Research Findings: Pretend play is an essential part of child development and adjustment. However, parents, teachers, and researchers debate the function of aggression in pretend play. Different models of aggression predict that the expression of aggression in play could either increase or decrease actual aggressive behavior. The current study…

Research Findings: Behavioral self-regulation is crucial for school success. Although behavioral self-regulation typically grows rapidly during the preschool period, children in this age group vary widely in their behavioral self-regulation capacities. The present study investigated 3 potential determinants of growth rates in behavioral…

Research Findings: The present cross-sectional study investigated the question of whether 6 different temperament dimensions (inhibition to novelty, social orientation, motor activity, positive emotionality, negative emotionality, and attention) influenced cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM) in 168 children (86 three/four-year-olds and 82…

Research Findings: This study reports the results of a randomized trial of a parent engagement intervention (the Getting Ready intervention) on directly observed learning-related social behaviors of children from low-income families in the context of parent-child interactions. The study explored the moderating effect of parental depression on…

Research Findings: This study examined 56 young (prekindergarten through 2nd grade) urban-dwelling African American children's understanding of the affective attributions and consequences of 3 types of sociomoral rule systems: prosocial, active, and inhibitive morality. It also tested the relationship of affective attributions and consequences to…

Research Findings: This study examined the unique and relative contributions of mothers' and fathers' parental control and coparenting to toddlers' committed compliance with parents in both dyadic parent-child and triadic family play contexts. Sixty-eight mostly middle-class, 2-parent families with toddlers (16-37 months) were observed in a…

Research Findings: Utilizing a 3-part model of emotion socialization that included modeling, contingent responding, and teaching, this study examined the associations between 44 teachers' self-reported and observed emotion socialization practices and 326 preschoolers' emotion knowledge and observed emotional behavior. Multilevel analyses…

Research Findings: We examined whether "affective social competence," or the ability to effectively send and receive emotional signals and to manage one's own emotional experience, contributes to preschool children's peer relations. Forty-two previously unacquainted preschoolers were observed while participating in a week-long playschool. Greater…

Research Findings: The present longitudinal study investigated whether a range of social-emotional difficulties in early childhood predict the development of depressive symptoms in middle childhood. Participants were 56 children and their teachers. Teachers' reports of internalizing and externalizing behaviors were obtained during preschool, and…