We examined the extent to which children's emotion-sharing relationships were unique from friendships. We also examined the association between emotional experience and emotion sharing as well as the association between emotion sharing and prosocial behavior. Participants were 456 children (M[subscript age] = 10.6 years) from the Midwestern United…

In order to comfort others, children need to exhibit Theory of Mind (ToM) skills. The goal of the present study was to investigate the role of ToM in association with children's spontaneous comforting behaviour in a laboratory task. Forty-seven children between 26 and 57 months of age completed three ToM tasks: diverse desires, diverse beliefs and…

The study examined the links among maternal warmth and adolescents' empathic concern, moral conviction and prosocial behaviors. Participants were 311 adolescents from a low-income community (M age = 16.10 years; range = 14-19 years; 58.7% girls; 82.7% white; 13.6% Latinx). The results demonstrated that maternal warmth was positively associated…

Compassion is known to predict prosocial behavior and moral judgments related to harm. Despite the centrality of compassion to social life, factors predicting adulthood compassion are largely unknown. We examined whether qualities of parent-child-relationship, namely, emotional warmth and acceptance, predict offspring compassion decades later in…

The current study examined the heterogeneity in the development of school-based prosocial behavior from Grades 1 to 12 and the role of multiple early childhood antecedents in predicting heterogeneous developmental trajectories of prosocial behavior in a sample of 784 children facing early risks and vulnerabilities (predominantly from low-income…

This study focused on the ability to experience a high ratio of positive to negative emotions in 807 Israeli adolescents aged 12 to 15 years (50% girls). While considering possible gender differences, we tested a model positing that adolescents' self-control skills would link to their positivity ratio and indirectly through perceived social…

The aim of this study is to investigate relationship between children's social behaviors and parenting styles. Specifically, the study examines children's aggressive, prosocial and socially inhibited behaviors in association with parenting dimensions namely warmth, inductive-reasoning, obedience-demanding and punitive. In addition to this,…

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…

Background: The constructs of closeness, conflict, and dependency, which are derived from attachment theory, are widely used to qualify teachers' perceptions of relationships with individual children. Aims: Our main aim was to reveal whether similar and reliable dimensions could be identified in middle childhood with a newly developed student…

It has been argued that children who possess an advanced theory of mind (ToM) are more likely to act prosocially, yet the empirical findings are mixed. To address this issue definitively, a meta-analytic integration of all prior literature that met appropriate inclusion criteria was conducted. In total, 76 studies including 6,432 children between…

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…

Social-emotional behavior of 352 3- and 4-year-olds attending private childcare and Head Start programs was observed using the Minnesota Preschool Affect Checklist, Revised (MPAC-R). Goals of the investigation included (a) using MPAC-R data to extract a shortened version, MPAC-R/S, comparing structure, internal consistency, test-retest…

Gratitude was examined among 154 students to identify benefits from its experience and expression. Students completed measures of subjective well-being, social support, prosocial behavior, and physical symptoms. Positive associations were found between gratitude and positive affect, global and domain specific life satisfaction, optimism, social…

The Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy (RESE) scale was developed to assess perceived self-efficacy in managing negative (NEG) and in expressing positive (POS) affect (G. V. Caprara & M. Gerbino, 2001). In this study of young adults, the factorial structure of the RESE scale was found to be similar in Italy, the United States, and Bolivia: In…

The impact of school-based Tae Kwon Do training on self-regulatory abilities was examined. A self-regulation framework including three domains (cognitive, affective, and physical) was presented. Children (N = 207) from kindergarten through Grade 5 were randomly assigned by homeroom class to either the intervention (martial arts) group or a…