Early individual differences in prosocial behaviors are pivotal for children's peer relationships. To investigate the interplay among verbal ability, emotion understanding, and mother-child mutuality as predictors of prosocial behaviors, we observed 102 children at the ages of two, three, and four. All time points included verbal ability and…

This research investigated the role of children's implicit theories of peer relationships in their psychological, emotional, and behavioral adjustment. Participants included 206 children (110 girls; 96 boys; M age = 10.13 years, SD = 1.16) who reported on their implicit theories of peer relationships, social goal orientation, need for approval,…

This article examined emotion competence in children exposed to domestic violence (DV). It also examined the hypothesis that children's emotional competence mediates relations between DV and children's later difficulties with peers and behavioral adjustment. DV was assessed when children were at the age of five, emotional competence was assessed…

Over the last 15 years, the role of emotions in children's peer relations has received greater attention. The purpose of the meta-analytic review was to determine the magnitude of the relation between negative emotionality (NE) and positive emotionality (PE) and social status. Based on 54 independent samples, the overall effect size for the…

Describes a theoretical model for affective social competence to include the three integrated and dynamic components of sending affective messages, receiving affective messages, and experiencing affect. Places the model within the context of previous research and theory related to affective social competence and, for each component, examines how…

Seventy-six fourth-grade children and their parents participated in a study of the linkages among parental control and positive affect, children's display rule use, and children's social competence with peers. Using observational measures of parental behavior and children's display rule use, it was found that parental positive affect and control…

This short-term longitudinal study examined relations between emotion knowledge and social functioning in a sample of low-income kindergarten and 1st graders. Individual differences in spontaneous emotion naming and emotion recognition skills were used to predict children's social functioning at school, including peer-nominated sociometric status,…