Interesting interactions

Today, I present three studies that involve important relationships. First, Laugen, Kårstad, Reinfjell & Wichstrøm (2023) published “The Development of Emotion Understanding in Children: The importance of parents, teachers, and peers” in Developmental Psychology.  Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

Emotion understanding (EU) develops through emotion socialization provided by children’s social environments, but the relative importance of various socializing agents has not been determined. In this prospective study, the unique contributions of parents, teachers, and peers to changes in EU from 4 to 8 years of age were therefore investigated in a birth cohort sample of 924 Norwegian children (50.1% boys). A warm parent–child relationship at 4 years of age predicted increased EU at 6 years of age but not from 6 to 8 years of age. A close teacher–child relationship forecasted enhanced EU at both 6 and 8 years of age. The results are in accordance with previous research on parents’ roles and bring new knowledge by underscoring the importance of teachers in children’s development of EU. This study of Norwegian 4- to 8-year-old children suggests that the parent–child relationship as perceived by the child predicts their later development of emotion understanding (EU) in the preschool years. After school entry, however, the teacher–child relationship predicts later EU development. Thus, to promote children’s emotional competence, interventions that support emotion socialization behaviors might need to be directed not only to parents but also to teachers. 

This is a large and balanced sample with important findings. I find it especially interesting that teachers have more power than parents in helping 6-8-year-old children develop emotion understanding. The next study is not surprising but important. Little et al. (2022) published “The Discrimination of Self from Other as a Component of Empathy” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:

Despite the centrality of empathy in human social life, there is no widely agreed definition or characterization of the concept of empathy. A common thread in many of the proposed definitions, however, is that empathy presupposes the discrimination of self and other on the grounds that, to empathize with another individual, the mental state of the target individual must first be distinguished from the empathizer's own mental state. The purpose of this study is to investigate this proposal empirically. We employed a paradigm in which participants rated the emotional valence and degree of arousal of 93 facial expressions of mental states. We asked participants to infer the mental state represented by each facial expression (the Other condition) as well as to describe the effect of the expression on their own mental state (the Self condition). An absolute difference score between the Other and the Self conditions was used as an index of a capacity for self–other discrimination. Empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Results show that individuals high in trait empathy discriminate between self and other to a significantly greater degree when judging mental states than individuals low in trait empathy. This suggests that the capacity for self–other discrimination may be a component of the capacity for empathy and that future investigations of the concept of empathy ought to retain it. 

Although facial expression may not be the only way we learn empathy, it is a fairly common one. This seemed to me to be one of those studies that may be, in part, “the systematic study of the obvious” but may also be helpful to practitioners and as part of psychological testing. Finally,

Reider, Kim, Mahaffey & LoBue (2023) published “The Impact of Household Pets on Children’s Daily Lives: Differences in parent–child conversations and implications for children’s emotional development” in Developmental Psychology. Here is the edited abstract:

Living with a pet is related to a host of socioemotional health benefits for children, yet few studies have examined the mechanisms that drive the relations between pet ownership and positive socioemotional outcomes. The current study examined one of the ways that pets may change the environment through which children learn and whether childhood pet ownership might promote empathy and prosocial behavior through parent–child conversations about emotions and mental states in the presence of a pet dog. Participants included 123 parent (118 mothers, four fathers) and child (65 female, 58 male, Mage = 39.50 months, 75 White, not Hispanic, nine Asian/Pacific Islander, seven Hispanic, five Black/African American, two South Asian/Indian, two American Indian/Alaska Native, two “other,” 21 more than one race, 111 residing in the United States) dyads currently living with a pet dog (n = 61) or having never lived with a pet dog (n = 62). As hypothesized, we found that parents used a greater proportion of emotion and mental state language with their children when playing with their pet dog than with a lifelike toy, suggesting that the presence of a household pet may be one context used to promote conversations about emotions and mental states. 

I love this study, in part because I am a dog lover; cat lovers will have to wait for a different study. I also find it fascinating that a real dog makes the difference in the language parents use.  Taken together, these three simple studies suggest that (1) teachers in grades k-2, (2) experience reading the mental state of others through visual clues, and (3) parental engagement with their children and dogs matter to children’s development of important skills.