| Abstracts:
July 2002, Volume 48, Number 3
Benenson,
J. F., Roy, R., Waite, A., Goldbaum, S., Linders, L., & Simpson,
A. (2002). Greater discomfort as a proximate cause of sex differences
in competition. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 48, 225-247.
Abstract:
The research was designed to examine whether females exhibit greater
discomfort that males in competitive contexts, which could account
for females' greater avoidance of direct competition. In Study
1, 40 groups of 4 same-sex children from kindergarten or Grade
4 were asked to chose one leader for their groups. Although no
sex differences were found in level of participation or length
of negotiations during the process of leadership selection , females
were found to exhibit significantly more discomfort than males.
In Study 2, a new method was employed in which kindergarten nd
Grade 4 same-sex dyads competed by playing identical games. No
sex differences were found in levels of discomfort while the children
played the games and a barrier prevented the children from communicating.
After the games were over and the barrier removed, however, females
displayed higher level of discomfort han males both while waiting
for the outcome of the competition and after the winner had been
announced. Together, these studies provide consistent evidence
that females exhibit higher levels of discomfort that males when
competing directly with same-sex peers. One plausible proximate
reason or sex differences in engagement in direct competition
is females' more negative emotional response.
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Widen, S. C. & Russell, J. A.
(2002). Gender and preschoolers' perception of emotion. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 48, 248-262.
Abstract:
A person's gender pays a role in the emotion children attribute
to that person, even given unambiguous cues of a basic emotion.
Eighty preschoolers (4 or 5 years of age) were asked to name the
emotion of either a boy(Judd) or a girl (Suzy) in otherwise identical
stories about prototypical emotional events and, separately, as
shown with identical prototypical facial expressions. Boys more
often labeled Judd than Suzy as disgusted, both in the disgust story
and with the disgust face. There was also a trend for girls to label
Suzy as afraid more often than Judd, both in the fear story and
with the fear face.
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Simpkins, S. D. & Parke,
R. D. (2002). Do friends and nonfriends behave differently? A social
relations analysis of children's behavior. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly,
48, 263-283.
Abstract:
Children behave differently with friends and nonfriends. The goal
of the current study was to examine these differences more closely
with effect sizes and the Social Relations Model (SRM). One hundred
twenty-three triads (target children, friends, and unacquainted
peers) participated in a round-robin design during 4th grade with
partial replication during 5th grade (N=112). Results indicated
that children's negative behavior, positive behavior, and play sophistication
with friends and nonfriends were significantly different, but the
effect sizes of these differences were typically small. SRM was
used to divide children's behavior ship/err. The actor and partner
effects significantly accounted for variance in children's behavior
with friends and nonfriends.
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Fabes, R. A., Hanish, L. D., Martin,
C. L., & Eisenberg, N. (2002). Young children's negative emotionality
and social isolation: A latent growth curve analysis. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 284-307.
Abstract:
Recently there has been increasing interest in the role that emotionality
play sin children's social functioning. In this paper, we examined
changes in preschoolers' tendencies to play alone as a function
of their dispositional negative emotional intensity (DNEI). Additionally,
we examined changes in expressed negative emotion. The solitary
play and expressed negative emotions of 94 children (mean age=50.5
months) were observed for 3 months. Teachers completed a measure
of DNEI. Growth curves revealed that children high in DNEI evidenced
increased rates of solitary play and decreasing rates of expression
of negative emotions. Children high in DNEI were initially higher
in observed emotional intensity. Findings suggest that children
who have difficulty regulating negative emotions increasingly become
isolated from peers.
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Dearing, K. F., Hubbard, J. A.,
Ramsden, S. R., Parker, E. H., Relyea, N. & Smithmyer, C. M.
(2002). Children's self-reports about anger regulation: Direct and
indirect links to social preference and aggression. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 308-336.
Abstract:
We assessed the direct relations between three aspects of self-reported
anger regulation and peer-rated social preference and aggression
as well as the indirect relations between these constructs as mediated
by observed anger expression. The three aspects of anger regulation
were the generation of strategies for dissembling external anger
expression, the generation of strategies for regulating the internal
experience of anger, and use of display rules for anger. Participants
were 274 2nd grade children, approximately 8 years old (135 girls
and 139 boys). Children participated in two anger-arousing games.
They were interviewed about the three aspects of anger regulation
in these situations, and their anger expressions were coded. Although
anger regulation was not directly related to social preference or
aggression, it was indirectly related to both social preference
and aggression through the mediating mechanism of nonverbal anger
expression.
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