title: Children's negative emotions and ego-resiliency: longitudinal relations with social competence.
abstract: We examined the relations of negative emotions in toddlerhood to the development of ego-resiliency and social competence across early childhood. Specifically, we addressed whether fear and anger/frustration in 30-month-old children (N = 213) was associated with the development of ego-resiliency across 4 time points (42 to 84 months), and, in turn, whether ego-resiliency predicted social competence at 84 months. Child anger/frustration negatively predicted the intercept of ego-resiliency at 42 months (controlling for prior ego-resiliency at 18 months) as well as the slope. Fear did not significantly predict either the intercept or slope of ego-resiliency in the structural model, although it was positively correlated with anger/frustration and was negatively related to ego-resiliency in zero-order correlations. The slope of ego-resiliency was positively related to children's social competence at 84 months; however, the intercept of ego-resiliency (set at 42 months) was not a significant predictor of later social competence. Furthermore, the slope of ego-resiliency mediated the relations between anger/frustration and children's later social competence. The results suggest that individual differences in anger/frustration might contribute to the development of ego-resiliency, which, in turn, is associated with children's social competence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Purdue University.
authors.forename: Zoe E
authors.initials: ZE
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Arizona State University.
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Eisenberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Arizona State University.
authors.forename: Sarah K
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3656-3190
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: VanSchyndel
authors.affiliation: T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University.
authors.forename: Natalie D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Eggum-Wilkens
authors.affiliation: T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University.
authors.forename: Tracy L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Spinrad
mesh_terms: D000786:Anger; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004532:Ego; D004644:Emotions; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005639:Frustration; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012919:Social Behavior