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Biomedical subjects

Nancy Eisenberg

Publications and source records attributed to Nancy Eisenberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

Empathy-related responding and prosocial behaviour.

In this paper I differentiate among empathy, sympathy and personal distress and discuss the central role of empathy-related responding in positive (including moral) development. Empathy-related responding, especially sympathy, is likely an important source of prosocial, other-oriented motivation. In fact, empathy-related responding, especially sympathy, has been associated with prosocial behaviour (voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another, e.g. helping, sharing); this relation has been obtained for both specific instances of empathy-related responding and for dispositional sympathy. In addition, sympathy (or sometimes empathy) has been linked to relatively high levels of moral reasoning and social competence, and to low levels of aggression and antisocial behaviour. In my talk, I will review research on the relation of empathy-related responding to prosocial behaviour, the consistency of costly prosocial behaviour over time and the possible role of sympathy in its consistency, and the relation of empathy-related responding to moral reasoning, antisocial behaviour and social competence. Examples of research, including longitudinal research in our laboratory, are provided to illustrate these relations. Because of its close relations to social and prosocial responding, an understanding of empathy-related responding contributes to efforts to promote children's moral development.

Emotions↗
PubMed2006

Children's coping strategies and coping efficacy: relations to parent socialization, child adjustment, and familial alcoholism.

The relations of children's coping strategies and coping efficacy to parent socialization and child adjustment were examined in a sample of school-age children that included families in which some of the grandparents and/or parents had an alcoholism diagnosis. Parents and older children reported on the children's coping strategies; parents reported on their parenting behavior; and teachers reported on children's externalizing and internalizing problems. Measures of parent socialization were associated with parents' and children's reports of active coping strategies and parents' reports of both support-seeking coping and coping efficacy. Some of these relations were moderated by familial alcohol status. Children higher in parent-reported active/support-seeking coping and coping efficacy were rated lower in teacher-reported externalizing and internalizing adjustment problems. The findings were consistent with the view that active/support-seeking coping and coping efficacy mediated the association of parent socialization to children's psychological adjustment and that this relation was sometimes moderated by parental alcohol status.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2006

Relations among mothers' expressivity, children's effortful control, and their problem behaviors: a four-year longitudinal study.

Longitudinal relations between mothers' expressivity, children's effortful control, and their problem behaviors were examined when children (N = 181) were 6.5-10 years old (T2) and again 2 (T3) and 4 (T4) years later. Mothers reported on their expression of positive and negative dominant emotion. Mothers and teachers reported on children's effortful control and externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. In structural equation models, variables exhibited consistency over time. Further, the relation between mothers' expressivity (positive minus negative dominant emotion) at T2 and children's externalizing problems at T4 was mediated by T3 effortful control. The same process of mediation was significant for teacher- but not mother-reported internalizing problems. The results provide one explanation for how emotion-related socializing behaviors influence children's problem behaviors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Relation of emotion-related regulation to children's social competence: a longitudinal study.

The differential relations of children's emotion-related regulation (i.e., effortful control and impulsivity) to their personality resiliency, adult-rated popularity, and social competence were examined in children who were 4.5-7.9 years old and who were remeasured 2 years later. Parents and teachers reported on all constructs, and children's attentional persistence was observed. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediating role of resiliency on the relations between regulation/control and popularity using two-wave longitudinal data. The results provide some evidence of the mediating role of resiliency in the relations between effortful control and popularity, provide some evidence of bidirectional effects, and also buttress the view that emotional regulation should be differentiated into effortful and reactive forms of control.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2005

The relations of problem behavior status to children's negative emotionality, effortful control, and impulsivity: concurrent relations and prediction of change.

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 emotionality, regulation, and behavior control; behavioral measures of regulation also were obtained. In general, both internalizing and externalizing problems were associated with negative emotionality. Externalizers were low in effortful regulation and high in impulsivity, whereas internalizers, compared with nondisordered children, were low in impulsivity but not effortful control. Moreover, indices of negative emotionality, regulation, and impulsivity with the level of the same variables 2 years before controlled predicted stability versus change in problem behavior status.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

Preschoolers' effortful control and negative emotionality, immediate reactions to disappointment, and quality of social functioning.

Relations among effortful control/low negative emotionality, immediate reactions in a situation that usually calls for the masking of disappointment (i.e., the use of display rules), and social competence/adjustment were investigated for 78 preschool children (mean age=4.87 years). Parents, teachers, and peers rated children on negative emotionality and/or effortful control as well as on social competence/adjustment. Children who were rated by parents and teachers as high on effortful control/low on negative emotionality expressed fewer immediate verbal/gestural indicators of disappointment in the presence of an unfamiliar adult and were perceived by their parents, teachers, and peers as socially competent and well adjusted. The pattern of findings was consistent with the view that children's immediate verbal/gestural reactions to disappointment partially mediated the relations between effortful control (as reported by parents) and social competence/adjustment.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

The expression and regulation of negative emotions: risk factors for young children's peer victimization.

Using a short-term longitudinal design, internalizing and externalizing emotions were examined as risk factors for being victimized by peers in early childhood. Regulation, aggression, and withdrawal were also tested as mediators. We found that anger, mediated by aggression and regulation, positively predicted being victimized, although the way in which anger related to victimization risk varied for boys and girls and across time. These findings were robust, particularly for girls, attesting to the importance of externalizing variables as risk factors for young children's victimization. Support for internalizing variables as risk factors for being victimized was weak. The implications of the findings for developmental models connecting symptomatology and victimization are discussed.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2004

The relation of children's everyday nonsocial peer play behavior to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning.

The relations of children's nonsocial behavior to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning were examined in a short-term longitudinal study. Parents (primarily mothers) and teachers rated children's effortful regulation, emotionality, asocial behaviors, problem behaviors, and social acceptance, and children's nonsocial play behaviors were observed for two semesters. Peers also rated likability. Children's observed reticent activities were related to adults' ratings of high regulation, low externalizing problems, and high asocial behavior, as well as to low anger and low positive emotion. On the other hand, solitary play was associated with low positive emotion and low regulation over time and with high asocial behavior and high peer exclusion. Peer rejection mediated the relation of internalizing emotions (anxiety, low positive emotion) and regulation to solitary play later in the school year, and asocial play mediated the relation of internalizing emotions to both solitary and reticent play behavior.

Antisocial Personality Disorder↗
PubMed2004

Chinese children's effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration: relations to parenting styles and children's social functioning.

Relations among authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, children's effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration, and children's social functioning were examined for 425 first and second graders (7-10 years old) in Beijing, China. Parents reported on parenting styles; parents and teachers rated children's effortful control, anger/frustration, externalizing problems, and socially appropriate behaviors: and peers rated aggression and leadership/sociability. High effortful control and low dispositional anger/frustration uniquely predicted Chinese children's high social functioning, and the relation of anger/frustration to social functioning was moderated by effortful control. Authoritarian parenting was associated with children's low effortful control and high dispositional anger/frustration, which (especially effortful control) mediated the negative relation between authoritarian parenting and children's social functioning. Effortful control weakly mediated the positive relation of authoritative parenting to social functioning.

Anger↗
PubMed2004

The longitudinal relations of regulation and emotionality to quality of Indonesian children's socioemotional functioning.

Data regarding individual differences in children's regulation, emotionality, quality of socioemotional functioning, and shyness were obtained from teachers and peers for 112 Indonesian 6th graders. Similar data (plus parents' reports) also were collected when these children were in 3rd grade. For boys, regulation and low negative emotionality generally predicted positive socioemotional functioning (e.g., social skills, adjustment, prosocial tendencies and peer liking, sympathy) within and across time and across reporters, even at the follow-up when initial levels of regulation or negative emotionality were controlled. For girls, relations were obtained primarily for concurrent teacher reports, probably because girls tended to be fairly well regulated and socially competent and variability in their scores was relatively low. Shyness for both sexes tended to be associated with concurrent measures of low regulation, high negative emotionality, and low quality of social competence.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

Prediction of children's empathy-related responding from their effortful control and parents' expressivity.

In this study, the linear and interactive relations of children's effortful control and parents' emotional expressivity to children's empathy-related responses were examined. Participants were 214 children, 4.5 to 8 years old. Children's effortful control was negatively related to their personal distress and was positively related to their sympathy. Parents' positive expressivity was marginally negatively related to children's personal distress and was marginally positively related to children's dispositional sympathy. Parents' negative expressivity was positively related to children's personal distress, but primarily at high levels of children's effortful control. Moreover, parents' negative expressivity was negatively related to children's situational sympathy at low levels of effortful control but was positively related to children's dispositional sympathy at high levels of effortful control. There were also quadratic relations between the measures of parents' expressivity and children's empathy-related responses.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

The relations of parental expressivity and support to children's coping with daily stress.

The relations of parents' emotional expressivity, mothers' support, and children's daily stress to children's constructive coping were examined in a sample of ninety-four 7- to 12-year-old children. For 2 weeks, children, together with their mothers, completed daily diaries of their stressful events. Mothers and fathers reported on their expression of positive, negative submissive, and negative dominant emotion. Although fathers' expressivity was not related to children's constructive coping, mothers' expression of negative emotion, particularly negative dominant emotion, was negatively related to children's constructive coping. Children's stress was negatively related to their constructive coping, and this relation was stronger for children exposed to low levels of parents' positive emotion and mothers' expression of negative submissive emotion. Children's constructive coping was positively related to mothers' supportive strategies.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2003

Longitudinal relations among parental emotional expressivity, children's regulation, and quality of socioemotional functioning.

The role of regulation as a mediator of the relations between maternal emotional expressivity and children's adjustment and social competence was examined when children (N = 208) were 4.5 to just 8 years old (Time 1, T1) and 2 years later (Time 2, T2). At T2, as at T1, regulation mediated the relation between positive maternal emotional expressivity and children's functioning. When T1 relations and the stability of variables over time were controlled for in a structural equation model, T2 relations generally were nonsignificant, although parents' dominant negative expressivity predicted high regulation. In contrast, in regressions, the findings for parent positive expressivity, but not negative expressivity, held at T2 when T1 variables were controlled. Thus, relations for negative expressivity, but not positive expressivity, changed with age.

Affect↗
PubMed2003

The relations of effortful control and ego control to children's resiliency and social functioning.

The relations of effortful control and ego control to children's (mean age = 137 months) resiliency, social status, and social competence were examined concurrently (Time 3) and over time. Adults reported on the constructs, and a behavioral measure of persistence was obtained. At Time 3, resiliency mediated the unique relations of both effortful and reactive control to social status, and effortful control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior. Negative emotionality moderated the relations of ego and effortful control to socially appropriate behavior. When levels of the variables 2 years prior were accounted for, all relations held at Time 3 except that effortful control did not predict resiliency (even though it was the stronger predictor at Time 3) and ego control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2003

Children's physiological indices of empathy and their socioemotional adjustment: does caregivers' expressivity matter?

Relations of heart rate and skin conductance reactions to mildly evocative empathy-inducing slides with socioemotional functioning were examined for 154 children (mean age = 9 years, 5 months). In addition, maternal expressivity was tested as a moderator of these relations. Parents and teachers rated children's socioemotional functioning, and a behavioral measure of children's regulation was obtained. Boys who exhibited higher skin conductance and higher heart rate to slides depicting negative emotions were better regulated, less emotionally intense, and better adjusted than their peers. Furthermore, boys' regulation and adjustment were positively related to such physiological responding to negative slides if maternal negative expressivity was relatively low or moderate, but not high. Fewer findings were obtained for girls or for positive slides.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2003

The relations of effortful control and reactive control to children's externalizing problems: a longitudinal assessment.

In this study, we examined the role of negative emotionality as a moderator of the relations of effortful control and overcontrol (versus undercontrol) with children's externalizing problem behaviors; we also examined the longitudinal relations among these variables. Teachers' and parents' reports of children's negative emotionality, effortful control, overcontrol and externalizing problem behaviors were obtained at T1 (N=199; M age=89.51 months) and again 2 (T2) and 4 years (T3) later. In addition, children's effortful control was assessed with an observed measure of persistence. In a T3 concurrent structural equation model, effortful control, but not overcontrol, was negatively related to children's T3 externalizing problem behaviors. In regression analyses, the negative relation between T3 effortful control and externalizing problem behaviors was strongest at high levels of T3 negative emotionality. In the best-fitting longitudinal structural equation model, both T1 effortful control and T1 overcontrol negatively predicted externalizing problems at T1, whereas T3 effortful control (but not T3 overcontrol) was significantly negatively related to T3 externalizing problem behaviors when controlling for T1 externalizing problem behaviors.

Affect↗