Poster #52 - Emotional Understanding, Aggression, and Social Functioning in Preschoolers

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Aggressive and violent behaviors constitute a significant public health problem; identifying early risk factors for their development and windows for intervention is critical (e.g., Cohen, 1998). The preschool years mark the developmental stage when children typically learn to inhibit aggression (Tremblay, 2002) and also develop emotional understanding (EU), the capacity to identify and comprehend the meaning of emotions (Basset, Denham, & Mincic, 2012). EU assists in the regulation of aggression in preschoolers (Trentacosta & Fine, 2010). In turn, lower aggression predicts better social functioning (Dedham et al., 2002). Although links between EU, aggression, and social functioning have been preliminarily explored, significant gaps remain in our comprehension of the factors that could qualify these links, such as the impact of developmental stage, form of aggression, type of social functioning, and different dimensions of EU. The purpose of the current investigation is to close some of those gaps in the service of practice and science. In the present study, we conduct a multidimensional assessment of EU, aggression, and social functioning within a sample of teacher-nominated aggressive preschoolers (n = 24) and a matched comparison group (n = 26; N = 50, 26 girls; Mage = 53.83 months, SDage = 3.73). We assessed EU (receptive, expressive, and emotion situation knowledge) using a behavioral task and social functioning (peer acceptance, prosocial behavior, and victimization) via teacher-report. We conducted all analyses using two measures of children's aggression. First, we compared children identified as aggressive to those in the non-aggressive group. Second, we used teacher-reported continuous measures of children's physical and relational aggression. As hypothesized, compared to the non-aggressive group, the aggressive group demonstrated lower expressive EU (see Table 1) as well as lower peer acceptance and prosocial behavior. Interestingly, however, the aggressive group had higher levels of receptive EU, and there was also a positive association between physical aggression and receptive EU. As predicted, the aggressive group as well as the continuous measures of physical and relational aggression were linked with lower peer acceptance and prosocial behavior. Higher physical aggression also predicted greater peer victimization among females. Finally, group membership moderated the association between EU and social functioning such that only among children in the aggressive group, b = .15, p = .03, was expressive EU positively associated with peer acceptance (see Figure 1). The results suggest that deficits in expressive EU are uniquely associated with peer acceptance in children identified as aggressive, pointing towards the need for targeted secondary prevention programs as early as the preschool years.

Authors

• Hannah Hecht, University of California, Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Breana Cervantes, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laurel Benjamin, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elaina Jahanfard, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lisa Lam, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Geneviève Laurent, Laval University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karin Ensink, University of Laval
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica Borelli, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author