2-095 - Processing Information in Social Contexts: Integrating Diverse Methods from Early Childhood to Adulthood

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Maladaptive patterns of processing social information play a central role in the development and maintenance of internalizing problems (Bar-Haim et al., 2007). In the present symposium, we focus on three unique approaches to examining how individuals process, react, and respond to social information (i.e., executive functioning in social conditions, processing of social vignettes, and attentional biases to social threat) across developmental periods (early childhood, middle childhood, and adulthood).
The first contribution presents a longitudinal examination of mothers’ use of reactive emotion socialization strategies in response to children’s expressed negative emotions. Results indicated that non-supportive maternal emotion socialization strategies at 3.5 years predicted children’s worse performance on executive functioning tasks in social and emotional contexts at age 6. The second contribution focuses on the associations between shyness and positive and negative social information processing (SIP) patterns in a sample of 6-9 year olds. Results suggested that shy girls may be particularly at risk for lower positive SIP rather than elevated negative SIP. The third contribution is a longitudinal study examining whether shyness trajectories are differentially associated with mental health outcomes and attentional biases across the first four decades of life (from age 8 to 30-35 years). Those whose shyness continued to increase beyond adolescence were at increased risk for psychological and emotional problems, and displayed hypervigilance to social threat (i.e., angry faces). Our discussant is a senior scholar in the area who will integrate the findings from the three presentations and provide novel insights and perspectives for future research.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Laura L. Ooi, Carleton University

Discussant

• Koraly Perez-Edgar, The Pennsylvania State University

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Emotion Socialization Predicts the Development of Hot Executive Function in Early Childhood - Presenting Author: Sarah Kahle, University of California, Davis; Natalie R. Troxel, University of California, Davis; Jonas G Miller, University of California, Davis; Paul David Hastings, University of California, Davis

• Examining the Relations between Shyness and Social Information Processing in Childhood - Presenting Author: Laura L. Ooi, Carleton University; Kristen A. Archbell, Carleton University; Robert Coplan, Carleton University

• Developmental Trajectories of Shyness across the First Four Decades Predict Mental Health Outcomes and Attentional Biases - Presenting Author: Alva Tang, McMaster University; Ryan J. Van Lieshout, McMaster University; Ayelet Lahat, McMaster University; Eric Duku, McMaster University; Michael Boyle, McMaster University; Saroj Saigal, McMaster University; Louis Schmidt, McMaster University