Laura Beatriz Oros

Positive Emotions in Children: Current Research and Future Directions

Current studies indicate that positive emotions contribute to the development of social, affective, and cognitive resources that promote psychosocial well-being. However, most research has focused on adolescents and adults rather than children, although the basis for emotional development is established during childhood and affects the emergence of social and cognitive processes during this period. This chapter reviews Latin American studies that have examined how children’s positive emotions are related to other variables as well as proposed models for assessing and fostering these emotions. It concludes with suggestions for future research.

Programa de promoción de la parentalidad positiva en la escuela: un estudio preliminar en un contexto de vulnerabilidad social

Introduction: Positive parenting requires the balanced combination of various essential factors, such as attachment, affection, communication, discipline and autonomy granted to children.Objective: This study explored the impact of a parental strengthening program based on the assessment of participating mothers and their children.Method: The program was implemented in groups through expository-participative meetings at a school in a socially vulnerable context. After its application, semi-structured interviews with the mothers were conducted; in addition, the attachment and parental style perceived by their respective children before and after the program were evaluated and compared with a control group.Results: We found that the workshops, as reported by the participants, provided novel information that contributed to their personal growth and parental sensitivity; produced a change in beliefs regarding parenting and an improvement in the expression of affection, verbal communication and discipline; was an important source of social support; and activated their interest in the school situation of their children, which improved—in some cases—communication between mothers and the school. Moreover, the children’sperception of attachment and parenting style was better after the intervention with the mothers and better than that observed in the control group.Conclusions: It is concluded that the intervention program had a favorable impact on different maternal aspects that encourage the exercise of positive parenthood.

Construct Validity and Reliability of a New Spanish Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Early Adolescents

Empathy is a basic socio-emotional process of human development that involves the ability to perceive, share, and understand the emotional states of others. This process is essential to successful social functioning. However, despite its significance, empathy has been difficult to define and measure, particularly when incorporating both its emotional and cognitive aspects. The purpose of this study was to develop an Empathy Questionnaire for children aged 9–12 years based on a model of social cognitive neuroscience and to analyze its construct validity and reliability. This questionnaire aimed to integrate the following aspects: emotional contagion, self-other awareness, perspective-taking, emotional regulation, and empathic action. Three studies were conducted. Study 1 evaluated the discriminative power of the items and studied the underlying structure of the instrument using exploratory factor analysis. In Study 2, confirmatory factor analysis was performed to test the model obtained. Finally, the goal of Study 3 was to analyze the convergent and discriminant validity of the questionnaire and the internal consistency of its dimensions. The final version of the instrument contained 15 items that operationalized the previously listed dimensions. The results of the 3 studies indicated that the questionnaire had good validity and reliability. This study has important implications for research and clinical practice. Given its simplicity and brevity, this new self-report scale may work well as a screening method to evaluate the key psychological issues underlying numerous child behaviors that predict the success or failure of social relationships, individual quality of life, and mental well-being.

Percepción de la creatividad en niños, padres y pares: efectos en la producción creativa

Objective. The present study aimed at assessing the perception of creativity in children, parents and peers, as well as the effect of these perceptions on the child’s creative output in paper-and-pencil activities. Method. The study involved 359 students aged 9-13 years from different schools and colleges of the province of Entre Ríos, Argentina. To know the creative production, children completed the Figural Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance, Ball y Safter, 1992), Form B. To study the valuation of peers, parents and the own child on creativity, the Sociogram “Creative peer” for all children, the Creative Personality Scale (CPS; 2004, in its hetero-evaluation version for parents or guardians) and the Self-evaluation version for children aged 1113 years were administered. Results. The results showed that both parental perception (F (2, 356) = 6.55, p = 0.002) and peers’ evaluation (F (2, 356) = 4.90, p = 0.008) on creativity improve the child’s creative production in paper-and-pencil activities. No significant differences were found in the creative production according to the child’s self-perception of his/her creativity. Conclusion. Data demonstrate the fundamental importance of contextual factors, mainly the perception of parents and peers in the process of the formation of the self, in terms of competencies and skills that are necessary to carry out a creative task.