The effects of maternal competence and situational stress level on children's help-seeking expectations across 4 to 6 years of age.

Help-seeking is a crucial problem-solving strategy for young children. However, it is not yet clear how children weigh different cues to make help-seeking decisions across preschool years, especially in caregiver-child interactions. The current study used a social expectation task to examine the effects of maternal competence and situational stress level on 4- to 6-year-old children's help-seeking expectations from a third-party perspective. Children's expectations of whether to seek help were measured. A total fo 135 Han Chinese children aged 4 to 6 years from an eastern city of China participated in this study. We found that 4- to 6-year-olds expected to seek more help from a competent mother than from an incompetent mother in low-stress conditions. When the stress level was high, however, they expected to seek help regardless of maternal competence levels. These results suggest that the interaction between the situational stress level and maternal competence determines young children's help-seeking expectations across preschool years. They further suggest that young children seek help from mothers in an active and discriminatory way.

The effects of caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels on children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness.

Children develop expectations of caregivers' support-giving during early-life interactions. The present study examined whether caregivers' responsiveness would influence young children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness under different situational stress levels. We manipulated the caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels. Children were tested to determine their expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness. Sixty-four (33 boys, Mage = 5.34) and 68 (34 boys, Mage = 5.25) Chinese Han children from a city in Southeast China participated in Studies 1 and 2, respectively. In Study 1, we created a separation condition (i.e., a moderate level of stress) and found that children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness were significantly lower in the unresponsive condition than in the responsive condition. The expectations in the unresponsive condition decreased significantly compared with the initial expectations. In Study 2, we created a danger condition (i.e., a high level of stress) and found that caregivers' responsiveness had no significant effect on children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness. These results imply that both caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels affect children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving. They further suggest that children aged 4-6 can simultaneously assess caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels while forming support-giving expectations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

"I-just-wanna-get-by" hurts teachers and their work: Linking preschool teacher identity to work withdrawals in an emerging economy.

Motivation deficit in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has implications for teacher well-being and education outcomes. This study, utilizing the job demand resource (JD-R) theory, explores the role of teacher identity as a motivational resource that antecedes emotional labor strategies - deep acting and surface acting. We further examined the relationship between emotional labor strategies and teacher work withdrawals - presenteeism and lateness, and the intervening role of teacher emotional exhaustion. We tested our theoretical model using 574 preschool teachers in Ghana. We found that teacher identity relates positively to deep acting but negatively to surface acting. And that deep acting relates to work withdrawals negatively whilst surface acting is associated with them positively. Deep acting diminishes work withdrawals because of its capacity to prevent emotional exhaustion, but the mediation role of emotional exhaustion in surface acting and work withdrawal links was non-significant. Our study presents preliminary evidence from an emerging economy on the central role of teacher identity (motivation component) in emotion management in an attempt to reduce emotional strain, thereby lessening negative work behaviors.

Characteristics and influencing factors of early childhood teachers' work stress and burnout: A comparative study between China, Ghana, and Pakistan.

Introduction: Many studies have documented the stress and burnout experienced by early childhood teachers. However, few have focused on comparisons among countries, particularly developing ones. Meanwhile, female teachers, who are more sensitive and tend to provide emotional responses, are often overlooked as a major force of emotional involvement. This study examined the similarities and differences of early childhood teachers' stress, burnout, and gender in China, Ghana, and Pakistan. Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional design. The participants included 945 preschool and lower primary school teachers recruited from Zhejiang Province in China, the Ashanti Region in Ghana, and Punjab, Pakistan. The analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling. First, the study estimated all parameters separately and without constraints between the groups for all models. Second, the study compared the latent mean difference and of stressors and burnout between teachers' personal and job characteristics. Third, a structural equation model was used to assess the relationship between teachers' stressors and burnout. Results: Across the three countries, female teachers are more stressed out, with higher emotional demands and work-family conflicts, and are more prone to burnout with a greater level of emotional exhaustion and a lower level of personal accomplishments than their male counterparts are. Moreover, Chinese teachers were found to be the most stressed-out group with the highest level of burnout. In comparison to teachers in China and Pakistan, early childhood teachers in Ghana possess the lowest level of emotional demands. With the lowest level of emotional exhaustion and the highest level of personal accomplishments, Pakistani teachers were unlikely to experience burnout. Discussion: This study comparatively analyzed the characteristics of stress and burnout among ECTs in different cultural settings and educational systems in three developing countries (China, Ghana, and Pakistan), and revealed workplace characteristics and circumstances for ECTs. In addition, this study takes gender as the main influencing factor and explores its effect on ECTs' stress and burnout, and it highlights and verifies "emotionality" in ECTs' profession. As a result, policymakers and stakeholders in different countries may be encouraged to improve ECE quality and the well-being of ECTs.

Psychometric Properties of the Child Neglect Scale and Risk Factors for Child Neglect in Chinese Young Males Who Were Incarcerated.

Child neglect is an important risk factor for juvenile delinquency, while few studies have examined child neglect in Chinese juvenile delinquents due to the lack of appropriate measurement tools. The Child Neglect Scale is a 38-item retrospective self-report scale that specifically focuses on child neglect. The current study, therefore, aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Child Neglect Scale and risk factors for child neglect among Chinese juvenile delinquents. A total of 212 young males who were incarcerated participated in this study, and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Child Neglect Scale, and basic information questionnaire were used to collect data. The results showed that the Child Neglect Scale has good reliability, and the mean inter-item correlation coefficients reach accepted standards. Moreover, it is found that child neglect is prevalent among Chinese young males who are incarcerated, with communication neglect occurring most frequently. Low levels of family monthly income and rural residency are risk factors for child neglect. The average scores of security neglect, physical neglect, and communication neglect of the participants respectively show statistically significant differences according to the type of major caregivers. Findings suggest that the Child Neglect Scale may be used to measure child neglect with four independent subscales in Chinese young males who are incarcerated.

Early childhood educators' emotional labor and burnout in an emerging economy: The mediating roles of affective states.

The costs and benefits of preschool teachers' emotional labor on the quality of education manifest in how emotional labor relates to well-being. Building on the theoretical foundation of conservation of resources theory (COR), this study explores the influence of emotional labor on burnout and the intervening roles of affective states (i.e., positive and negative affect). Our hypotheses were tested using cross-sectional data from 574 preschool teachers in Ghana. The results suggest that surface acting induces emotional exhaustion whilst diminishing personal accomplishment, but deep acting reduces depersonalization. Further, negative affect mediated surface acting and dimensions of burnout relationships. Also, positive affect mediated surface acting and deep acting, and personal accomplishment links. Theoretical and practical implications as well as directions for further research have been discussed.

Career Exploration and Career Decision Self-Efficacy in Northwest Chinese Pre-service Kindergarten Teachers: The Mediating Role of Work Volition and Career Adaptability.

Studies have documented that career exploration is significantly associated with CDSE, but how this association occurred is not clear yet. This study committed to clarifying the mechanism underlying the relationship between career exploration and CDSE by investigating the mediation effect of work volition and career adaptability among 586 pre-service kindergarten teachers. The participants are recruited from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwest China, covering Han, Hui, and other minorities. They took part in a two-wave (6 months apart) longitudinal survey and reported on their career exploration at T1, work volition, career adaptability, and career decision self-efficacy (CDSE) at T2. Results showed that T1 career exploration is directly related to the T2 CDSE. Further, career exploration contributed to the CDSE through both the separated mediation path and the chained mediation path of T2 work volition and T2 career adaptability. The results suggest that individuals who engage in more career exploration activities are likely to have more confidence in their abilities to make career decisions over time, which was partially and serially explained by individuals' perception of capacity despite constraints and greater self-regulatory strength. This study is a first attempt to deeply clarify the link between career exploration and CDSE, and the findings shed light on the independent and serial mediating effects of work volition and career adaptability. The implications and limitations are discussed.

The Relationship of Motor Coordination, Visual Perception, and Executive Function to the Development of 4-6-Year-Old Chinese Preschoolers' Visual Motor Integration Skills.

Visual motor integration (VMI) is a vital ability in childhood development, which is associated with the performance of many functional skills. By using the Beery Developmental Test Package and Executive Function Tasks, the present study explored the VMI development and its factors (visual perception, motor coordination, and executive function) among 151 Chinese preschoolers from 4 to 6 years. Results indicated that the VMI skills of children increased quickly at 4 years and peaked at 5 years and decreased at around 5 to 6 years. Motor coordination and cognitive flexibility were related to the VMI development of children from 4 to 6 years. Visual perception was associated with the VMI development at early 4 years and inhibitory control was also associated with it among 4-year-old and the beginning of 5-year-old children. Working memory had no impact on the VMI. In conclusion, the development of VMI skills among children in preschool was not stable but changed dynamically in this study. Meanwhile the factors of the VMI worked in different age range for preschoolers. These findings may give some guidance to researchers or health professionals on improving children's VMI skills in their early childhood.

Individuation training with other-race faces reduces preschoolers' implicit racial bias: a link between perceptual and social representation of faces in children.

The present study examined whether perceptual individuation training with other-race faces could reduce preschool children's implicit racial bias. We used an 'angry = outgroup' paradigm to measure Chinese children's implicit racial bias against African individuals before and after training. In Experiment 1, children between 4 and 6 years were presented with angry or happy racially ambiguous faces that were morphed between Chinese and African faces. Initially, Chinese children demonstrated implicit racial bias: they categorized happy racially ambiguous faces as own-race (Chinese) and angry racially ambiguous faces as other-race (African). Then, the children participated in a training session where they learned to individuate African faces. Children's implicit racial bias was significantly reduced after training relative to that before training. Experiment 2 used the same procedure as Experiment 1, except that Chinese children were trained with own-race Chinese faces. These children did not display a significant reduction in implicit racial bias. Our results demonstrate that early implicit racial bias can be reduced by presenting children with other-race face individuation training, and support a linkage between perceptual and social representations of face information in children.

Neural responses to cartoon facial attractiveness: An event-related potential study.

Animation creates a vivid, virtual world and expands the scope of human imagination. In this study, we investigated the time-courses of brain responses related to the evaluation of the attractiveness of cartoon faces using the event-related potential (ERP) technique. The results demonstrated that N170 amplitude was higher for attractive than for unattractive cartoon faces in males, while the opposite was found in females. Facial attractiveness notably modulated the late positive component (LPC), which might reflect the task-related process of aesthetic appraisal of beauty. The mean LPC amplitude in males was significantly higher for attractive cartoon faces than for unattractive faces, while the LPC amplitude in females did not significantly differ between attractive and unattractive cartoon faces. Moreover, the paint mode (computer graphics, gouache, and stick figure) modulated the early encoding of facial structures and the late evaluative process. The early modulation effect by paint mode may be related to the spatial frequency of the pictures. The processing speed and intensity in females were both higher than those in males. In conclusion, our study, for the first time, reported ERP modulation based on the assessment of cartoon facial attractiveness, suggesting the facilitated selection of attractiveness information at the early stage, and that the attentional enhancement of attractive faces at the late stage only exists in males. This suggests that men's brains are hard-wired to be sensitive to facial beauty, even in cartoons.