Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations Between Preschooler’s Emotion Regulation and Their Helping and Sharing Behavior

• In Event: Emotion Regulation Between 2 and 6 Years – Behavioral Dynamics and Developmental Correlates

Abstract

The ability to regulate emotions effectively is critical for establishing and maintaining positive relationships and has thus been linked to different indicators of social competence in the past (e.g., Duncombe et al., 2013). While the association of preschool children’s emotion regulation with maladaptive behavior has already been extensively examined, its associations with preschoolers’ adaptive (i.e., prosocial) behavior still requires further research. There are several theoretical arguments linking preschooler’s emotion regulation and prosocial behavior, assuming either benefitting effects of emotion regulation on the preconditions of prosocial behavior (e.g., orientation toward other’s needs, empathic responding) or correlational associations due to shared basic processes (e.g., emotional awareness, normative motivation). However, previous studies have mainly relied on others’ reports and have used rather global indices of emotion regulation and prosocial behavior. Furthermore, longitudinal investigations are scarce. Thus, the main aim of the current study is to extend prior research (e.g., Rydell et al., 2003) by using behavior-based measures of emotion regulation and prosociality and examining the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of different emotion regulation facets with two prosocial domains, namely helping and sharing. As preschool period encompasses profound changes in children’s emotion regulation (Holodynski et al., 2013) and prosocial behavior (Eisenberg et al., 2015), we, first, postulated increases with age in all variables. Second, we hypothesized that the regulation of negative emotions is positively associated with prosocial behavior after controlling for age. Considering the demands that different prosocial behaviors place on the child, we, third, assumed that associations with emotion regulation would be stronger for costly sharing than for helping since in the case of sharing children additionally need to regulate the negative affect associated with relinquishing own resources. Within the scope of this study, standardized behavioral tasks were administered to 71 children between 3;10 and 6;1 years (M = 59.85 months, SD = 8.10 months, 43.7% female) to assess emotion regulation competence (i.e., persistence, delay of gratification, inhibition, emotion regulation knowledge) and helping and sharing behavior towards experimenter. Based on a short-longitudinal design, the tasks were again assessed after seven months with 46 of these children (M = 67.04 months, SD = 8.2 months, 43.5% female). The cross-sectional associations support the assumption, that children’s emotion regulation and prosocial capacities increase with age. Furthermore, we found medium to high stabilities between both time points. While the results are less consistent concerning the cross-sectional associations between emotion regulation and prosocial behavior, residual change models (see Table 1) show that children with higher emotion regulation knowledge and higher ability to delay gratification tended to show accentuated changes toward more self-initiated sharing over time. In ongoing analyses, we also examine associations with children’s use of specific regulatory strategies. Altogether, the study contributes to an increased and differentiated understanding of the interrelations of two core components of preschool children’s socio-emotional competence and their possible developmental trajectories.

Authors

• Luisa Marie Lüken, University of Münster
  Presenting Author

• Judith Silkenbeumer, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

• Manfred Holodynski, University of Münster

• Joscha Kärtner, University of Münser