Children's emotional competence and attentional competence in early elementary school.

The current study examined the relations between two aspects of emotional competence--emotion knowledge and emotion expression, and children's attentional competence during one school year. Participants were 263 first- and second-grade students at two rural elementary schools. A multiple regression analysis showed that emotion knowledge predicted attentional competence while controlling for age, gender, verbal ability, and initial levels of attentional competence. Multiple regression analyses examining predictors of peer nominations of emotion expression showed that attentional competence predicted peer nominations of happiness, sadness, and anger expression, and emotion knowledge predicted peer nominations of anger expression. Potential improvements for prevention programs and the importance of the findings for school personnel are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of elementary school children's private speech to behavioral accompaniment to task, attention, and task performance.

Tested assumptions drawn from Vygotsky's (1934 [1962]) theory about the development of private speech (PS) and its relationship to task performance, attention, and motor behaviors accompanying task orientation. 75 1st and 3rd graders were observed in their classrooms while engaged in math seatwork. Results show a developmental trend toward increasingly task-relevant and less audible PS and a shifting relationship of intelligence to PS with grade, which was consistent with Vygotsky's assumption that PS undergoes a curvilinear course of development that is governed by cognitive maturity. The relationship of PS to task success, as measured by classroom assignment performance and scores on the mathematics portion of the Stanford Achievement Test, varied with grade and mental ability (Cognitive Abilities Test—Primary Battery). Findings suggest that using the type of PS that is in natural developmental ascendence, given the child's level of intellectual maturity, is positively related to performance, but reverting to less mature forms is negatively predictive. Use of task-relevant PS predicted greater task attentional focus and reduction of extraneous, tension-reducing motor behaviors. Findings support Vygotsky's theory of the functional significance of PS in children's cognitive development and the validity of the theory for children's task-related behaviors in natural classroom learning contexts. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-representations and socioemotional competence in young children: A 3-year longitudinal study.

In a longitudinal study, the connections between children's self-representations at age 5 and their self-perceptions, socioemotional competence according to the teacher, and peer acceptance at age 8 were examined. The sample consisted of 60 children (33 boys, 27 girls). Self-representations at age 5 were assessed by the Puppet Interview (J. Cassidy, 1988). Results generally revealed the expected connections between the positiveness of self at age 5 and self-perceptions and socioemotional functioning 3 years later. These findings support the predictive validity of the Puppet Interview. Moreover, they suggest that young children do possess at least a rudimentary sense of being generally worthy and lovable, which can be assessed by using adequate, age-appropriate interviews. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents' gender stereotypes and teachers' beliefs as predictors of children's concept of their mathematical ability in elementary school.

This study analyzed whether data at the elementary school level provide support for the hypothesized biasing effect of parents' gender stereotypes on their impressions of their children's competence in mathematics. Approximately 600 German elementary school students in Grades 3 and 4, their teachers, and their parents responded to questionnaires concerning perceptions of ability in mathematics, gender stereotypes in mathematical talent, and future expectations. Path analyses revealed consistent gender stereotypes held by mothers and fathers that interact with the gender of the child and predict the parents' beliefs about their child's abilities. In turn, parents' beliefs about their child relate to their child's self-perceptions of ability in mathematics. A biasing effect of parents' gender stereotypes on present mathematical achievement was not supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parent styles associated with children's self-regulation and competence in school.

This study assessed three dimensions of parent style, autonomy support, involvement, and provision of structure in 64 mothers and 50 fathers of elementary-school children in Grades 3–6, using a structured interview. Construct validity data for the interview ratings suggested that the three parent dimensions were reliable, relatively independent, and correlated with other parent measures in hypothesized ways. Aspects of children's self-regulation and competence were measured through children's reports, teacher ratings, and objective indices. Parental autonomy support was positively related to children's self-reports of autonomous self-regulation, teacher-rated competence and adjustment, and school grades and achievement. Maternal involvement was related to achievement, teacher-rated competence, and some aspects of behavioral adjustment, but no significant relations were obtained for father involvement. The structure dimension was primarily related to children's control understanding. Results are discussed in terms of the motivational impact of the parent on school competence and adjustment and in terms of transactional models of influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality predictors of the development of elementary school children's intentions to drink alcohol: The mediating effects of attitudes and subjective norms.

The authors tested a mediation model in which childhood hostility and sociability were expected to influence the development of intentions to use alcohol in the future through the mediating mechanisms of developing attitudes and norms. Children in 1st through 5th grades (N=1,049) from a western Oregon community participated in a longitudinal study involving 4 annual assessments. Hostility and sociability were assessed by teachers' ratings at the 1st assessment, and attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions were assessed by self-report at all 4 assessments. For both genders, latent growth modeling demonstrated that sociability predicted an increase in intentions to use alcohol over time, whereas hostility predicted initial levels of these intentions. These personality effects were mediated by the development of attitudes and subjective norms, supporting a model wherein childhood personality traits exert their influence on the development of intentions to use alcohol through the development of these more proximal cognitions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Household family structure and children's aggressive behavior: a longitudinal study of urban elementary school children

The relationship between contemporary household family structures at fourth-grade and sixth-grade parent- and teacher-rated aggression was examined in an epidemiologically defined population of urban school children. The relationship between family structure and aggression varied by child gender and by parent and teacher ratings in the home and school, respectively. After taking into account family income, urban area, and fourth-grade aggressive behavior, boys in both mother-father and mother-male partner families were significantly less likely than boys in mother-alone families to be rated as aggressive by teachers. No significant relations between family structure and teacher- or parent-rated aggression were found for girls.     

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

The differential relations of children's 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 children's 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A first large cohort study of personality trait stability over the 40 years between elementary school and midlife.

This report provides some initial findings from an investigation of the relations between childhood Big Five personality traits assessed by elementary school teachers and similar traits assessed 40 years later by self-reports at midlife (N = 799). Short-term (1-3 years) test-retest reliabilities were lower (.22-.53) in childhood when personality was developing than they were in adulthood (.70-.79) when personality stability should be at its peak. Stability coefficients across the 40-year interval between the childhood assessment and the 2 measures of adulthood personality were higher for Extraversion (e.g., .29) and Conscientiousness (e.g., .25) than for Openness (e.g., .16), Agreeableness (e.g., .08), and Neuroticism (e.g., .00). Construct continuity between childhood and adulthood was evaluated by canonical analysis and by structural equation modeling and indicated continuity at both a broad, two-dimensional level and at the level of the Big Five. The findings are discussed in relation to A. Caspi, B. W. Roberts, and R. L. Shiner's (2005) principles of rank-order personality stability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task values and ability beliefs as predictors of high school literacy choices: A developmental analysis.

This study examines how competence beliefs and task values predict high school achievement choices related to literacy. Students' task beliefs (self-concept of ability, intrinsic value, and importance) about reading in the 4th grade and English in the 10th grade were tracked over time. Task beliefs, school performance, and gender were used to predict students' (a) time per week spent reading for pleasure in 10th grade, (b) number of language arts courses per year of high school, and (c) reading relatedness of 12th-grade career aspirations. Results indicated that ability beliefs positively predicted all 3 outcomes, importance predicted career aspirations and course choices, and intrinsic value predicted leisure time reading and high school courses. Gender differences were also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elementary school children's perceptions of their actual and ideal school experience: A developmental study.

154 2nd, 4th, and 6th graders were interviewed about their perceptions of school in 2 domains. The action domain tapped perceptions of their actual and ideal prerogatives with respect to privacy, territoriality, and 3 types of decision making (custodial, governance, and instructional). The value domain addressed Ss' evaluations of the school as a safe, just, responsive, important, and liked environment. Ss reported a fair amount of discrepancy between their ideal and actual status in the action domain, asserting that they ought to have more prerogatives than those they perceived as available to them, particularly with respect to decision making. This discrepancy increased with grade level. Ss' evaluations of school in the value domain were, on the whole, overwhelmingly positive. Results indicate that Ss did not see the school as supporting the expression of their emerging social competence and/or aspirations. In contrast, Ss saw the school as substantially sharing their values while constraining their actions. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lying in the elementary school years: Verbal deception and its relation to second-order belief understanding.

The development of lying to conceal one's own transgression was examined in school-age children. Children (N = 172) between 6 and 11 years of age were asked not to peek at the answer to a trivia question while left alone in a room. Half of the children could not resist temptation and peeked at the answer. When the experimenter asked them whether they had peeked, the majority of children lied. However, children's subsequent verbal statements, made in response to follow-up questioning, were not always consistent with their initial denial and, hence, leaked critical information to reveal their deceit. Children's ability to maintain consistency between their initial lie and subsequent verbal statements increased with age. This ability is also positively correlated with children's 2nd-order belief scores, suggesting that theory of mind understanding plays an important role in children's ability to lie consistently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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 children's 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 children's 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 children's 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A field experiment comparing information-privacy values, beliefs, and attitudes across several types of organizations.

193 randomly selected adults completed a structured interview concerning their values, beliefs, attitudes, experiences, and intentions concerning information-privacy issues involving 6 types of organizations such as employers, law enforcement agencies, and the Internal Revenue Service. Results indicate that higher valuations of informational privacy were related to lower feelings of control over personal information, less satisfaction with their perceived degree of control, and less willingness to participate in a subsequent interview. Information-privacy beliefs and attitudes varied with the type of organization under consideration. Implications are discussed in terms of organizational and societal policy concerning the treatment of information about individuals. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The family-school link: Methodological issues in studies of family processes related to children's school competence.

Describes 2 research projects (C. Carlson and C. R. Cooper, 1989 and K. Stark et al, 1991) linking family processes with children's competence in school as examples of methodological issues related to investigations that cross the systems of the family and school. Both projects were designed to inform the development of mental health interventions for children. The 1st study included parents and 6th-grade children of 58 intact families, 34 single-parent families, and 17 stepparent families from a middle school that served middle to upper-middle class homes. The 2nd study included 34 parents, 79 children, and teachers from 3 4th-grade classes in an elementary school that served a low-income, minority neighborhood. Issues discussed include gaining cooperation from the school, recruitment and consent procedures for families as Ss, data collection and measurement challenges, and family-school-researcher reciprocity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Head Start and urban children's school readiness: A birth cohort study in 18 cities.

We used longitudinal data from a birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, to investigate the links between Head Start and school readiness in a large and diverse sample of urban children at age 5 (N = 2,803; 18 cities). We found that Head Start attendance was associated with enhanced cognitive ability and social competence and reduced attention problems but not reduced internalizing or externalizing behavior problems. These findings were robust to model specifications (including models with city-fixed effects and propensity-scoring matching). Furthermore, the effects of Head Start varied by the reference group. Head Start was associated with improved cognitive development when compared with parental care or other nonparental care, as well as improved social competence (compared with parental care) and reduced attention problems (compared with other nonparental care). In contrast, compared with attendance at pre-kindergarten or other center-based care, Head Start attendance was not associated with cognitive gains but with improved social competence and reduced attention and externalizing behavior problems (compared with attendance at other center-based care). These associations were not moderated by child gender or race/ethnicity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A question of competence: The effects of competence and task feedback on intrinsic interest.

Examined whether competence information is the feedback feature that affects intrinsic motivation and whether perceived competence is the process responsible in 2 studies in which 174 undergraduates compared competence feedback with meaningful task feedback. In Study 1, positive competence feedback and task feedback were manipulated independently. Findings indicate that although positive feedback resulted in the highest level of perceived competence, both positive and task feedback enhanced interest individually. In Study 2, an ego-involvement manipulation emphasized competence prior to task engagement. Path-analytic techniques were used to identify 2 processes that mediated the effects of positive, negative, and task feedback on interest: perceived competence and personal valuation. Results indicate that perceived competence enhanced enjoyment only when performance quality was stressed by the ego-involvement manipulation. When competence was not made salient, subsequent interest depended more on the degree the individual personally valued involvement. Both studies indicate that competence information can affect both perceived competence and personal valuation. Feeling competent itself enhanced intrinsic motivation only if attaining competence was a primary goal of the task. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of girls' and boys' aggressive-disruptive behavior trajectories across elementary school: Prediction to young adult antisocial outcomes.

Multiple group analysis and general growth mixture modeling was used to determine whether aggressive- disruptive behavior trajectories during elementary school, and their association with young adulthood antisocial outcomes, vary by gender. Participants were assessed longitudinally beginning at age 6 as part of an evaluation of 2 school-based preventive programs. Two analogous trajectories were found for girls and boys: chronic high aggression- disruption (CHAD) and stable low aggression- disruption (LAD). A 3rd class of low moderate aggression- disruption (LMAD) for girls and increasing aggression- disruption (IAD) for boys also was found. Girls and boys in analogous CHAD classes did not differ in trajectory level and course, but girls in the CHAD and LAD classes had lower rates of antisocial outcomes than boys. Girls with the LMAD trajectory differed from boys with the IAD trajectory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A look inside school-based consultation: A qualitative study of the beliefs and practices of school psychologists and teachers.

Presents the results of a qualitative study of 4 school psychologists' and 4 teachers' beliefs about causes of student behavior problems and their relation to preferred treatment, teachers' perceived role(s) in consultation, and beliefs about the process and efficacy of consultation. Data were triangulated across 6 sources: 3 interview series with various participants, consultative interactions between the school psychologists and teachers, training sessions during which the school psychologists were trained in consultation, and a consultant questionnaire. Thematic analyses of the data produced 4 themes: (1) impact of causal attributions on beliefs about treatment needed; (2) combination of direct and indirect services; (3) impact of etiological beliefs and academic standards on perceptions of academic success; and (4) support within the consultative relationship. These themes are described and discussed in the context of the dyads studied. Suggestions for future research generated by this study are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and ethnicity in children's cardiovascular reactivity: 7 years of study.

A total of 295 children (127 White boys, 15 Black boys, 133 White girls, and 20 Black girls) participated in reactivity examinations in 1987 (all were in 3rd grade; age, M?=?9.1 years), 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, and 1993 (all were in 9th grade; age, M?=?15.1 years). An analysis of residualized reactivity change values indicated consistent and significant ethnicity effects (Blacks greater than Whites) for systolic and diastolic blood pressure and for heart rate. Gender effects were also apparent for both systolic and diastolic blood pressure (boys greater than girls). These data suggest that the transition from childhood to adolescence is associated with a significant pattern of ethnic differences in reactivity, although the association of this pattern with the development of cardiovascular risk and disease remains to be ascertained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)