Children may be capable of understanding the value of emotion regulation strategies before they can enlist these strategies in emotion-evoking situations. This study was designed to extend understanding of children's judgment of the efficacy of alternative emotion regulation strategies. Children aged six and nine ("N" = 97) were…

Parental socialization of children's sadness was examined through self-report, spouse report, and a parent-child sadness discussion task. A total of 79 two-parent, predominantly White, middle-class families participated with one child in grades 2-5 (44 sons; M = 9 years, 8 months). Analyses revealed that mothers and fathers respond differently to…

In this study, the prevailing view that girls are pervasively more skilled in their friendships than boys was challenged by examining whether girls respond more negatively than boys when a friend violates core friendship expectations. Fourth- and fifth-grade children (n = 267) responded to vignettes depicting transgressions involving a friend's…

This study examined associations among children's agentic (social influence, status, power) and communal (relationship, affiliation) goals for peer interaction, cognitive and affective responses to hypothetical peer conflict, and teacher-reported achievement and behavior at school ("N" = 367; "M" age = 9.9 years). Agentic goals…

Gratitude is essential to social life and well-being. Although research with youth populations has gained momentum recently, only two gratitude interventions have been conducted in youth, targeting mostly adolescents. In the current research, we tested a new intervention for promoting gratitude among the youngest children targeted to date.…