Positive and negative emotionality: trajectories across six years and relations with social competence.
The goals of the present study were to examine (1) the mean-level stability and differential stability of children's positive emotional intensity, negative emotional intensity, expressivity, and social competence from early elementary school-aged to early adolescence, and (2) the associations between the trajectories of children's emotionality and social functioning. Using four waves of longitudinal data (with assessments 2 years apart), parents and teachers of children (199 kindergarten through third grade children at the first assessment) rated children's emotion-related responding and social competence. For all constructs, there was evidence of mean-level decline with age and stability in individual differences in rank ordering. Based on age-centered growth-to-growth curve analyses, the results indicated that children who had a higher initial status on positive emotional intensity, negative emotional intensity, and expressivity had a steeper decline in their social skills across time. These findings provide insight into the stability and association of emotion-related constructs to social competence across the elementary and middle school years.
Sallquist
Julie Vaughan
JV
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA. julie.vaughan@asu.edu
Eisenberg
Nancy
N
Spinrad
Tracy L
TL
Reiser
Mark
M
Hofer
Claire
C
Zhou
Qing
Q
Liew
Jeffrey
J
Eggum
Natalie
N
D000339:Affect; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D015588:Observer Variation; D012737:Sex Factors; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors