Studied children's use of justification in disputes with their mothers and siblings and its relation to the social and emotional context of family disputes. Found children used justification in one third of their disputes by 36 months, and children's use of justification differed according to the topic of the dispute. (SKC)

European American, Japanese, and Chinese 11-month-olds participated in emotion-inducing laboratory procedures. Facial responses were scored with BabyFACS, an anatomically based coding system. Overall, Chinese infants were less expressive than European American and Japanese infants, suggesting that differences in expressivity between European…

Mothers from inner-city, poor families with high-risk infants were interviewed when their infants were three months of age concerning sources of support (e.g., fathers, relatives, friends) and types of support received (e.g., goods, services, advice, financial support). Observations of the mother-infant interaction in a free-play setting were also…

Investigated the content and development of children's imitative behavior in the home. The data consisted of incidents of naturally occurring imitations of 24 children 16 and 29 months of age collected over a four-month period by mothers trained in observational recording. Immediate imitations decreased with age; deferred imitations increased with…

Investigates children's person-by-situation knowledge of probable causes of emotion in self and in others, and compares this to adults' construals. Shows that children can generate contextual explanations for affective states in self and others that are both shared by other children and adults and selectively related to different kinds of…

Reports on data collected in nine age ranges from 18 months to 71 months that examined children's ability to understand emotion-descriptive adjectives when used by adults and their own use of these words in productive vocabulary. (HOD)

In response to commentaries on their model of discipline effectiveness, Grusec and Goodnow note that the model places as much emphasis on affect as on cognition and that it is certainly applicable to preschool years. They discuss development of sense of self, ability to self-regulate, and attachment as important precursors of internalization. (MDM)

Mothers in Argentina, France, Japan, and the United States were observed interacting with their 5- and 13-month-old infants. Maternal speech was classified into expressions concerning affect and information. Mothers in all cultures used both classifications with their infants and spoke to older infants more than younger infants. (BC)

Examined children's visual self-recognition. Lower-SES maltreated children did not differ from lower- or middle-SES comparison children in the development of self-recognition. Differences between the samples in the quality of affective reactions to mirror self-images were observed. (BC)

Examined arousal regulation as a function of levels of prenatal cocaine exposure in 4-month-olds, using a "still face" procedure. Found that, independent of several other factors, a greater percentage of heavily cocaine-exposed infants, compared to unexposed infants, showed less enjoyment during "en face" play with their mothers and continued to…

The relations of children's internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors to their concurrent regulation, impulsivity (reactive undercontrol), anger, sadness, and fearfulness and these aspects of functioning 2 years prior were examined. Parents and teachers completed measures of children's (N = 185; ages 6 through 9 years) adjustment, negative…

Reports longitudinal data on the link between the affective quality of the mother-child relationship and school-relevant cognitive performance. Sixty-seven mothers and their children participated in the first (preschool) phase of the study; 47 mothers were included in a follow-up when children were 12 years old. (Author/BN)

Observed kindergartners and first graders playing in dyads. Children who were frequent pretenders had more predictable behavior pathways to and fewer exits from social pretend play (BSP) than children who were infrequent pretenders. Children's social interaction increased in complexity sooner after the onset of BSP than of nonpretend social…

Infants who changed in levels of emotionality between three and nine months were compared with infants who remained stable. Maternal personality, marital factors, and mother-infant interaction accounted for the change in highly emotional infants. Father factors accounted for changes by infants who were initially low in negativity. (BC)

Investigated stability and change in infant affective responses to still-face interaction, impact of maternal depression, and whether infant responses predicted toddler problem behaviors. Found stable individual differences in gazing away and rates of negative affect. Gazing away increased over time. Mothers' current depressive symptoms and…