Children's perceptions of their peer experiences: Attributions, loneliness, social anxiety, and social avoidance.

338 3rd and 5th graders completed a sociometric questionnaire and 3 instruments designed to assess their feelings of loneliness, social anxiety, social avoidance, and their attributions for social outcomes. Results show that children's feelings and attributions varied as a function of peer status, gender, and grade. For example, compared with peers, rejected children reported higher levels of loneliness and were more likely to attribute relationship failures to external causes. Children's feelings were also significantly related to their attributions about social events. Popular, average, and controversial status children who were socially distressed exhibited a non-self-serving attributional style, whereas distressed rejected children exhibited a self-serving attributional pattern. Neglected children who were distressed exhibited elements of both of these attributional styles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of retrieval cue utilization.

To understand the logic of effective cue utilization, one must know not only that cues are useful but that a specific cue is useful only if it is located where one will be when it is time to remember, and placed so one will encounter it automatically. This experiment investigated 16 1st, 16 2nd, and 16 5th graders' knowledge of the use of retrieval cues to aid memory. Stories representing effective and ineffective cue locations were constructed. Many 1st graders believed that all cue locations were effective; the discrimination of ineffective locations showed a clear order of acquisition by age. Those 1st graders had little understanding of external retrieval cues as mnemonic means. As soon as Ss achieved this understanding, it was coordinated with temporal requirements for using cues effectively. However, full understanding of the temporal criteria required a series of developments. Ss at first knew only that a cue encountered after the time to do the task would be ineffective. Next, Ss understood that a cue would be ineffective if it were encountered after the time one had to remember to do the task. Most 5th graders knew that even a cue encountered before the task would be ineffective if the cue appeared greatly in advance of the time one had to remember. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of investigating children's integrated knowledge, or theories, about memory. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding in reading and listening.

Children's understanding was assessed after they read or listened to brief texts that described a scene, explained a sequence of events, or told a story. Data were obtained in a developmental study of 157 2nd–6th graders and in a study of 150 5th graders. The data indicate that effectiveness in understanding depends on the fluency with which component processes of perceptual recognition, comprehension, and memory are coordinated. The understanding of novice readers, who recognized a printed text accurately but laboriously, was poorer than their understanding of a comparable spoken text. In skilled readers, a similar loss of understanding occurred when accurate recognition was accomplished at a fast pace. When skilled readers listened to a text that they could simultaneously read, their understanding was better than when they read orally. These findings interacted with text content, some materials being associated with the findings concerning both loss and improvement of understanding and other materials being associated with neither. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal consequences of social anxiety.

The behavioral manifestations of social anxiety may have implications for social outcomes. Unfortunately, little is known about how anxiety shapes social interaction. The present study examined social interactions in dyads consisting of either 2 nonsocially anxious (NSA) individuals or 1 socially anxious (SA) and 1 NSA individual. Behavior, self-reported affect, and perceptions were examined. In comparison with the interactions of NSA pairs, high levels of fidgeting, poor reciprocity of smiling behavior, more self-talk, and more frequent reassurance seeking and giving characterized interactions between SA and NSA participants. Both SA participants and their NSA partners rated their interactions as being less smooth and coordinated than did participants in NSA-NSA dyads. In addition, SA participants' reassurance seeking and self-talk correlated negatively with partner positive affect and perceptions of interaction quality. The authors discuss self-focused attention and the interpersonal consequences of social anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of display rules for expressive behavior.

Examined how children come to understand that internally experienced affect need not be behaviorally expressed and that the emotion that is expressed is not necessarily what is being felt internally. This understanding is demonstrated in the use of display rules, which provide guidelines for regulating the appropriateness of expressive behavior in various social situations. Display rules also represent social conventions that are only gradually understood by children. 60 6-, 8-, and 10-yr-old children were interviewed about 4 interpersonal conflict situations presented in comic strip style but with photographs of real children. Their responses were analyzed for (a) choice of affect as experienced by the main character in the situation and choice of facial expression, which could be consistent or inconsistent with the selected affect; (b) the inferential reasoning behind the choice of any facial expression; and (c) the nature of causes given by the child for why there could be a discrepancy between internal affect and facial expression. Multivariate analyses indicated significant increments among the older children for display rule usage and complexity of reasoning. Significant multivariate and univariate results were also obtained for the specific kinds of causes invoked by children for why a display rule was appropriate. There were no distinctive sex differences. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of verbal and facial display rules.

144 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th graders listened to 8 stories designed to elicit either prosocial or self-protective display rules. Ss were asked to predict and explain what the protagonists would say and what facial expressions the protagonists would make in response to the emotion-laden situations. Findings indicate that Ss' knowledge of how and when to control emotional displays increased between 1st and 5th grade but then leveled off. Ss understood verbal display rules better than facial display rules, and they understood prosocial display rules better than self-protective ones. They sometimes failed to realize when other people would wish to regulate their emotional expressions. Findings are discussed in terms of the socialization of emotional displays, particularly the greater pressure placed on children to control verbal expression more than facial expression and to learn more prosocial than self-protective display rules. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's concepts of authority and social contexts.

Examined children's concepts of authority with regard to type of authority directive and social context. 10 boys and 10 girls in kindergarten–2st, 2nd–4th, and 5th–6th grades were presented with hypothetical situations in which a school principal issues directives to children in 3 contexts outside of their school: (1) a different school, (2) a public park, and (3) a child's home. Directives were aimed at stopping or allowing fighting or ball playing and making a rule against fighting or ball playing. Children's evaluations of the legitimacy of the principal's actions were assessed. In general, Ss rejected the principal's authority outside the jurisdiction of the school, although kindergarten–2st grade Ss were more likely to accept the principal's rule making or stopping children from playing ball in the park. Results show that children conceptualize authority with respect to social position and within the bounds of specific social contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of adoption: Developmental and clinical implications.

Because adopted children are overrepresented in mental health settings, their parents often consult psychologists to help them understand and manage some of the unique developmental and childrearing challenges they commonly face. One of the most frequent issues raised by these parents is talking with their children about adoption. This article provides a developmental framework for helping psychologists understand the way children comprehend adoption and the implications of their adoption knowledge for psychological adjustment. It also provides psychologists with useful guidelines for supporting parents to meet the challenges of discussing adoption with their children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A naturalistic study of children's social understanding.

Examined developmental aspects of social understanding in 3 related contexts: a one-to-one interview, a real-life activity group, and related group discussions. 24 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, homogeneous with respect to level of reflective social understanding (as expressed in the interview), were assigned to each of 4 small activity groups. Each group met for 12 consecutive school weeks in adult-supervised after-school cooperative group activities and discussions about group functioning. Discussions from each group meeting were coded for instances of verbally expressed communicative competencies. Results suggest a relation between level of social understanding, reflectively expressed, and frequency of competent communications expressed in the course of the group discussions. Ss' strategies for task-related negotiations were also coded. The number of developmentally advanced strategies was significantly lower for the group of young Ss with low-level reflective social understanding as compared to the other 3 groups. Results are discussed in the context of problems associated with assessing developmental levels of social understanding in natural settings. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's social judgments concerning emotionally disturbed peers.

Analysis of 31 4th and 6th graders' judgments of observable behavior (presented in vignettes) showed that Ss made distinctions between normal and disturbed central figures and among 4 disturbed central figures on degree of perceived disturbance. Liking and disliking were not related to each other or to degree of perceived disturbance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of the knowledge prerequisites of drawing and pretending.

Many young children will claim that someone is pretending to be something even when the person does not know what that something is. To examine whether children's failure to take knowledge prerequisites into account is part of a more fundamental problem in recognizing how mental representations constrain external ones, the authors asked children whether an artist who did not know what something was, yet whose drawing bore resemblance to it, was drawing it. The same questions were asked regarding pretending. Children performed similarly on pretending and drawing questions, and performance on both questions improved when the protagonists' point of view was emphasized. Performance for drawing improved somewhat when alternative goals were stated. Further, cross-sectional data indicated that understanding how knowledge relates to producing external representations increases gradually from age 4 to age 8, suggesting that experiential factors may be crucial to this understanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's responses to ambiguous messages and their understanding of ambiguity.

Conducted 4 experiments to investigate whether a total of 212 young children (aged 4 yrs 6 mo to 7 yrs 3 mo) could respond differently to ambiguous and unambiguous messages if they were prevented from pointing at the potential referents. The exact nature of the bias that was operating was examined in the final 2 experiments, which investigated whether the differential responding to ambiguous and unambiguous messages was based on an understanding of ambiguity or on an awareness of certainty and uncertainty about the interpretation of ambiguous and unambiguous messages. It was found that Ss were more likely to respond differently to ambiguous and unambiguous messages if they were prevented from pointing at the potential referents. It was also found that the improvement in differential responding was not accompanied by an improvement in verbal judgments of message quality, and the differential responses were closely related to judgments of certainty and uncertainty about the interpretation of the message. Ss who did not know that verbal messages could be ambiguous could nevertheless respond differently to ambiguous and unambiguous messages by attending to their own certainty or uncertainty about the interpretation of those messages. They were more likely to do that when they were prevented from pointing at the potential references. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment and treatment of social anxiety disorder.

Despite being associated with a high degree of distress, disability, and functional limitation, social anxiety disorder (SAD) often goes undetected and untreated. The disorder is receiving increased attention amid the development of various models of psychosocial treatments and through direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns launched by the pharmaceutical industry. While pharmacotherapy and psychosocial interventions appear to be efficacious as monotherapy, the best strategy over the long-term may be a combination approach. Rating instruments specific to SAD are available and are useful in allowing clinicians and patients to more objectively determine the outcome of treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's anxiety scales in relation to self, parental, and psychiatric ratings of anxiety.

The CMAS and the General Anxiety Scale for Children were administered to a group of pediatric and psychiatric outpatients and modified forms were given to the parents of the children. The psychiatric group was also given a clinical rating of anxiety and a check list rating of psychiatric symptoms. Significant positive interest correlations were found between the anxiety items, but not the lie items of the 2 scales. Moderate agreement was found between the children's self-ratings of anxiety and those done by their parents. Significant agreement was found between parents' ratings of their children's anxiety. The psychiatric group scored significantly higher on the CMAS than the pediatric group. The number of psychiatric symptoms was found to correlate positively with the anxiety scale scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's self-talk under conditions of mild anxiety

Two studies are described which used think-aloud (Study 1) and verbal thought-listing (Studies 1 and 2) procedures to assess preadolescent children's self-talk under conditions of mild anxiety. The self-talk reported was coded into six theoretically meaningful categories and the relationship between self-talk type and anxiety (state and trait) examined. Increased levels of anxiety were associated with higher rates of negative self-talk, but not clearly associated with other types of self-talk. These results suggest negative self-talk plays a role in the generation or maintenance of anxiety in normal children. From the data, it is unclear to what extent perceived task difficulty contributes to the relationship between trait anxiety and negative self-talk. Assessment of self-regulation (Study 1) identified higher levels of anxiety in children reporting awareness of strategies for managing their anxiety.     

Attention training for generalized social anxiety disorder.

Attentional bias toward negative social cues is thought to serve an etiological and/or maintaining role in social anxiety disorder (SAD). The current study tested whether training patients to disengage from negative social cues may ameliorate social anxiety in patients (N = 36) with a primary diagnosis of generalized SAD. Patients were randomly assigned to either an attention training condition (n = 18), in which patients completed a modified dot-probe task designed to facilitate attentional disengagement from disgusted faces, or a control dot-probe task condition (n = 18). As predicted, patients in the attention training condition exhibited significantly greater reductions in social anxiety and trait anxiety, compared with patients in the control condition. At termination, 72% of patients in the active treatment condition, relative to 11% of patients in the control condition, no longer met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) criteria for SAD. At 4-month follow-up, patients in the attention training condition continued to maintain their clinical improvement, and diagnostic differences across conditions were also maintained. Results support attention-based models of anxiety and suggest that attention training is a promising alternative or complementary intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elevated social anxiety among early maturing girls.

Adolescence is a key period in terms of the development of anxiety psychopathology. An emerging literature suggests that early pubertal maturation is associated with enhanced vulnerability for anxiety symptomatology, although few studies have examined this association with regard to social anxiety. Accordingly, the current study was designed to further elucidate the relation between pubertal timing and social anxiety, with a focus on clarifying the role of gender. Participants were 138 adolescents (ages 12–17 years) recruited from the general community. Level of social anxiety was examined as a function of gender and within-sample pubertal timing. As expected, early maturing girls evidenced significantly higher social anxiety, compared with on-time girls and early maturing boys, and no other differences were found as a function of gender or developmental timing. Findings and future directions are discussed in terms of forwarding developmentally sensitive models of social anxiety etiology and prevention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's self-control in relation to perceived social environment.

Examined relationships between perceptions of the class social environment and self-control in 755 4th and 5th graders. Children completed the Children's Perceived Self-Control Scale and were also rated on the Teacher's Self-Control Rating Scale. Perceived environment was measured by children's and teachers' responses to a modified short form of the Classroom Environment Scale. Results show that children's and teachers' perceptions of class environment were basically unrelated and that children's views of environment were more strongly linked to self-control outcomes. Children's perceptions of high class and organization, involvement, and rule clarity were significantly related to ratings and behavioral observations of children's self-control. Multiple regression analysis replicated the simple correlations and showed that children's views of class environment predicted their own ratings and teachers' ratings of self-control. Implications for optimizing the social environmental determinants of children's self-control are considered. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)