Mark Reiser

Dispositional Emotionality and Regulation: Their Role in Predicting Quality of Social Functioning

Individual differences in emotionality and regulation are central to conceptions of temperament and personality. In this article, conceptions of emotionality and regulation and ways in which they predict social functioning are examined. Linear (including additive) and nonlinear effects are reviewed. In addition, data on mediational and moderational relations from a longitudinal study are presented. The effects of attention regulation on social functioning were mediated by resiliency, and this relation was moderated by negative emotionality at the first, but not second, assessment. Negative emotionality moderated the relation of behavior regulation to socially appropriate/prosocial behavior. These results highlight the importance of examining different types of regulation and the ways in which dispositional characteristics interact in predicting social outcomes.

Parental Reactions to Children's Negative Emotions: Longitudinal Relations to Quality of Children's Social Functioning

Relations between self-reported parental reactions to childrens negative emotions (PNRs) and childrens socially appropriate/problem behavior and negative emotionality were examined longitudinally. Evidence was consistent with the conclusion that relations between childrens externalizing (but not internalizing) emotion and parental punitive reactions to childrens negative emotions are bidirectional. Reports of PNRs generally were correlated with low quality of social functioning. In structural models, mother-reported problem behavior at ages 10-12 was at least marginally predicted from mother-reported problem behavior, childrens regulation, and parental punitive or distress reactions. Moreover, parental distress and punitive reactions at ages 6-8 predicted reports of childrens regulation at ages 8-10, and regulation predicted parental punitive reactions at ages 10-12. Father reports of problem behavior at ages 10-12 were predicted by earlier problem behavior and parental distress or punitive reactions; some of the relations between regulation and parental reactions were similar to those in the models for mother-reported problem behavior. Parental perceptions of their reactions were substantially correlated over 6 years. Some nonsupportive reactions declined in the early to mid-school years, but all increased into late childhood/early adolescence.

Longitudinal Relations of Children's Effortful Control, Impulsivity, and Negative Emotionality to Their Externalizing, Internalizing, and Co-Occurring Behavior Problems

The purpose of the study was to examine the relations of effortful control (EC), impulsivity, and negative emotionality to at least borderline clinical levels of symptoms and change in maladjustment over four years. Childrens (N = 214; 77% European American; M age = 73 months) externalizing and internalizing symptoms were rated by parents and teachers at 3 times, 2 years apart (T1, T2, and T3) and were related to childrens adult-rated EC, impulsivity, and emotion. In addition, the authors found patterns of change in maladjustment were related to these variables at T3 while controlling for the T1 predictor. Externalizing problems (pure or co-occurring with internalizing problems) were associated with low EC, high impulsivity, and negative emotionality, especially anger, and patterns of change also related to these variables. Internalizing problems were associated with low impulsivity and sadness and somewhat with high anger. Low attentional EC was related to internalizing problems only in regard to change in maladjustment. Change in impulsivity was associated with change in internalizing primarily when controlling for change in externalizing problems.

The Relations of Problem Behavior Status to Children's Negative Emotionality, Effortful Control, and Impulsivity: Concurrent Relations and Prediction of Change

The relations of childrens internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors to their concurrent regulation, impulsivity (reactive undercontrol), anger, sadness, and fearfulness and these aspects of functioning 2 years prior were examined. Parents and teachers completed measures of childrens (N = 185; ages 6 through 9 years) adjustment, negative emotionality, regulation, and behavior control; behavioral measures of regulation also were obtained. In general, both internalizing and externalizing problems were associated with negative emotionality. Externalizers were low in effortful regulation and high in impulsivity, whereas internalizers, compared with nondisordered children, were low in impulsivity but not effortful control. Moreover, indices of negative emotionality, regulation, and impulsivity with the level of the same variables 2 years before controlled predicted stability versus change in problem behavior status.

Prediction of Children's Academic Competence from Their Effortful Control, Relationships, and Classroom Participation.

The authors examined the relations among childrens effortful control, school relationships, classroom participation, and academic competence with a sample of 7- to 12-year-old children (N = 264). Parents and children reported on childrens effortful control, and teachers and children reported on childrens school relationships and classroom participation. Childrens grade point averages (GPAs) and absences were obtained from school-issued report cards. Significant positive correlations existed between effortful control, school relationships, classroom participation, and academic competence. Consistent with expectations, the teacher-child relationship, social competence, and classroom participation partially mediated the relation between effortful control and change in GPA from the beginning to the end of the school year. The teacher-child relationship and classroom participation also partially mediated the relation between effortful control and change in school absences across the year.

Relation of emotion-related regulation to children's social competence: a longitudinal study.

The differential relations of childrens emotion-related regulation (i.e., effortful control and impulsivity) to their personality resiliency, adult-rated popularity, and social competence were examined in children who were 4.5-7.9 years old and who were remeasured 2 years later. Parents and teachers reported on all constructs, and childrens attentional persistence was observed. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediating role of resiliency on the relations between regulation/control and popularity using two-wave longitudinal data. The results provide some evidence of the mediating role of resiliency in the relations between effortful control and popularity, provide some evidence of bidirectional effects, and also buttress the view that emotional regulation should be differentiated into effortful and reactive forms of control.

Chinese Children's Effortful Control and Dispositional Anger/Frustration: Relations to Parenting Styles and Children's Social Functioning.

Relations among authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, childrens effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration, and childrens social functioning were examined for 425 first and second graders (7-10 years old) in Beijing, China. Parents reported on parenting styles; parents and teachers rated childrens effortful control, anger/frustration, externalizing problems, and socially appropriate behaviors: and peers rated aggression and leadership/sociability. High effortful control and low dispositional anger/frustration uniquely predicted Chinese childrens high social functioning, and the relation of anger/frustration to social functioning was moderated by effortful control. Authoritarian parenting was associated with childrens low effortful control and high dispositional anger/frustration, which (especially effortful control) mediated the negative relation between authoritarian parenting and childrens social functioning. Effortful control weakly mediated the positive relation of authoritative parenting to social functioning.

The Relations of Effortful Control and Ego Control to Children's Resiliency and Social Functioning.

The relations of effortful control and ego control to childrens (mean age = 137 months) resiliency, social status, and social competence were examined concurrently (Time 3) and over time. Adults reported on the constructs, and a behavioral measure of persistence was obtained. At Time 3, resiliency mediated the unique relations of both effortful and reactive control to social status, and effortful control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior. Negative emotionality moderated the relations of ego and effortful control to socially appropriate behavior. When levels of the variables 2 years prior were accounted for, all relations held at Time 3 except that effortful control did not predict resiliency (even though it was the stronger predictor at Time 3) and ego control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior.

Does Chronic Classroom Peer Rejection Predict the Development of Children’s Classroom Participation During the Grade School Years?

A sample of 398 children was followed up from ages 5 to 12 to investigate the relation between peer group rejection and classroom participation. The participation trajectories of individuals and groups of children who were rejected for differing periods of time were examined both during and after rejection using piecewise growth curve analyses. The results showed that whereas during periods of rejection, children exhibited negative or negligible growth in participation, when nonrejected, they manifested positive growth. These findings corroborated the hypothesis that (a) peer rejection creates constraints that inhibit childrens classroom participation and (b) the cessation of rejection enables children to become more active and cooperative participants in classroom activities.

Positive and Negative Emotionality: Trajectories Across Six Years and Relations With Social Competence

The goals of the present study were to examine (1) the mean-level stability and differential stability of childrens positive emotional intensity, negative emotional intensity, expressivity, and social competence from early elementary school-aged to early adolescence, and (2) the associations between the trajectories of childrens emotionality and social functioning. Using four waves of longitudinal data (with assessments 2 years apart), parents and teachers of children (199 kindergarten through third grade children at the first assessment) rated childrens emotion-related responding and social competence. For all constructs, there was evidence of mean-level decline with age and stability in individual differences in rank ordering. Based on age-centered growth-to-growth curve analyses, the results indicated that children who had a higher initial status on positive emotional intensity, negative emotional intensity, and expressivity had a steeper decline in their social skills across time. These findings provide insight into the stability and association of emotion-related constructs to social competence across the elementary and middle school years.