The impact of emotional expressions on children's trust judgments.

Research on the development of selective trust has shown that young children do not indiscriminately trust all potential informants. They are likely to seek and endorse information from individuals who have proven competent or benign in the past. However, research on trust among adults raises the possibility that children might also be influenced by the emotions expressed by potential informants. In particular, they might trust individuals expressing more positive emotion. Indeed, young children's trust in particular informants based on their past behaviour might be undermined by their currently expressed emotions. To examine this possibility, we tested the selective trust of fifty 4- and 5-year-olds in two steps. We first confirmed that children are likely to invest more trust in individuals expressing more positive emotion. We then showed that even if children have already formed an impression of two potential informants based on their behavioural record, their choices about whose claims to trust are markedly influenced by the degree of positive emotion currently expressed by the two informants. By implication, the facial emotions expressed by potential informants can undermine young children's selective trust based on the behavioural record of those informants.

Development and validation of the Emotional Intelligence Test for Adolescents in a Chinese sample.

Emotional intelligence, or the ability to perceive, understand, and regulate emotions, has been identified as a protective factor for one's adaptation. Measuring emotional intelligence using performance-based approach is thought to be objective and effective. However, performance-based emotional intelligence instruments for non-Western adolescents are rarely available. To facilitate research on emotional intelligence, the present study developed and validated the emotional intelligence test for adolescents (A-EIT) using a Chinese sample. Study 1 (N = 1,536) showed that emotional intelligence consists of three subabilities (i.e., emotion perception, emotion understanding, and emotion regulation) and identified eligible items for each subtest through exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Study 2 (N = 2,568) confirmed the three-factor structure and its measurement invariance across gender and age groups by (multiple-group) confirmatory factor analyses. Both the full test and its three subtests showed acceptable internal consistencies, and their scores increased with age and showed female advantage. Also, the A-EIT scores were significantly correlated with indicators related to emotional and cognitive skills (convergent validity) and were independent of personality (discriminant validity). Additionally, higher scores on the A-EIT were related to better intrapersonal, interpersonal, and academic adaption (criterion validity), as expected. Study 3 (N = 163) provided further convergent validity evidence for each subtest by using validity tools not based on an emotional intelligence framework. Additionally, the A-EIT displayed satisfactory test-retest reliability. Generally, the A-EIT appears to be a valid and reliable instrument to assess adolescents' emotion intelligence, especially those with relatively low level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Joint Effect of Paternal and Maternal Parenting Behaviors on School Engagement Among Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Mastery Goal.

The present study aimed to explore the joint effect of paternal and maternal parenting behaviors on adolescent's school engagement, and the mediating role of mastery goal. A total of 2,775 Chinese adolescent participants (55.3% females, mean age = 15.70, SD = 1.57) from two-parent families were recruited in 2014, who rated their perceptions of emotional warmth, behavioral guidance, harsh discipline of their father and mother, as well as their own mastery goal and school engagement. Results showed that paternal and maternal parenting behaviors had interaction effects on school engagement with different interaction patterns. Specifically, the interactions of both parents' emotional warmth and both parents' behavioral guidance displayed strengthening patterns, where one parent's high emotional warmth or behavioral guidance enhanced the positive relationship between the corresponding parenting behavior of the other parent and adolescents' school engagement. By contrast, the interaction of both parents' harsh discipline displayed an interfering pattern, where one parent's high level of harsh discipline reduced the negative relationship between harsh discipline of the other parent and school engagement. Further, all three interaction effects between father and mother on school engagement were mediated by mastery goal. These findings underline the importance of viewing family from a systematic perspective and the benefits of supportive parenting behavior of both parents.