30 months), mothers reported family SES and children's vocabulary, and their own linguistic input was assessed during a free-play session with their child. At T1, T2 (i.e., 42 months), and T3 (i.e., 54 months), household chaos was reported by mothers, and children's EC was rated by mothers and nonparental caregivers and observed during a gift-delay task. At T3, children's expressive and receptive language skills were measured with a standard assessment. Path analyses indicated that higher SES predicted higher levels of EC at T2 and language skills at T3, and greater levels of household chaos at T2 predicted poorer EC and language skills a year later, even when controlling for stability of the constructs. Results indicated that T2 EC partially mediated the relations between SES and T3 language skills. Findings from this study can be used to identify key factors for early learning and perhaps inform programs designed to support families and young children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Prediction of Children's Early Academic Adjustment from Their Temperament: The Moderating Role of Peer Temperament.

The goal of the study was to examine whether target children's temperamental negative emotional expressivity (NEE) and effortful control in the fall of kindergarten predicted academic adjustment in the spring and whether a classmate's NEE and effortful control moderated these relations. Target children's NEE and effortful control were measured in the fall via multiple methods, academic adjustment was measured via reading and math standardized tests in the spring, and observations of engagement in the classroom were conducted throughout the year. In the fall, teachers nominated a peer with whom each target child spent the most time and rated that peer's temperament. Target children with high effortful control had high reading and math achievement (ps = .04 and < .001, respectively), and children with low NEE increased in engagement during the year (p < .001). Peers' temperament did not have a direct relation to target children's academic adjustment. Peers' negative emotion, however, moderated the relation between target children's effortful control, as well as NEE, and changes in engagement (ps = .03 and .05, respectively). Further, peers' effortful control moderated the relations between target children's NEE and reading and changes in engagement (ps = .02 and .04, respectively). In each case, target children's temperament predicted the outcome in expected directions more strongly when peers had low NEE or high effortful control. Results are discussed in terms of how children's temperamental qualities relate to academic adjustment, and how the relation between NEE and changes in engagement, in particular, depends on peers' temperament.

The association between home chaos and academic achievement: The moderating role of sleep.

The goal of this study was to understand the role young children's sleep plays in the association between their family environment and academic achievement (AA) by examining sleep as a moderator between home chaos (chaos) and children's AA. We examined this question in a sample of 103 kindergarteners and 1st graders. In the fall, parents reported on levels of chaos in their home. To measure sleep, early in the spring, children wore actigraphs for 5 consecutive school nights. Later in the spring, children completed standardized tests of achievement. Sleep duration, but not sleep efficiency, moderated relations between chaos and AA. Specifically, children with longer sleep durations (26% of the sample), compared to children with average or lower sleep durations, had significant negative associations between chaos and achievement, indicating that children in higher chaos homes had lower academic achievement. The findings enhance scholars' understanding of the relation between chaos and AA as well as highlight an important bioregulatory factor in the association between home family environment and children's academic outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Relations of Inhibition and Emotion-Related Parenting to Young Children's Prosocial and Vicariously Induced Distress Behavior.

Children's prosocial behavior and personal distress are likely affected by children's temperament as well as parenting quality. In this study, we examined bidirectional relations from age 30 to 42 months between children's (N = 218) prosocial or self-focused (presumably distressed) reactions to a relative stranger's distress and both supportive emotion-related maternal reactions to children's emotions and children's shyness/inhibition. When controlling for 30-month prosocial behavior and personal distress behavior, maternal supportive (emotion-focused and problem-focused) reactions were positively related to prosocial behavior and marginally negatively related to children's personal distress behaviors and shyness/inhibition at 42 months. Thirty-month personal distress behavior predicted greater shyness/inhibition at 42 months, and 30-month shyness/inhibition was negatively related to prosocial behavior at 30 months.

Biological Sensitivity to the Effects of Maternal Postpartum Depressive Symptoms on Children's Behavior Problems.

Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) may confer infant susceptibility to the postpartum environment. Among infants with higher RSA, there may be a positive relation between depressive symptoms across the first 6 months postpartum (PPD) and later behavior problems, and toddlers' dysregulation during mother-child interactions may partially explain the effects. Among a sample of low-income Mexican-American families, infant RSA (N = 322; 46% male) was assessed at 6 weeks of age; mothers (Mage  = 27.8, SD = 6.5) reported PPD symptoms every 3 weeks from 6 to 24 weeks and infant behavior problems at 36 months. Dysregulation was observed at 24 months. PPD was positively associated with behavior problems only among infants with lower RSA; however, this relation was not mediated by dysregulation.