This study examined the development of social power perceptions among Chinese children aged 3-5 years (N = 105). After watching videos about various social power cues, such as resource possession, resource control, goal achievement, permission, giving orders, setting norms and popularity, the children were asked to identify the powerful agents (whom do you believe is the more powerful person?) in the videos and provide explanations (why do you think he (she) is a powerful person?). Three-year-olds can recognize powerful agents who can grant 'permission' to other agents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile negative associations between behavioral inhibition/shyness and social competence are well established for children from Western cultures, the directions of these associations have been inconsistent for Chinese children, partly due to the ongoing social-cultural changes in China. Drawing from three samples of young Chinese children (born between 2009 and 2019), we aim at examining how inhibition/shyness predicts cooperative behaviors and prosocial behaviors throughout early childhood. In Study 1 ( = 700, children aged between 36 and 72 months), mother-reported inhibition/shyness was negatively associated with mother-reported cooperative and prosocial behaviors during the preschool years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLittle is known about the direction, ordering, and uniqueness of longitudinal associations between behavior problems and cognitive ability, from toddlerhood to middle childhood. A developmental cascade model was tested in the present study to examine the transactional processes in 103 Chinese children at the ages of 1, 2, 7, and 9 years. Behavior problems were assessed using the maternal reported Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment at the ages of 1, 2 and parental reported Children Behavior Checklist at the ages of 7, 9.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined the relationship between maternal empathy and infants' attachment security and tested the moderating effects of maternal emotion regulation and infant negative emotional temperament. Participants were sampled from 215 families whose infants were 6 months old (T1) and from 170 families of the same cohort whose infants were 14 months old (T2). At T1, mothers were measured for their empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking), emotion regulation (reappraisal and suppression), and infant negative emotional temperament (sadness, falling reactivity, fear, and distress to limitations).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to delay gratification is crucial for a successful and healthy life. An effective way for young children to learn this ability is to observe the action of adult models. However, the underlying neurocomputational mechanism remains unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Exp Child Psychol
October 2021
Notwithstanding alternative ways of obtaining power, social power is mostly commonly acquired through either a dominance approach, where power is grabbed by the powerholder, or a prestige approach, where power is granted by group members. Although children's attitude toward power in the dominance situation has been studied, little is known about how children understand and distinguish different ways of obtaining power. We examined the understanding of power in children aged 4-8 years by their resource allocation behavior in two social power acquisition situations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs a textbook manifestation of an aggressive attitude, hostility can pose a serious threat to both an individual's life and the security of society at large. Past evidence suggests that some anxiety-related traits may be more prone to giving rise to hostility. However, many aspects of hostility, such as, determining the susceptible temperament for hostility, the neural basis of hostility, and the underlying mechanisms through which having a susceptible temperament generates hostility in a healthy brain, remain unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current study investigated two types of punishment (prosocial and proself punishment) in the ultimatum game (UG) and examined the impact of individuals' prosocial orientation on the costly punishment in the UG in a representative sample of Chinese undergraduate students (N = 344). The prosocial orientation was measured with individuals' performance in the dictator game (DG), social value orientation (SVO), and the personal norm of reciprocity. Prosocial and proself punishers were established with responses in advantage and disadvantage offers in the UG.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhereas the effects of maternal parenting quality during infants' 2nd year on later executive function (EF) have been studied extensively, less is known about the impact of maternal parenting quality during the 1st year. The aim of this study was to examine whether maternal parenting during infants' 1st year predicted EF performance at 2 and 3 years of age in a Chinese sample. Data were collected from 96 mother-infant dyads (42 males) when the infants were 6, 9, 25, and 38 months old.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere are two forms of unfairness widely studied in resource allocation settings: disadvantageous inequity (DI) in which one receives less than the partner and advantageous inequity (AI) in which one receives more than the other. We investigated children's aversion to AI and DI in a procedural justice context. Children of 4-, 6-, and 8- years old were asked to spin a wheel (procedure) to decide how to allocate two different rewards with others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF