About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 23. Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

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Everyday interactions between parents and young children shape the quality of their parent-child relationship and influence the development of children’s social behaviors. Prior research based on parent reports and observational methods as core evidence has established that child secure attachment is related to more frequent prosocial behaviors and less frequent aggression (e.g., Deneault et al., 2023; Gross et al., 2017; Hay et al., 2021). In the current project we assessed these same relations with new measures, and added further novelty by including 4- to 10-year-olds self-reported beliefs along with parent reports of children. In doing so, we aimed to elevate the largely unexplored territory of young children’s personal perceptions of their attachment-related emotions (anxiety and avoidance in relation to the parent relationship) and their social behaviors (prosociality and aggression).
Four- to 10-year-olds (N=148) reported the frequency (5-point pictorial scale from “none of the time” to “all of the time”) of their attachment-related emotions and of their prosocial and aggressive actions using new scales adapted from prior research with older children (e.g., “It helps me to talk to my mom when I feel bad”). Parents responded to the same items from their child’s perspective (e.g., “It helps my child to talk to me when she feels bad;” see Table 1).
Children and parents had acceptable internal consistency when reporting child attachment-related emotions (Child=.71 ; Parent=.81), prosociality (Child=.72; Parent=.76), and aggression (Child=.74; Parent=.78). Controlling for child age, mothers and children shared some agreement on children’s attachment-related emotions (r=.25, p<.001) and prosociality (r=.18, p=.030); however, they held unrelated views on the child’s aggression (r=.07, p=.390).
Consistent with prior literature, when examining parent reports of children, there was a positive association between attachment-related emotions and prosociality, controlling for child age (rs=.35, p<.001), as well as negative correlations between attachment and aggression (rs<-.36, p<.001) and prosociality and aggression (rs<-.40, p<.001). These same significant patterns appeared based on child’s own self-reports: A positive correlation between attachment-related emotions and prosociality (rs<.32, p<.001), as well as negative associations between attachment and aggression (rs<-.36, p<.001) and prosociality and aggression (rs<-.28, p<.001; see Figure 1).
Interrelations among scores from our three new measures support past empirical and theoretical work: Parent reports of children’s attachment-related emotions and prosociality were positively related; attachment-related emotions and aggression were negatively related; and prosociality and aggression were negatively related. New to this research, children’s self-reports followed these same meaningful and coherent patterns, boosting confidence in the validity of these self-views. Despite these consistent triadic relations in both reporters, children provided different perspectives about their emotional and social lives than parents reported on their behalf. These data are exciting because they unlock new opportunities to explore how young children’s attachment-related emotions and social behaviors connect to a wide range of important developmental outcomes by incorporating young children’s own self-perspectives into these research inquiries.

Author information

Author	Role
Maritza Miramontes, University of California, Davis	Presenting author
Hannah Kramer, University of Wisconsin, Madison	Non-presenting author
Karen H. Lara, Southwestern University	Non-presenting author
Kristin H. Lagattuta, University of California, Davis	Non-presenting author

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