title: Social exclusion predicts impaired self-regulation: a 2-year longitudinal panel study including the transition from preschool to school.
abstract: The need-to-belong theory stipulates that social exclusion (i.e., being rejected by peers) impairs the ability to self-regulate, and experimental studies with adults support this contention, at least on a short-term basis. Few studies have investigated whether social exclusion affects the development of self-regulation of children in a more enduring manner. By using data from a community sample of 762 children, we investigated reciprocal relations between social exclusion and self-regulation from age 4 to age 6. Social exclusion was reported by teachers, whereas self-regulation was reported by parents. Autoregressive latent cross-lagged analyses showed that social exclusion predicted impaired development of dispositional self-regulation and, reciprocally, that poor self-regulation predicted enhanced social exclusion. In other words, social exclusion undermines children's development of self-regulation, whereas poor self-regulation increases the likelihood of exclusion. Results illuminate the applied relevance of the need-to-belong theory.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare; NTNU Social Research.
authors.forename: Frode
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Stenseng
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Belsky
authors.forename: Vera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Skalicka
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wichstrøm
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D012929:Psychological Distance