Biological basis of temperament: Respiratory sinus arrhythmia and inhibitory control across childhood.

Temperamental inhibitory control is a foundational capacity for children's social, emotional, and behavioral development. Even though temperament is suggested to have a biological basis, the physiological indicators of inhibitory control remain unclear amid mixed empirical results. In this study, we leveraged a multicohort longitudinal design to examine resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as a physiological correlate of inhibitory control across the early and middle childhood years. Data were collected annually across four time points from cohorts of 4- (n = 150, Mage = 4.53; SD = 0.30; 49.7% female) and 8- (n = 150; Mage = 8.53; SD = 0.29; 49.7% female) year-old children and their caregivers. There were weak, albeit significant, associations between resting RSA and caregiver-reported inhibitory control in middle childhood but not in early childhood. A stronger association was found for older children when latent trait assessments of RSA and inhibitory control were derived from commonalities across the four annual assessments. We conclude that using repeated measures to extract latent trait scores increases power to detect potential physiological indicators of temperament. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Empathy, sympathy, and emotion regulation: A meta-analytic review.

Empathy, sympathy, and emotion regulation are core components of social-emotional development. Regulating vicariously induced negative emotions is thought to support feeling empathy and sympathy for others in need, but empirical evidence for such effects is mixed. Moreover, despite the longstanding conceptual distinction between empathy and sympathy, most researchers refer to and measure these constructs interchangeably. This meta-analysis examined associations between emotion regulation and empathy and/or sympathy in childhood and adolescence, as well as potential methodological, study, and sample moderators. Analyses were conducted on 58 studies (75 effect sizes; N = 25,831). There was a significant and positive overall association between emotion regulation and empathy/sympathy (r = .19, p < .001); however, most scales assessing empathy were conflated with other constructs. Accounting for conflation, emotion regulation was related to sympathy (r = .24, p < .001) but not empathy (r = .04, p = .38). Moreover, the association between emotion regulation and empathy/sympathy was not significant when baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA reactivity were examined as proxies of emotion regulation. Results were largely similar across sample characteristics (e.g., age group, sex, and culture). Conceptual implications for differentiating empathy and sympathy are discussed, as well as methodological considerations to maximize the quality and clarity of research on emotion regulation, empathy, and sympathy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Parental warmth predicts more child pro-social behaviour in children with better emotion regulation.

Parental warmth and child emotion regulation have each been implicated in the development of child pro-social behaviours; however, their interactive benefits remain unclear. In this multi-method, multi-cohort longitudinal study, we examined the effect of parental warmth on child pro-social behaviours at different levels of child emotion regulation. We collected data from 6- and 10-year-olds in Canada (NT1  = 233; Mage  = 8.41; SD = 2.08) and their parents. Parental warmth, child emotion regulation, and child pro-social behaviours were assessed via parent report. Children's baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; an indicator of cardiac regulatory capacity) was assessed as a correlate of emotion regulation. Child pro-social behaviours were assessed concurrently and 1 year later. Results showed that higher parental warmth was related to higher concurrent prosocial behaviours and greater increases in prosocial behaviours over 1 year. These effects were strengthened for children with higher emotion regulation whether measured by parent report or RSA. We discuss implications for understanding pro-social development in middle childhood from a strengths-based perspective.

Assessing social-emotional development: Reliability and validity of the social-emotional responding task.

The Social-Emotional Responding Task (SERT) assesses children's anticipated emotions in the contexts of transgressions (Malti, The Social-Emotional Responding Task. Unpublished tool by T. Malti, 2017.). We present a systematic psychometric evaluation of the SERT using data from two different samples of 4-8-year-old children from Canada (N = 291, Mage = 6.55 years, SDs = 2.02, 50% boys in Sample 1 and N = 282, Mage = 6.57 years, SDs = 1.56, 49% boys in Sample 2). Children reported their anticipated emotions in six vignettes describing three domains of transgressions [aggressive acts (AA), prosocial omission (PO), and social exclusion (SE)]. Caregivers rated children's sympathy and prosocial and aggressive behaviors. Results supported a one-factor ("domain-general") model over a three-factor ("domain-specific") model, indicating convergence of anticipated emotions across vignettes and domains. Measurement invariance was established across gender and age groups, indicating the robustness of the assessment. Construct validity was supported by associations with sympathy and less robustly, with prosocial and aggressive behavior. We discuss the use of SERT as an assessment tool for children's social-emotional capacities in research and practice settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Culturally shared and unique meanings and expressions of maternal control across four cultures.

Maternal control is a major dimension of parenting and has different meanings, practices, and potential consequences across cultures. The present study aimed to identify and compare mothers' conceptualizations of parenting control across four cultures to reveal a more nuanced understanding regarding the meaning and practices of control: European American, Chinese immigrant, Korean immigrant, and Turkish. Using a semistructured open-ended interview, 100 European American, 102 U.S. Chinese immigrant, 103 U.S. Korean immigrant, and 109 Turkish mothers of preschool-aged children reported the ratings of importance, specific reasons, and strategies for exerting control over their children in daily life. Results revealed both shared and unique conceptualizations of maternal control across four cultures. Specifically, all mothers reported that it is important to express maternal control over their children in order to set behavioral norms/standards, maintain child safety, support social relations and respect for others, provide guidance, and guide moral development. Moreover, mothers discussed utilizing nonphysical punishment, setting and maintaining rules, reasoning/negotiating, consistency, physical punishment and verbal control, showing parents' serious/stern attitude, correction, and psychological control forms of control. However, the levels at which mothers emphasize the different reasons and strategies varied across cultures, reflecting culturally emphasized values. The findings of the present study further enrich our understanding of the complexities of maternal control across cultures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Not just a sum of its parts: How tasks of the theory of mind scale relate to executive function across time.

There is a well-established relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF) during the preschool years. However, less is known about the concurrent and longitudinal relations between EF and specific tasks tapping different aspects of ToM. The current study investigated the ToM-EF relationship across 1 year in 3- to 5-year-old Turkish children using the ToM battery of Wellman and Liu (2004), which measures understanding of diverse desires (DD), diverse beliefs (DB), knowledge access (KA), contents false belief (CFB), explicit false belief (EFB), and hidden emotion (HE). This battery has not yet been used in its entirety to test the predictive relations between ToM and EF. We used peg-tapping and day-night tasks to measure EF. Our sample comprised 150 Turkish preschool children (69 girls) aged 36-60 months at Time 1 (T1) and 49-73 months at Time 2 (T2). Using the ToM composite with all six tasks, when child's age, receptive language, and T1 ability level (EF or ToM) were controlled, T1 EF significantly predicted T2 ToM, whereas T1 ToM did not predict T2 EF. Among DD, DB, KA, false belief understanding (FBU: the composite score of CFB and EFB), and HE, only KA and FBU were significantly associated with EF at T1 and T2. Further regression analyses showed that KA did not have a predictive relationship with EF. Instead, FBU drove the predictive EF-ToM relationship across time. Thus, in Turkish children, earlier EF predicts later ToM, but especially the FBU component, in this well-validated battery.

Social competence in children with autism.

Objectives: This paper investigates the associations of social competence with cognitive representation and communication skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), by measuring these skills in an expansive way through assessing both mental and internal-state understanding, and verbal and non-verbal communication. Methods: The data were collected from 45 Turkish children (M age=8.52 years, SD=3.05, min-max=3-14) with a diagnosis of ASD. Individual assessments were used to measure mental- and internal-state understanding. Teacher-rated scales were used to assess child's verbal and non-verbal communication skills, and social competence. Results: The results showed that social competence, cognitive representation, verbal and non-verbal communication skills were all significantly associated, but over and above cognitive representation skills and verbal communication, non-verbal communication had a salient role in adaptive social relationships of children with ASD. Conclusions: These findings have important applied implications for intervention studies and suggest that improvements of non-verbal communication skills in children with ASD might be important for increasing their positive social relations.

Interventions aimed at reducing obesity in early childhood: a meta-analysis of programs that involve parents.

BACKGROUND: Obesity is a growing problem even in very young childhood, resulting in high costs for individuals and society. As a response, numerous obesity prevention and intervention programs have been developed. Previous research has shown that early intervention programs are more effective when parents are involved, but the effectiveness of specific aspects of programs with parental involvement has not been investigated. This meta-analysis aims to investigate the features related to the effectiveness of different types of obesity intervention programs involving parents and targeting young children (0-6-year-olds). METHODS: The Web of Science, PubMed, PsycInfo, CINAHL, and ERIC databases were searched for childhood obesity prevention and intervention programs involving parents. Data were analyzed using the Comprehensive Meta-analysis (CMA) software. RESULTS: Fifty studies with effect sizes measured at short-term follow-up (within 3 months from the end of the intervention) and 26 studies with effect sizes measured at long-term follow-up (all reported in a total of 49 publications) were identified. The combined effect size of interventions was small but significant at short-term follow-up (d = .08, p < .01). The results suggested the presence of a potential publication bias in studies providing results at long-term follow-up, with a nonsignificant adjusted effect size (d = .02), which indicated that obesity interventions were not effective at long-term follow-up. Multivariate meta-regression analyses showed that interventions were more effective when including either interactive sessions or educational materials as opposed to those including both interactive sessions and noninteractive educational materials. No other moderators regarding sample characteristics, study design, or methodological quality were significant. CONCLUSION: Interventions targeting young children that require parental involvement are effective at short-term follow-up, specifically when interventions include one mode of intervention rather than two. However, results were not retained in the long run.