Examined in two studies referential understanding in 12- and 18-month-olds' responses to another's emotional outburst. Found that infants relied on the presence versus absence of referential cues to determine whether an emotional message should be linked with a salient object and they actively consulted referential cues to disambiguate the…

This essay explains and puts into theoretical perspective the rising interest in justice as an emotional virtue. Martin Hoffman's empathy theory is germane to this debate since it gives an essentially emotion-oriented account of moral development in general, as well as an explanation of the gradual bonding of empathy/sympathy with justice. While…

A total of 50 behaviorally disruptive (conduct-disordered or oppositional defiant-disordered) adolescents and 50 comparison adolescents assessed how they expected to feel following both aggressive and nonaggressive situations. Compared with their peers, behaviorally disruptive adolescents expected fewer normative emotions and exhibited somewhat…

Social well-being is essential to overall health and quality of life for all children, youth, and adults. However, children and youth with disabilities are often at higher risk for experiencing lower levels of social, and related emotional, well-being than their peers without disabilities. They are among those more likely to be bullied and…

The development of social-emotional competence is of key importance during early childhood, particularly during the preschool years. We too often believe that early childhood education should focus on the promotion of academic skills to increase intelligence and, therefore, neglect the importance of social and emotional learning. Children who are…

This study examined emotional awareness in children with autism. Twenty-two high functioning children with autism (mean age 10 years and 2 months) and 22 typically developing children, matched for age and gender, were presented with the four basic emotions (happiness, anger, sadness and fear) in single and multiple emotion tasks. Findings suggest…

The present study examines the hypothesis that older adults might differentially react to a negative versus neutral mood induction procedure than younger adults. The rationale for this expectation was derived from Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST), which postulates differential salience of emotional information and ability to regulate…

Teaching children to identify emotions is a common practice within the field of autism intervention. However, skills that are not often taught include identification of emotions within a situational context, and identification and discrimination of environmental events that occasion the emotions (with corresponding explanations). This article…

This article reports on new findings from a forthcoming research review which analyzes 207 studies of school-based programs designed to foster children's social and emotional skills. Roger P. Weissberg, the president of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL, the Chicago-based group that sponsored the four-year…

Developmental psychologists have a long history of using triangle metaphors to conceptualise the social constitution of psychological development. In this paper, we present a genealogy of triadic theories, to clarify their origins, distinctions between them, and to identify key themes for theoretical development. The analysis identifies three core…

Concern about responding to behavior problems and promoting social and emotional learning are related and are embedded into the arenas we frame to encompass the content of student/learning supports. How these concerns are addressed is critical to the type of school and classroom climate that emerges and to student engagement and re-engagement in…

This study used a cross-national framework to examine country, region, and gender differences in emotional availability (EA), a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Altogether 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. mothers and their daughters and sons from both rural and metropolitan areas took part in home…

Mental health consultation can be very valuable in supporting children with behavioral difficulties and mental health issues in the classroom. Research has shown that consultation improves teacher efficacy--an important ingredient for teacher success. Consultants vary in the roles they play in child care programs. Most behavioral consultants…

Emotions have an impact on teacher effectiveness, behavior, cognition, and motivation, as well as on children's behavior. The authors discuss emotional intelligence and offer a teacher self-assessment tool to help teachers reflect on and improve their sensitivity. They include suggestions for making the classroom an emotionally intelligent…

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC; Sheridan et al., 1996; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2008) is an indirect intervention that engages parents, teachers, and a behavioral consultant in collaborative, structured problem solving to address shared academic, behavioral, or social-emotional concerns for a student. The goals of CBC are to (a) enhance…