Sixty-four young children were induced to feel angry, sad, happy, or "just okay" before their exposure to interadult anger. Findings indicated that negative emotions increased children's distress and negative appraisals and expectations in reaction to interadult anger, whereas positive emotions reduced distress reactions and increased children's…

Examined the relationship between 147 4- to 8-year-olds' performance on physical and affective appearance-reality (AR) tasks. As expected, older children performed better than younger children on both tasks, and the children's physical and affective AR performance differed significantly only when the affective task required greater use of…

Examined the evidence for the reciprocity of negative affect between mothers and young children in disciplinary encounters. Although children responded contingently and reciprocally to maternal negativity, they also reacted negatively to maternal positive affect. (SH)

Predictions about the role of contingency, imitation, and affect sharing in the development of social awareness were tested in infants during natural, imitative, and yoked conditions with their mothers at 5 and 13 weeks of age. Results showed that at both ages, infants of highly attuned mothers gazed, smiled, and vocalized positively more during…

Investigated the separate and interactive effects of a model's affective response and anticipated consequences of third and fourth grade children's imitative and nonimitative play behaviors. (ED)

Tests three previously untested hypotheses central to the theory of Brazelton and colleagues about the sequential structure of mother-infant face-to-face interaction. Results show that with some revision the hypotheses describe the structure of mother-infant face-to-face interaction from three to nine months of age. (Author/RH)

Videotape study of preschool children, two to five years of age, and adults who posed the six facial expressions of happiness, surprise, anger, fear, sadness, and disgust. Poses were scored using the MAX system. Results showed that consistent differences between partial and complete poses were observed for negative expressions. (Author/RWB)

Examined how children come to understand that internally experienced affect need not be behaviorally expressed and that the emotion that is expressed is not necessarily what is being felt internally. Sixty elementary school students were interviewed about four interpersonal conflict situations presented in comic strip style but using photographs…

When sibling pairs interacted with unrelated mothers, facial and vocal affect directed to the difficult child in the pair was more dysphoric than that directed to the other. This was particularly the case among women who attributed relatively high control to children and low control to adults. A similar relation between affect and attributions was…

Among 36 newborns, Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) activity level, responsivity, and irritability exhibited stability from 2 weeks to 2 months and from 2 months to 12 months. Irritability was stable from 2 weeks to 12 months. IBQ ratings generally increased by year's end. (RH)

Although externalizing behavior typically peaks in toddlerhood and decreases by school entry, some children do not show this normative decline. A sample of 383 boys and girls was assessed at ages 2, 4, and 5 for externalizing behavior and at age 2 on measures of emotion regulation and inattention. A longitudinal latent profile analysis was…

A measure of causal attribution of emotion using a simple, realistic task with responses requested in segments was employed to investigate 40 kindergarteners' understanding of the causes of emotions in others. (JMB)

Vocalizations of infants were classified and analyzed in a longitudinal sample of infants ranging in age from 2 to 14 weeks. Results suggest that infants performed different types of vocalizations that can be interpreted as affective states from 2 weeks of age on. Parents responded with a highly diversified pattern of reactions to different infant…

Sequences of mastery behavior were analyzed in a sample of 67 infants 6 to 12 months old. Authors computed (a) frequencies of six categories of mastery behavior, transitional probabilities, and z scores for each behavior change, and (b) transitions from a mastery behavior to positive affect. Changes in frequencies and similarity in organization…