The preschool age is an important period in the development of children's emotional abilities. The face and body are both vital carriers of emotional information and adults readily match the emotional cues coming from these two modalities. However, it is unknown whether preschoolers have this ability or not. In the current study, 36 preschoolers…

Childhood adversity can lead to cognitive deficits or enhancements, depending on many factors. Though progress has been made, two challenges prevent us from integrating and better understanding these patterns. First, studies commonly use and interpret raw performance differences, such as response times, which conflate different stages of cognitive…

Biopsychosocial models of children's socioemotional development highlight the joint influences of physiological regulation and parenting practices. Both high and low levels of children's baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) have been associated with children's maladjustment, indicative of nonlinear associations. Negative or unsupportive…

Parenting styles act as a risk or a protective factor for the development of aggressive behavior problems in children. Moreover, children with deficits in emotion regulation often show increased aggressive behaviors. Previous studies confirm that parenting style also contributes to the development of emotion dysregulation. The present longitudinal…

Individual differences in the quality of early experiences with primary caregivers have been reliably implicated in the development of socioemotional adjustment and, more recently, physical health. However, few studies have examined the development of such associations with physical health into the adult years. To that end, the current study used…

Interactions between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex are fundamental to human emotion. Despite the central role of frontoamygdala communication in adult emotional learning and regulation, little is known about how top-down control emerges during human development. In the present cross-sectional pilot study, we experimentally manipulated…

The extent to which Theory of Mind (ToM) performance is influenced by cultural and gender differences remains a subject of debate. A sample of 324 Dutch and 511 Italian children (52% boys; 2.8-11.7 years; 50% boys; 2.6-10.3 years; respectively) was administered the ToM Storybooks. Analysis focused on indicators of nonlinearity: moving standard…

In this study, it has been tried to develop a different perspective in the literature by determining the reflection of couple burnout of mothers, which is examined as a problem between couples or a personal problem, on the social development of children. The study was designed in the relational survey model, one of the general survey models. In…

Emotion comprehension (EC), theory of mind (ToM), and language are particularly important aspects of child development. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in understanding how these three variables are related to preschool children. However, results have been contradictory, and it is not clear how EC, ToM, and language are…

The question of when moral identity first develops in childhood deserves more considered investigation. In this article, we examine the claim that moral identity first emerges in middle-childhood (8-12 years). An approach is taken here whereby a tendency to attribute moral shame under conditions entailing moral identity failure is considered as…

This article describes a quasi-experimental design study comparing a sample of divorcing parents who attended a divorce education program to a sample of divorcing parents who did not attend a divorce education program. The data were analyzed using four child outcomes (emotional symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems, prosocial behaviors), with…

Learning constitutes a main developmental context for children everywhere. Learning-related emotions can affect cognition, motivation, and achievement and are associated with parenting. Studies on learning-related emotions and how parenting is associated with a child's emotional development in learning have been less conclusive for Chinese…

Self-recognition emerges during the second year of life and represents the emergence of a reflective self, a metacognition which underlies self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment and shame, perspective taking, and emotional knowledge of others. In a longitudinal study of 171 children, two major questions were explored from an extant…

In recent years, an increased interest in the importance of children's ability to regulate emotions in socially adaptive ways has driven considerable research on the development of emotion regulation. A widely studied emotion regulation strategy known as "expressive suppression" (ES), in which a person attempts to conceal…

Children's ability to understand and infer the thoughts and feelings of others influences how they develop a unique view of the world. Examining developmental factors that impact young children's success in both social and cognitive domains has important implications for advancing our current knowledge of social cognition. The purpose of this…