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Emotional Understanding, Aggression, and Social Functioning Among Preschoolers

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Evidence suggests that emotional understanding (EU) assists in the regulation of aggression, which in turn, predicts better social functioning. Although the links among EU, aggression, and social functioning have been preliminarily explored, significant gaps remain in our comprehension of the factors that could qualify these links (e.g., impact of developmental stage, type of aggression, type of social functioning, and different dimensions of EU). Here we conduct a multidimensional assessment of EU, aggression, and social functioning within a sample of aggressive preschoolers (n = 24) and a matched comparison group (n = 26; N = 50, 26 girls; Mage = 53.83 months, SDage = 3.73). We assessed EU using a behavioral assessment and social functioning via teacher-report. We conducted all analyses through the use of two measures of children’s aggression—first, we compared children identified as aggressive by preschool teachers to those in the nonaggressive comparison group. Second, we used teacher-reported continuous measures of children’s physical and relational aggression. Relative to the comparison group, the aggressive group demonstrated lower expressive EU, higher receptive EU, lower peer acceptance, and lower prosocial behavior. Analyses of continuous measures revealed a more complicated pattern of associations among aggression, EU, and social functioning. Higher physical aggression predicted greater peer victimization among females, and expressive EU was only associated with higher peer acceptance among the aggressive group.
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EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 1
Running head: EMOTION UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION
Emotional Understanding, Aggression, and Social Functioning among Preschoolers
Geneviève Laurent,1 Hannah K. Hecht,2 Karin Ensink,1 & Jessica L. Borelli2
1. Université Laval
2. University of California, Irvine
** In Press, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry **
Please direct correspondence regarding this paper to Jessica Borelli, 4201 Social and Behavioral
Sciences Gateway, Irvine, CA, 92697; Jessica.borelli@uci.edu
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 1
Abstract
Evidence suggests that emotional understanding (EU) assists in the regulation of aggression, which in turn,
predicts better social functioning. Although the links between EU, aggression, and social functioning have been
preliminarily explored, significant gaps remain in our comprehension of the factors that could qualify these
links (e.g., impact of developmental stage, type of aggression, type of social functioning, and different
dimensions of EU). Here we conduct a multidimensional assessment of EU, aggression, and social functioning
within a sample of aggressive preschoolers (n=24) and a matched comparison group (n=26; N = 50, 26 girls;
Mage = 53.83 months, SDage = 3.73). We assessed EU using a behavioral assessment and social functioning via
teacher-report. We conducted all analyses through the use of two measures of children’s aggression – first, we
compared children identified as aggressive by preschool teachers to those in the non-aggressive comparison
group. Second, we used teacher-reported continuous measures of children’s physical and relational aggression.
Compared to the comparison group, the aggressive group demonstrated lower expressive EU, higher receptive
EU, lower peer acceptance, and lower prosocial behavior. Analyses of continuous measures revealed a more
complicated pattern of associations between aggression, EU, and social competence. Higher physical aggression
also predicted greater peer victimization among females, and expressive EU was only associated with higher
peer acceptance among the aggressive group.
Keywords: aggression, emotional understanding (EU), preschool, social functioning
Public Policy Relevance: Aggressive and violent behavior constitute a significant public health problem such
that identifying early risk factors for their development is critical. Determining ways to enhance the capacity to
identify and name emotions may be a protective factor for aggression present as early as the preschool years,
and thus, an important target of prevention.
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 1
Emotional Understanding, Aggression, and Social Functioning among Preschoolers
Aggression poses a significant and costly public health problem (Cohen, 1998; Krug,
Mercy, Dahlberg, & Zwi, 2002; Loeber, Burke, & Pardini, 2009), with evidence suggesting that
life course persistent aggressive behavior begins in childhood (e.g., Moffitt, 2006). Aggression is
a feature of children’s behavioral repertoire beginning in infancy and generally peaking between
24 and 42 months, with declines ensuing thereafter (Tremblay, 2002). Learning to inhibit
aggression is considered a key developmental achievement of the preschool years and the
hallmark of positive adjustment (Calkins & Fox, 2002). Preschool-aged children who fail to
show such a decrease in aggression are at elevated risk for subsequent social and academic
difficulties (Campbell, Shaw, & Gilliom, 2000; Masten et al., 2005; van Lier & Koot, 2010) and
antisocial behavior in adolescence (Nagin, Barker, Lacourse, & Tremblay, 2008).
Several psychological factors are thought to predict the likelihood of aggressive behavior.
For instance, certain information processing styles, such as a greater tendency to attribute
people’s neutral or ambiguous behavior to hostile intentions (hostile attribution biases; Crick &
Dodge, 1996; Dodge, 1991) as well as greater expectancies for aggressive behavior from others
(Marsee & Frick, 2007), are associated with aggression risk. In addition, aggression in children is
associated with aberrations in emotional reactivity. For instance, children who display
heightened reactive aggression demonstrate heightened emotion reactivity, such as low
frustration tolerance (e.g., Vitaro et al., 2002), whereas those who engage in proactive aggression
show attenuated reactivity (e.g., Hubbard et al., 2002). Thus, it is clear that psychological factors
related to the accurate understanding of others’ minds as well as emotion regulation play
important roles in the enactment of, and therefore potentially the prevention of, aggression.
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 2
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the preschool period also marks the developmental phase when
children manifest a rapid development of their emotional understanding (EU), the ability to
identify and comprehend the meaning of emotions (Basset, Denham, & Mincic, 2012).
Difficulties with EU have been identified as a potential risk factor for the development of
aggressive behavior problems (Trentacosta & Fine, 2010), and as such, constitute a prime target
for prevention and intervention. Indeed, intervention programs focusing on EU have been
developed for school age children to reduce violence (e.g., Dodge, 2011; Greenberg & Kusché,
2006). The gap in the existence of similar programs during the preschool years may constitute a
missed opportunity for intervening during a critical developmental period for establishing EU
and developing a skill that may have important implications for reducing later aggression.
Indeed, most existing prevention programs for preschool age children focus on other community-
and individual-level contributors to aggressive behavior, including poverty, social cohesion, fear
and distrust of others, and norms regarding violent behavior (see Catalano, Berglund, Ryan,
Lonczak, & Hawkins, 2004, for a review). In addition to the import of increasing our
understanding of these links between EU and aggression to develop prevention programs, there
are scientific reasons justifying further exploration of this topic. Specifically, critical gaps remain
in the literature regarding the associations among different dimensions of EU, aggression, and
social functioning in preschool-aged children. The purpose of the current investigation is to close
some of those gaps in the service of practice and science.
Emotional Understanding, A Building Block of Mentalization
EU refers to the extent to which children and adults comprehend emotion, its causes and
regulation, as well as its impact on others and themselves (Harris, de Rosnay, & Pons, 2016). EU
is viewed as an early manifestation of mentalization capacity, the ability to understand others’
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 3
mental states (e.g., feelings, thoughts, wishes, beliefs). Mentalization is considered to have
important implications for social interactions extending well beyond the preschool years
(Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, 2002) and has been shown to facilitate the modulation of
aggression in school-aged children (Ensink, Bégin, Normandin, Godbout, & Fonagy, 2017).
Similarly, in adolescents with psychopathic tendencies, low mentalization capacity is associated
with higher incidence of premediated aggression (Taubner, White, Zimmermann, Fonagy, &
Nolte, 2013).
Early forms of mentalizing, such as EU, are in part, the product of learning in the context
of early parent-child interactions where parents respond to child affective communication and
help children recognize affect in themselves and others (Centifanti et al., 2016; Devines &
Hughes, 2013; Taumoepeau and Ruffman, 2008). As such, EU is linked with parents’ own
mentalization capacities, which are associated with more sensitive parenting (Rosenblum,
McDonough, Sameroff, & Muzik, 2008; Stack et al., 2014) and interactions where parents
engage in mind-minded communication with infants where they name infant emotions and
intentions (Meins, Centifanti, Fernyhough, & Fishburn, 2013). Children parented by caregivers
high in mentalization tend to develop secure attachment styles, better self-regulation, greater EU
(Fonagy et al., 2002; Grienenberger, Kelly, & Slade, 2005; Heron-Delany et al., 2016) and
ultimately, better mentalizing (Ensink, Normandin, Target, Fonagy, Sabourin & Berthelot,
2014). As a potentially modifiable characteristic, EU is a prime target of intervention and
prevention efforts such as Mentalization Based Therapy for Children (Midgley, Ensink,
Lindqvist, Malberg & Muller, 2017), as well as cognitive behavioral interventions that aim to
increase EU (e.g., Dodge, 2011; Greenberg & Kusché, 2006).
There is converging evidence that EU is associated with more optimal social functioning
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 4
both concurrently and longitudinally (Eggum et al., 2011). Social functioning refers to the degree
to which an individual demonstrates adaptive behavior in the social environment, encapsulating a
wide range of constructs, including social competence, prosocial behaviors, peer acceptance,
reconciliation tendencies, and degree of victimization. Consistent with this pattern identified in
the broader literature, preschoolers’ ability to identify and predict others’ emotions has been
found to be associated with general social competence (Denham et al., 2003), prosocial
behaviors (Denham, 1986; Ensor, Spencer, & Hughes, 2011; Liao et al., 2013), acceptance by
peers (Arsenio, Cooperman, & Lover, 2000), and the elicitation of more positive behaviors from
peer interaction partners (Cassidy et al., 2003). Furthermore, preschoolers’ EU predicts
children’s reconciliation tendencies (Liao et al., 2013), which may be particularly important in
helping highly aggressive children repair social relationships following ruptures caused by
aggression.
Although it has been well established that high EU predicts better social functioning,
significant gaps remain in our knowledge regarding how EU is connected to different dimensions
of aggression (physical versus relational) and in turn, how these dimensions of aggression are
linked to aspects of social functioning during the preschool years.
Associations between EU and Aggression
Individual differences in the intensity and strength of aggression in infants have been
shown to be relatively stable over time (Nagin, Barker, Lacourse, & Tremblay, 2008; Dodge,
Greenberg, Malone, Nagin, & Conduct Problem Prevention Research Group, 2008; Hay, 2017;
Rothbart, 2011). During the preschool years, scholars contend that parent-child processes, such
as attachment (Roskam, Meunier, & Stievenart, 2011) and parents’ mentalization regarding their
children (Meins, Centifanti, Fernyhough, & Fishburn, 2013), serve to help children modulate
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 5
these aggressive impulses.
In addition, children’s own EU can be protective against aggression – children who are
able to understand their own and others’ emotions may be more likely to curb aggression and/or
behave empathically towards others. Indeed, findings of a meta-analysis of 21 studies by
Trentacosta and Fine (2010) indicate that there is a negative association of a modest strength
between EU and externalizing behaviors in preschoolers. Furthermore, this meta-analysis
concludes that stronger effects are observed in clinical samples. With regard to longitudinal
evidence, deficits in EU at 3 and 4 years of age predict aggression measured one year later
(Denham et al., 2002). However, some studies have failed to find a significant link between EU
and aggression during the preschool period (Deneault & Ricard, 2013; Liao, Li, & Su, 2013). It
is possible that the protective role of EU is more evident in clinical and at-risk samples
(Trentacosta & Fine, 2010) where children may have severe deficits in EU and fewer
opportunities to develop it, or it may have to do with the heterogeneity with which researchers
have measured aggression.
Some studies delineate between two subtypes of aggression (Little, Henrich, Jones, &
Hawley, 2003), physical and relational aggression, which may have different patterns of
association with EU. Physical aggression is defined as physical acts intended to harm through
direct action (e.g., pushing or name-calling), whereas relational aggression aims to damage
another persons’ relationships with others through indirect attacks (Liao et al., 2013). There is
some evidence suggesting that boys are more likely to engage in physical aggression, while girls
are more likely to display relational aggression (Bonica, Arnold, Fisher, Zeljo, & Yershova,
2003; Russell, Hart, Robinson, & Olsen, 2003). Research with older children suggests that
relational aggression may be associated with superior EU employed with the intention to harm
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 6
(Sutton, Smith & Swettenham, 2001). Research on relational aggression has predominantly
focused on school–age children and adolescents, but there is evidence that acts designed to harm
another’s reputation are also observed in preschool children (Crick et al., 2006; Ostrov, Woods,
Jansen, Casas, & Crick, 2004). In one study of relational aggression and EU in preschoolers,
mothers’ higher quality teaching to 4-year-old aggressive children about emotion predicted a
decrease in relational aggression one year later (Werner, Eaton, Lyle, Tseng, & Holst, 2014).
This suggests that aggressive children may benefit from potentiated learning; in other words,
learning about emotions early in development, and that this may later facilitate the ability to
modulate aggression. However, further studies are needed to clarify the associations between
EU, and physical and relational aggression during different developmental periods.
Associations Between Aggression and Social Functioning
With regard to the associations between aggression and social adjustment, there is
conflicting empirical evidence. While there is evidence suggesting that aggressive children are
more likely to engage in inappropriate behaviors that could damage their social interactions
(Dedham et al., 2002), other findings suggest that aggressive children may be more popular
(Kornbluh & Neal, 2016). As above, it is possible that the conflicting findings in the literature
are related to heterogeneity in measures of aggression or social functioning.
In terms of evidence for the association between aggression and social functioning in
preschoolers, studies find that physically aggressive preschoolers experience more negative
social outcomes including peer rejection, less prosocial behavior (Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997)
and more physical victimization (Ostrov, 2008). Findings concerning relational aggression
during the preschool age have yielded more discrepant findings, perhaps because relational
aggression may not be as common during this developmental period (Juliano, Stetson Werner, &
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 7
Cassidy, 2006). In some studies, relational aggression is linked with negative social outcomes
(e.g., peer rejection, relational victimization; Crick et al., 1997; Ostrov, 2008), while others fail
to find significant associations (Juliano, Stetson Werner, & Cassidy, 2006), and still others show
some positive social correlates (e.g., increases in peer liking over time; Kawabata, Tseng, &
Crick, 2014).
Current Investigation
With the present study we seek to close gaps in the literature on the associations between
EU, aggression, and social functioning in preschool-aged children in three central ways. First, we
examine the associations between aggression and EU by operationalizing aggression in two ways
– specifically, we compare children identified as aggressive by preschool teachers to a
comparison group and also explore associations between continuous teacher ratings of
aggressive behavior with EU. We contend that each way of operationalizing aggression yields a
different perspective on children’s behavior – the group membership measure (aggressive,
comparison) may represent aggressive or hostile reputation and therefore may provide a better
window into the overall impact of children’s behavior in the preschool context, whereas raw
symptom counts may offer a continuous measure of the frequency of discrete behaviors
exhibited by the children.
Second, we use a measure of EU that will enable us to distinguish with greater precision
multiple facets of the construct, which may result in greater clarity regarding the associations
between EU and aggression. Third, we examine associations between children’s aggression and
three dimensions of social functioning (prosocial behavior, acceptance by peers, and
victimization). The high level of differentiation in our measurements affords this investigation a
greater level of precision in terms of the types of conclusions we can draw about the
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 8
interrelations between these constructs.
Hypotheses
Our first objective is to examine the links between aggression and EU. Here we explore
whether preschool-aged children identified as aggressive by teachers manifest difficulties in EU
compared to a matched control group. Second, we test the associations between dimensional
assessments of children’s aggressive behavior and their EU. Based on prior work, we
hypothesize that lower levels of EU will be associated with greater levels of physical and
relational aggression.
Our second objective is to extend prior work conducted among older children that
demonstrates associations between aggression and social functioning. Here we evaluate whether
preschool-aged children identified as aggressive show poorer social functioning compared to the
matched control group. In addition, we examine the associations between aggression (physical
and relational) measured dimensionally and social functioning. In both of these cases, our
prediction was that children with greater aggression would show poorer social functioning.
Third, we seek to examine whether the links between EU and social functioning differ as
a function of children’s aggression. Here we conduct our analyses using group membership
(aggressive vs. comparison) and test the hypothesis that the links between greater EU and greater
peer acceptance will be stronger in the aggressive than the comparison group. We anticipate that
EU will be more strongly associated with acceptance for aggressive as compared to comparison
children; this hypothesis is predicated on the argument that aggressive children may experience
higher levels of conflict with peers and thus may require EU to more successfully navigate peer
relationships
Importantly, in all analyses, we control for receptive language and intelligence to account
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 9
for the influence of potential confounds. In addition, given previous literature about sex
differences in both EU (e.g., Huges & Dunn, 1998) and aggression (e.g., Bonica et al., 2003), we
examined child sex as a moderator in our analyses to enable us to explore whether the links
between these constructs differed across sexes.
Method
Participants
Participants were 50 preschoolers (26 girls) recruited from 11 daycare centers in a French
Canadian city. Using a case-control protocol, the case group constituted of aggressive children
(n=24) nominated by teachers who were instructed to select children showing aggressive
behaviors towards peers and teachers. Mean child age was 53.83 months (SD=3.73). The Child
Behavior Checklist – Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF) was used to validate the teacher
nominations. The mean aggression score rated by the teacher on the Child Behavior Checklist –
Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF) was T score=62.25 (SD=8.96), which placed the case group
at a clinically borderline level (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000). Teachers also nominated non-
aggressive children for the control group (n=26), which matched the case group by sex, age and
daycare center location. The mean aggression score of the control group rated by the teacher on
CBCL-TRF was T score=50.96 (SD=8.85), and mean age was 54.69 months (SD=3.71). The
groups were of unequal size because in the aggressive group, one child was ill on the day of
testing and another did not meet study criteria.
The protocol for the study was approved by the Institutional Review Board. Prior to the
daycare teacher nomination process, parents were asked by the teachers if they could be
contacted by our team to be invited to participate in the study. Research assistants called the
parents to verify if the children met inclusion criteria and provided a detailed and standardized
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 10
description of the study procedures and purpose (informed consent procedure). Research
assistants then inquired as to whether parents were willing to provide their consent and
permission for their children to participate in the study. Only children whose parents provided
consent completed the study protocol. Children who had a diagnosed speech impairment or were
waiting for a language evaluation were excluded from the study. The sample was composed of
French speaking, principally Caucasian (N=48) children. The average annual household income
of participating families ranged was $80,000 - 100,000. Furthermore, 44% of the mothers had
completed educational training further than high school, and 44% also had a university degree.
Measures
Emotional understanding. The Affect Knowledge Test (AKT: Denham, 1986) is a
widely used measure of two central dimensions of preschoolers’ EU (Trentacosta & Fine, 2010),
emotion recognition and emotion situation knowledge. The AKT utilizes puppets to elicit young
children’s understanding of four common emotions (happy, sad, angry and afraid). In the
receptive portion of the assessment, children were asked to non-verbally identify the puppets’
facial expressions of emotion by pointing to them. To assess children’s expressive EU,
experimenters asked children to verbally name each emotion. Two points were given for a
correct answer, 1 point for identifying the correct valence only, and 0 points for a wrong answer.
Emotion situation knowledge was assessed using vignettes representing the puppets in
stereotypical (e.g., fear after having a nightmare) and non-stereotypical emotion-eliciting
situations (e.g., happiness after having a nightmare). After each vignette, the child was asked
how the puppet felt and was encouraged to choose the emotions the puppet was feeling in the
scenario.
Studies examining the psychometric properties of the AKT revealed that it is a reliable
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 11
method for assessing emotional understanding in preschoolers, with Cronbach’s alphas between
0.71 to 0.84 for the emotion situation knowledge portion (Bassett, Denham, Mincic, & Graling,
2012; Miller et al., 2006). The AKT also has demonstrated predictive and concurrent validity
with measures of social competence (Bassett et al., 2012; Denham et al., 2003). In the present
study, Cronbach’s alphas ranged from 0.79 to 0.87. Researchers summarize AKT scores in
different ways, with some studies reporting overall mean EU scores across the entire measure
(averaging children’s scores across the four subscales; e.g. Denham & Kochanoff, 2002), with
some assessing EU across the two dimensions of recognition and knowledge (averaging the two
subscales comprising each dimension; e.g., Denham et al., 2012), and others using children’s
scores on single subscale (e.g., Morgan, Izard, & King, 2010).
Aggressive behavior. The MacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire - Teacher
Form (HBQ: Armstrong, Goldstein, & The MacArthur Working Group on Outcome Assessment,
2003) was used to assess physical and relational aggression. Teachers were asked how many
times (0=never; 1=sometimes; 2=often) in the last 6 months the child had behaved aggressively.
The physical aggression scale consists of four items (e.g., taunts and teases other children, kicks,
bites, or hits) and the relational aggression scale consists of six items (e.g., when mad at peer,
keeps that peer from being in the play group, tells a peer that they won't be invited to his/her
birthday party unless that peer does what he/she wants).
Social functioning. The HBQ was also used to assess social functioning. The peer
acceptance scale consists of 8 items (e.g., is liked by other children who seek him/her out for
play, has lots of friends at school), the victimization scale has 3 items (e.g., is picked on by other
children), and the prosocial behavior scale has 20 items (e.g., offers to share materials or tools
being used in a task, will invite bystanders to join in a game). For each item, teachers were asked
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 12
how much the item described the child (1 = not at all like; 2 = very little like; 3 = somewhat like;
4 = very much like). In children ages 4 to 8, HBQ teacher reports have good short-term test-retest
reliability (Essex et al., 2002). In this sample, the internal consistency of these scales was good,
with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.83 to 0.96.
Covariates.
Language skills. Children’s receptive language skills were assessed using the French
version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R: Dunn, Thériault-Whalen, &
Dunn, 1993). The PPVT-R was chosen because it has been found to be a good indicator of
language skills (Dunn & Dunn 1981) and shows a good test-retest reliability (r = .84) after 11
months). Children were presented with four drawings and asked to point to the picture
representing the target word. The test is standardized with a mean of 100 and a standard
deviation of 15. The age-standardized scores were used as the language skills index in our
analyses.
Intellectual functioning. Children completed the Block Design subscale of the Wechsler
Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-III: Wechsler, 2002), which we used as a
measure of general intelligence. This subscale is a good predictor of global IQ, and internal
consistency of the subscales alone is .81 (WPPS-III Canadian Manual, 2004). The standardized
scores were used in the analyses.
Procedure
The children met with the principal investigator for approximately 30 minutes, and
completed the WPPSI-III Block Design, PPVT-R and AKT. After the meeting, the children
chose a small gift as compensation. Teachers completed questionnaires about the children’s
aggressive behavior and social functioning before the child completed his/her assessment.
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 13
Results
All variables, means, standard deviations, t-tests comparing the aggressive and control
groups, and effect sizes are reported in Table 1. There were no group-related differences in age,
language skills, or IQ. The group identified as aggressive by teachers had significantly higher
levels of physical aggression and relational aggression as measured on the HBQ.
Bivariate correlations between all variables are presented in Table 2. Given that
stereotypical and non-stereotypical scales from the emotion situation knowledge section of the
AKT were highly intercorrelated, we created a mean index of emotion situation knowledge, as
has been done in prior studies (e.g., Denham et al., 2012). Emotion situation knowledge was
positively correlated with language skills and negatively correlated with physical aggression.
Physical and relational aggression were negatively correlated with peer acceptance and prosocial
behavior. In addition, physical aggression was positively correlated with victimization. Peer
acceptance and victimization were negatively correlated.
To capitalize on the richness of this data source, we assessed each research question using
two data analytic methods. First, we compared the aggressive and non-aggressive groups of
children using data analytic methods appropriate for use with categorical data. Second, we used
continuous measures of aggression (physical and relational) to explore associations with
constructs of interest, thereby exploiting the additional power of the dimensional data.
Hypothesis Testing
Associations between EU and aggression. The results of an analysis of covariance
(ANCOVA) revealed that after controlling for demographic covariates, language skills, and
intellectual functioning, group was a significant predictor of expressive EU and receptive EU
(see Table 3), with children in the aggressive group exhibiting lower expressive EU and greater
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 14
receptive EU. Group was not a significant predictor of emotion situation knowledge. Child sex
did not moderate any of these associations.
Next we explored these links using continuous measures of aggressive behavior. A
regression analysis revealed that, after controlling for demographic covariates, language skills,
and intellectual functioning in the first step, expressive EU and emotion situation knowledge
were not associated with physical aggression; child sex did not moderate these associations.
Receptive EU was a significant predictor of physical aggression, such that children higher in
receptive EU had higher levels of teacher-reported physical aggression (see Table 3B); in
addition, child sex significantly moderated this association,
D
R2= .09, p = .03 – specifically, the
association between receptive EU and physical aggression trended toward being positive among
females, b = .12, p = .06, and toward being negative among males, b = -.22, p = .12.
In terms of relational aggression, neither expressive EU, receptive EU, or emotion
situation knowledge were significant predictors (see Table 3C). Child sex did not moderate the
association between expressive EU or emotion situation knowledge. However, the interaction
between receptive EU and sex was a significant predictor of relational aggression,
D
R2= .09, p =
.03. The association between receptive EU and physical aggression trended toward being
positive among females, b = .11, p = .08, and toward being negative among males, b = -.14, p =
.11.
Associations between aggression and social functioning. ANCOVAs demonstrated that
group was a significant predictor of peer acceptance and prosocial behavior (see Table 4), such
that children in the aggressive group were rated as lower in both aspects of social functioning
than children in the non-aggressive group. Group was not a significant predictor of peer
victimization and child sex did not moderate any of these associations.
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 15
We also explored the associations between aggression and social functioning using
continuous measures of aggressive behavior. After controlling for covariates, physical aggression
was significantly associated with peer acceptance and prosocial behavior, such that children with
greater physical aggression were rated as lower in both (see Table 4B); child sex did not
moderate these associations. Physical aggression was also associated with peer victimization,
with children higher in physical aggression experiencing more victimization. Inclusion of the
physical aggression x sex interaction revealed a trend-level effect,
D
R2= .07, p = .05, with the
simple slopes suggesting that higher physical aggression was positively associated with more
victimization only among females, b = .94, p = .01, but not among males, b = -.09, p = .81.
Further, relational aggression was negatively associated with peer acceptance and
prosocial behavior (see Table 4C). Finally, relational aggression was not a significant predictor
of peer victimization, and child sex did not moderate any of these associations.
Associations between EU and social functioning as a function of group membership.
Our final set of analyses involved testing whether group membership (aggressive,
comparison) moderates the association between EU and social functioning. To restrict the
number of analyses conducted, here we only examined links between EU and peer acceptance
because this was the aspect of social functioning we anticipated would be most likely to differ as
a function of group status. After controlling for covariates and main effects, R2= .36, p = .001, we
found that group membership was a significant moderator of the link between expressive EU and
peer acceptance,
D
R2= .07, p = .03. Analysis of the simple slopes revealed that only among
children in the aggressive group, b = .15, p = .03, but not the comparison group, b = .02, p = .48,
was expressive EU positively associated with peer acceptance (see Figure 1). There was no
three-way interaction with child sex. Group membership did not moderate the association
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 16
between receptive EU,
D
R2= .01, p = .40, or EU situation knowledge,
D
R2= .03, p = .19.
Discussion
The purpose of the current study was to examine the relations between EU, aggression
and social functioning in the service of contributing to our understanding of the underpinnings of
aggressive behavior problems in young children. The findings revealed that while children
identified as aggressive have lower expressive EU, they have higher receptive EU; in turn,
consistent with prior research, children identified as aggressive show lower levels of social
functioning. In addition, expressive EU is associated with higher social competence only among
children identified as aggressive. The findings present a nuanced picture of the links between
these constructs in preschoolers, but generally suggest that deficits in expressive EU are
associated with aggression and are particularly important in predicting social competence among
aggressive children. Pending replication and extension of this work, these findings may have
implications for the prevention and treatment of aggressive behavior problems.
EU and Aggression
The findings revealed that the children identified by teachers as aggressive showed
significantly poorer skills in naming emotions (expressive EU) while demonstrating superior
skills in perceiving/identifying emotions (receptive EU). In other words, aggressive children
were worse at generating emotion names to match with puppets, although they were better at
recognizing which puppet was displaying which emotion. The relative deficit in expressive EU
exhibited by the aggressive group is consistent with the findings of prior work (Trentacosta &
Fine, 2010).
It is possible that aggressive children’s higher levels of receptive EU may be a result of
psychoeducational training. As previously noted, aggressive children are exposed to more
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 17
conflictual situations (Rubin, Burgess, Dwyer, & Hastings, 2003) increasing the odds of
exposure to situations where parents and educators may discuss, explain and teach about
emotions, with emotional talk known to facilitate the development of EU in preschoolers (Aznar
& Tenenbaum, 2013; Ornaghi, Grazzani, Cherubin, Conte, & Piralli, 2014). This kind of learning
may have been possible because of the co-occurrence of high socioeconomic status and
expressive language ability within this sample, but before drawing this conclusion, replication of
these effects is a necessity. If this interpretation is correct and the aggressive group has received
more emotion recognition training than the comparison group, over time, this could facilitate a
reduction in aggressive behaviour problems in these children as they learn to use EU as a tool to
modulate aggressive responses.
It is noteworthy that the associations between aggression group and EU effects persist
after controlling for language skills, suggesting they are not entirely attributable to sex
differences in verbal fluency (Lange, Euler, & Zaretsky, 2016). The correlational design of this
study does not enable us to ascertain whether higher receptive EU is a cause, a consequence, or a
non-casually related correlate of relational aggression, but we hope that future investigations will
explore this issue. Prior work suggests that adults are more likely to discuss emotional states with
girls as compared to boy children (Fivush, 1989); perhaps this sex difference in emotion
socialization practices is heightened among girls displaying relational aggression.
Of note is that our analyses involving dimensional aggression scores revealed a more
complicated picture. Specifically, when examining dimensional aggression scores, we only
found evidence of a positive association between physical aggression and receptive EU, but did
not find a negative association between aggression and expressive EU. Although a meta-analysis
identified negative associations between physical aggression and EU in preschoolers
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 18
(Trentacosta & Fine, 2010), these researchers found stronger associations between these
constructs in clinical as compared to in community samples. Further, although prior work has
reported positive associations between relational aggression and receptive EU in older children
(Sutton et al., 2001), in this study relational aggression and receptive EU were not associated, but
we found links between physical aggression and receptive EU. Future studies are necessary to
identify whether the discrepancy in these findings across investigations reflect developmental
differences or are better explained by other factors.
We believe that these discrepancies in the pattern of findings obtained when using the
categorical and the dimensional assessments of aggression suggest that the reputation-level
aggression variable discriminates more clearly between children demonstrating deficits in
expressive EU and strengths in receptive EU. Perhaps as compared to the dimensional
assessment, which is comprised of counts of aggressive behaviors, the reputation-level variable
better captures the social-contextual factors in which aggression occurs—for instance, its impact
on others. In other words, the degree to which children’s behavior stands out as disruptive or
aggressive, which may in part be a result of its appropriateness given social-contextual
conditions, is a stronger predictor of deficits in social functioning and EU. One potential
implication of this finding is that teacher nominations may be a stronger indicator of need for
intervention than teacher symptom ratings.
Aggression and Social Functioning
Consistent with prior work, aggressive children were characterized by teachers as being
less socially competent in terms of the degree of peer acceptance and prosocial behavior.
Aggressive girls, but not boys, were more likely to be victimized by peers. Children showing
higher relational aggression also had lower levels of peer acceptance and prosocial behavior but
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 19
were not more likely to be victimized by peers. These findings are similar to those emerging
from prior studies reporting concurrent associations between aggression and impairments in
social functioning (e.g., Crick et al., 1997; Dedham et al., 2002). It is noteworthy that although
more aggressive preschoolers had lower acceptance and prosocial behavior, there was not as
strong an association between aggression and victimization, with the exception of the link
between physical aggression and victimization for girls. At this early stage of development,
when children’s peer relationships and social selves are newly forming, aggression may not
necessarily result in victimization, potentially because aggressive behavior may result in peers
feeling frightened of children who aggress and therefore less likely to victimize them. Perhaps
girls showing more physically aggressive behaviors are more likely to be victimized as a result
of the fact that aggression is less normative for girls (Russell et al., 2003) or because the
physically aggressive acts used by girls may be less intimidating to peers. We hope that future
studies will address the limitations in our ability to draw conclusions based on the cross-sectional
nature of this investigation.
EU and Social Functioning
Our final analyses involved an examination of the associations between EU and social
functioning separately by group. Higher expressive EU was associated with higher acceptance
for children in the aggressive group only. The findings also revealed that only when children
were at mean or lower levels of expressive EU were the aggressive group children significantly
less accepted than the comparison group children. In other words, it appears to be the
combination of low expressive EU and aggressive group membership that confers risk for lower
levels of peer acceptance. The same was not true for receptive EU, which was not associated
with peer acceptance in either group. Receptive EU may be a more complicated construct in
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 20
terms of its association with aggression and social functioning than expressive EU, perhaps
because it can result from post-conflict remediation training, as described above, and perhaps
also because in some cases better receptive EU can facilitate effective aggression.
It is also interesting that only children with poorer expressive EU were at elevated risk of
social funcionting difficulties. As with our other findings, we wonder whether the fact that
aggressive group membership was not associated with lower peer acceptance at all levels of
expressive EU is in part due to the developmental period in which we assessed these constructs.
Perhaps it is only during the school- age period, after children’s peer relationships have increased
in significance and stabilized that aggressive behavior on its own predicts lower levels of peer
acceptance, while during the early preschool stage, children must possess both factors (lower
expressive EU and aggressive behavior) in order to have lower acceptance from peers.
Alternatively, expressive EU may serve an important role in buffering against negative social
outcomes when children exhibit aggressive behavior.
The fact that expressive EU in particular was associated with peer acceptance among
children in the aggressive group can be understood in terms of a mentalization framework and
research. Scholars suggest that explicit forms of mentalizing, the type of mentalizing that occurs
with effort, may be particularly important for developing cognitive control and regulation of
affect at the personal level and communication about affect at the interpersonal level (Fonagy &
Luyten, 2009). For preschoolers who tend to be more aggressive, acquiring explicit mentalizing
skills may be an important tool to facilitate cognitive control and communication about affect,
that may eventually decrease or replace the propensity to express aggression behaviorally.
Implications for practice and policy
Given the importance of reducing aggressive and violent behavior in youth (Loeber et al.,
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 21
2009), identifying ways of simultaneously promoting resilience and reducing risk of maladaptive
behaviors is of the utmost importance. As a building block of mentalization, EU constitutes a
transdiagnostic protective factor against the development of psychopathology in the face of
adversity (e.g., Abate, Marshall, Sharp, & Venta, 2017; Ensink et al., 2017), and is associated
with lower risk of aggressive behavior in children. Our results suggest that lower expressive EU
and higher receptive EU are associated with more aggressive behavior. Integrating a focus on the
promotion of expressive EU capacities such as naming emotions to existing positive youth
development programs may enhance their effectiveness in preventing aggression.
Further, our results provide preliminary evidence that the preschool years may be an ideal
time during which to intervene to prevent the development of social consequences stemming
from aggression. During this age range, the associations between EU and social functioning are
limited, and high levels of expressive EU are protective for aggressive children’s peer
acceptance. Thus, finding ways to enhance children’s expressive EU has the potential to shield
them from negative impacts of aggression on social functioning and may also provide tools
which may help reduce aggressive behavior over the long term.
Limitations
The study had several strengths. First, the fact that we controlled for verbal and
intellectual abilities enabled us to confirm that EU contributes independently to aggression.
Second, our use of multiple intersecting and diverging methods of key study constructs allowed
us to have a high level of methodological precision.
However, a number of limitations must be considered when interpreting the findings.
First, due to the small sample size, the statistical power could have limited our capacity to detect
smaller effects. This may be particularly limiting in terms of our examination of child sex as a
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 22
moderator of these associations, for which our design was underpowered. We elected to examine
child sex as a moderator based on prior findings regarding differences across sexes in the
strength or direction of the links of aggression with social functioning (Ettekal & Ladd, 2015),
but it is possible that our small sample prevented us from identifying real sex effects in the data.
Also, given the concurrent nature of the data collection, we cannot infer direction of causality,
and the relationships between variables are likely to be bidirectional. Second, the CBCL scores
used to confirm the accuracy of teacher nominations were overlapping, so we cannot be certain
that our two groups were different in terms of symptom scores.
Future research is needed to examine other dimensions of aggression (e.g., reactive and
proactive) as well as other dimensions of emotion (e.g., emotion reactivity) for their associations
with these constructs.
Conclusion
In sum, we provide preliminary evidence regarding the specificity of the links between
EU, aggression, and social functioning in preschoolers. We offer this information in the hope
that it will inform and inspire future investigation into this topic. Doing so has the potential to
inform intervention and prevention efforts.
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION 23
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EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION
34
Table 3. Associations between group and EU.
Table 3B. Associations between physical aggression and EU.
Table 3C. Associations between relational aggression and EU.
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION
35
Table 4. Associations between group and social functioning.
Table 4B. Associations between physical aggression and social functioning.
Table 4C. Associations between relational aggression and social functioning.
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND AGGRESSION
36
Figure 1. Group membership moderates the association between expressive emotional
understanding and peer acceptance.*
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
Low,EU Mean,EU High,EU
Peer$Acceptance
Aggressive
Comparison
b=,.16*
b=,02
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... Additionally, aggressors and aggressor/victims may lack the positive social skills needed to build and maintain friendships. They might struggle with empathy, conflict resolution, and effective communication (Kemple et al., 2019;Laurent et al., 2020;Veiga et al., 2022), making it harder for them to form positive connections with their peers, contributing to their lower social preference. ...
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Thesis
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Chapter
The goal of this chapter is to understand emotion as a fundamental aspect of a more general information-processing system. Many accounts of information-processing structures, mechanisms, and functions have depicted the human organism as a cold, calculating chunk of hardware; indeed, the common analogy has been to a computer (Dodge, 1986; Simon, 1967). In this chapter, however, I propose that this analogy ignores the varying arousal states of the organism and fails to embed the cognitive activities of the organism in an individual ecology that includes arousal regulation, goal construction, affective experience, and discrete emotional expression. The human information processor is an interactive part of his or her environment, experiencing and transforming stimulus information as well as receptively processing it. My thesis does not posit a separate emotional system that is distinct from the information-processing system (such as Zajonc, 1980, argued). Likewise, I do not believe that some information-processing is emotionally laden and other processing is nonemotional. Rather, borrowing from Piaget (1962, 1973) and Cowan (1978, 1982), I propose that all information processing is emotional, in that emotion is the energy level that drives, organizes, amplifies, and attenuates cognitive activity and in turn is the experience and expression of this activity. There is no such act that is nonemotional; rather, emotion is a descriptor of experience and processing activity (such as “anxious” vigilance or “detached” problem solving). Even though emotion cannot be divorced from the information-processing system, we commonly refer to aspects of emotion as separate from other aspects of information-processing, such as the feelings we experience in response to the perception of events (e.g., feeling afraid of the dark) and the effects of emotion on attention (e.g., being distracted by anxiety related to an upcoming exam).
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