Infants expressed more joy and looked longer at their mothers during a joy condition, and they showed more sadness, anger, and gaze aversion during a sadness condition. They engaged in more play behavior in the joy condition than in the sadness condition. Several significant relations between infants' gaze behavior, emotion expressions, and play…

Investigated the autonomic reactions (heart rate and skin conductance) of 17 mothers of five-month-old infants to two landscape scenes and four types of videotaped segments depicting their own baby and an unfamiliar baby smiling or crying. (JMB)

A total of 20 abused and 20 nonabused pairs of children of three-seven years and their mothers participated in a facial expression posing task and a facial expression recognition task. Findings suggest that abused children may not observe as often as nonabused children do the easily interpreted voluntary displays of emotion by their mothers. (RH)

Investigated 34 4- and 5-year-olds and their parents to determine the children's behavioral, physiological, and verbal responses to adults' angry behavior. Findings indicate behavioral and verbal responses of distress and an increase in systolic blood pressure in response to anger. (RJC)

Controlling for early sensorimotor differences, found that high levels of distress and anger expressed by children at age three months predicted low cognitive scores at four years. Controlling for early emotional and sensorimotor differences, found that high levels of maternal responsiveness in the same group of children predicted high cognitive…

Data provide an experimental demonstration that teachers' brief and mild expressions of opinion, incidental to the curriculum objectives, can significantly influence the attitudes of their pupils. (Authors)

Eighty-five children between 7 and 12 years of age were asked to discuss happy, sad, or affectively neutral incidents that had been experienced either by themselves or by another child. Each child received prize chips for participating in the study. Then the children were given the opportunity to share their experimental earnings with some less…

Examined relationships between social contingency in mother-child interaction and the social competence of 47 two-year-olds from low-income families. Found that social contingency was related to children's use of self-regulatory strategies but not to empathic responsiveness. Child negative emotionality and gender contributed to explanations of…

Trained 3 month olds to move a 10-object mobile. Changing the mobile to two objects resulted in crying for half the infants. A retention test was given one and seven days later. All infants exhibited retention at one day but only noncriers at seven days. Criers displayed more anger than noncriers in the one-day retention test. (BC)

Used semiprojective and scenario-based measures to identify evidence for adaptive or maladaptive aspects of guilt and shame in 5- to 12-year olds. Found that shame and projective guilt were related to symptoms as rated by parents, self-blame, and attempts to minimize painful feelings. Scenario-based guilt was related to fewer symptoms in boys but…

The authors investigated relations between mother-infant dyadic coordination and infants' physiological responses. Mothers (N=73) and 3-month-old male and female infants were observed in the still-face paradigm, and mothers' and infants' affective states were coded at 1-s intervals. Synchrony and levels of matching between mother-infant affective…

This research investigated mothers' affect in the context of children's homework. Mothers (N=109) of children 8 to 12 years old were interviewed daily about their affect while interacting with children, their assistance with children's homework, and children's behavior while completing homework. At this time and 6 months later, children's…

Describes an investigation of social sensitivity in which 48 female preschoolers viewed eight filmed episodes of interpersonal behavior containing either congruous or incongruous stimulus features. Results are discussed mainly in terms of mental age differences. (SDH)

A total of 57 7- and 8-year-old subjects matched on measures of socioeconomic status, locus of control, need for social approval, and self esteem were assigned to two affect conditions and one control condition. Subsequently they were exposed to a resistance-to-temptation task involving play with a forbidden toy. (GO)

Reports relationship between asymmetries in frontal-brain electrical activity and individual differences in affective response in 35 ten-month-old females. Stranger-approach, mother-approach, and maternal-separation experiences were presented while an electroencephalogram (EEG) from scalp regions was recorded and facial and other behavioral…