Emotion transmission in middle childhood

I recently encountered two articles that I think are helpful. First, Hubbard, Moore, Zajac, Bookhout & Dozier (2023) published “Emotion Transmission in Peer Dyads in Middle Childhood” in Child Development. Here’s the abstract with some information in bold:

This study investigated emotion transmission among peers during middle childhood. Participants included 202 children (111 males; race: 58% African American, 20% European American, 16% Mixed race, 1% Asian American, and 5% Other; ethnicity: 23% Latino(a) and 77% Not Latino(a); Mincome = $42,183, SDincome = $43,889; Mage = 9.49; English-speaking; from urban and suburban areas of a mid-Atlantic state in the United States). Groups of four same-sex children interacted in round-robin dyads in 5-min tasks during 2015–2017. Emotions (happy, sad, angry, anxious, and neutral) were coded and represented as percentages of 30-s intervals. Analyses assessed whether children's emotion expression in one interval predicted change in partners' emotion expression in the next interval. Findings suggested: (a) escalation of positive and negative emotion [children's positive (negative) emotion predicts an increase in partners' positive (negative) emotion], and (b) de-escalation of positive and negative emotion (children's neutral emotion predicts a decrease in partners' positive or negative emotion). Importantly, de-escalation involved children's display of neutral emotion and not oppositely valenced emotion.

Mills, Tenenbaum & Askew (2023) published “Effects of Peer Vicarious Experience and Low Effortful Control on Children's Anxiety in Social Performance Situations” in Developmental Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement, again with some information in bold: 

Two experiments investigated perceived and physiological changes in anxiety in children (7–11 years; N = 222; 98 female) in a performance situation after they observed another child in a similar situation with a negative or neutral outcome. The sample's London, United Kingdom, school catchment areas ranged from low to high socioeconomic statuses with 31% to 49% of children from ethnic minority backgrounds. In Study 1, participants watched one of two films of a child playing a simple musical instrument (a kazoo). In one film, an audience of peers responds negatively to the performance. In the other film, the audience response was neutral. Participants were then filmed playing the instrument themselves and measures of perceived and actual heart rate were taken along with individual differences in trait social anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and effortful control. To better understand findings from Study 1, Study 2 replicated Study 1 but added a manipulation check and measures of effortful control and self-reported anxiety. Multiple regression analyses found watching a negative performance film, compared with a neutral one, was associated with a blunted heart rate response for children with low effortful control (Study 1 and 2). These findings suggest that children who are low in effortful control may disengage during performance tasks if the situation's social threat is elevated. Hierarchical regression analyses found that, compared to the neutral film, the negative performance film elevated children's self-report anxiety (Study 2). Overall, the findings indicated that anxiety in performance situations can be elevated after observing peers’ negative experiences. These studies show that children's own feelings of performance-related anxiety are influenced by observing peers' experiences and poor self-regulation may alter how increased social threat is processed. Findings suggest negative experiences of peers in social contexts could contribute to children's anxiety development. 

What I find most interesting about these articles is the power of neutral responses in social learning settings. The first study illustrates that neutral responses facilitate de-escalation; being overly positive to someone who just expressed negative affect is less helpful than a more neutral stance. Ordinarily, however, affect catalyzes matched affect – positivity begets positivity and negativity begets negativity. In the second article, we learn that, if you are inclined to be anxious, watching someone else’s performance received badly escalates your performance anxiety, while watching someone perform with a neutral response does not. Taken together, these studies may explain how young children prone to low effortful control can be adversely impacted in peer settings.