Comparing subscales of emotion understanding and emotion regulation in preschool children with and without sibling

Subject Areas : Educational

Seyyede Zoha Sakkaki ¹ , Mohammad ali Mazaheri Tehrani ² , Saeed Ghanbari ³ , soudeh Aghamohammadi ⁴

1 - Psychology Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Associate, Psychology Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Psychology Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
4 - Assistant Professor, Psychology Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2019-03-25 Accepted : 2019-10-28 Published : 2021-08-23

Keywords: emotion understanding, sibling, Preschool Children, emotion regulation,

Abstract :

The purpose of this research was to compare emotion understanding and emotion regulation between children with and without sibling. Research method was casual-comparative and statistic population consisted of 4-6 years old children who were present in kindergartens of Tehran city in 2017. From among them, 60 children were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling and matched based on age and sex. Data collection instruments included “emotion matching task” (Izard, Haskins, Schultz, Trentacosta & King, 2003), “emotion situation production task” (Wang, Hutt, Kulkofsky, McDermott & Wei, 2006) and “emotion regulation checklist” (Shields & Cicchetti, 1997). Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA. The result showed that children with sibling, scored significantly higher than only children on emotion understanding and its subscales (emotion situation knowledge, expressive emotion knowledge and receptive emotion knowledge) (p<0.05). They also scored significantly lower than only children on “lability/negativity” subscale of “emotion regulation checklist” (p<0.05) which indicates more balanced emotional reactions. The result of this study suggested that growing up with sibling during preschool years provides unique opportunity for improving children emotional competencies.

References:

Aboutalebi M, Mazaheri M A, Tahmassian K. Training Iranian Mothers High-elaborative, Emotion-rich Conversational Style. (2011). Advances in Cognitive Sciences. 13 (1) :35-50. [Persian]

Akbari Zarradkhaneh S, attari M. (2016). Necessity of Measuring and Reporting Effect Size Measures in Psychological Studies. Rooyesh. 5 (1) :29-46. [Persian]

Chen, Z., & Liu, R. X. (2014). Comparing adolescent only children with those who have siblings on academic related outcomes and psychosocial adjustment. Child development research, 2014, 1–10.

 

Cole, P. M. (2016). Emotion and the development of psychopathology. Developmental psychopathology, 1-60.

Cutting, A. L., & Dunn, J. (1999). Theory of mind, emotion understanding, language, and family background: individual differences and interrelations. Child development, 70(4), 853-865.

Davis-Kean, P. E. (2005). The influence of parent education and family income on child achievement: the indirect role of parental expectations and the home environment. Journal of family psychology, 19(2), 294.

Denham, S. A. (1986). Social cognition, prosocial behavior, and emotion in preschoolers: Contextual validation. Child development, 194-201.

Devine, R. T., & Hughes, C. (2018). Family correlates of false belief understanding in early childhood: A meta‐analysis. Child Development, 89(3), 971-987.

Dirks, M. A., Persram, R., Recchia, H. E., & Howe, N. (2015). Sibling relationships as sources of risk and resilience in the development and maintenance of internalizing and externalizing problems during childhood and adolescence. Clinical psychology review, 42, 145–155.

Downey, D. B., & Condron, D. J. (2004). Playing well with others in kindergarten: The benefit of siblings at home. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66(2), 333–350.

Eisenberg, N., & Spinrad, T.L. (2009). Emotion-related regulation: Sharpening the definition. Child development, 75(2): 334–339.

Farnoudian, P., Asadzade, H., & Ebrahimi-Ghavam, S. (2013). The Relationship between parenting styles with student’s perfectionism and self-regulation and comparison of families with one child and several child. Journal of Researches & Studies of Behavioral Sciences.  5 (16), 99-120. [Persian]

Graham, A. A. (2009). exploring the protective role of siblings in shy children's socio-emotional adjustment (Doctoral dissertation, Carleton University).

Hesarsorkhi, R., Tabibi, Z., Asghari-Nekah, S.M., & Bagheri,. (2016). Effectiveness of Emotionl Competence Training on Improving Emotional Knowledge, Emotional Regulation and Decreasing Agression in Orphans and Abandoned Children. Journal of clinical psychology, 8, 3 (31): 37-48. [Persian]

Howe, N., & Recchia, H. (2014). Sibling relationships as a context for learning and development. Early education and development, 25(2), 155–159.

Hughes, C., & Dunn, J. (1998). Understanding mind and emotion: Longitudinal associations with mental-state talk between young friends. Developmental psychology, 34(5), 1026.

Hughes, C., McHarg, G., & White, N. (2018). Sibling influences on prosocial behavior. Current opinion in psychology, 20, 96–101.

Izard, C. E., Haskins, F. W., Schultz, D., Trentacosta, C. J., & King, K. A. (2003). Emotion matching task. Newark, DE: University of Delaware.

Kramer, L. (2014). Learning emotional understanding and emotion regulation through sibling interaction. Early education and development, 25(2), 160–184.

Lam, C. B., Solmeyer, A. R., & McHale, S. M. (2012). Sibling relationships and empathy across the transition to adolescence. Journal of youth and adolescence, 41(12), 1657-1670.

Leach, J., Howe, N., & Dehart, G. (2015). “An earthquake shocked up the land!” Children’s communication during play with siblings and friends. Social development, 24(1), 95–112.

Leblanc, É., Bernier, A., & Howe, N. (2017). The more the merrier? Sibling composition and early manifestations of Theory of Mind in toddlers. Journal of cognition and development, 18(3), 375–391.

Lindquist, K. A., & Gendron, M. (2013). What’s in a word? Language constructs emotion perception. Emotion review, 5(1), 66–71.

Mahmoudi, M., Borjali, A., Alizadeh, H., Ghobari-Bonab, B.,  Ekhtiari, H., & Akbari-Zardkhaneh, S. (2016). Emotion Regulation in Children with Learning Disorders and Normal Children. Research in School and Virtual Learning, 4 (13), 69-84. [Persian]

Mazzone, S., & Nader-Grosbois, N. (2017). How are parental reactions to children’s emotions linked with Theory of Mind in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder? Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 40, 41–53.

McHale, S. M., Updegraff, K. A., & Whiteman, S. D. (2013). Sibling relationships. In Handbook of marriage and the family (pp. 329-351). Springer, Boston, MA.

Molina, P., Sala, M. N., Zappulla, C., Bonfigliuoli, C., Cavioni, V., Zanetti, M. A., ... & Raccanello, D. (2014). The Emotion Regulation Checklist–Italian translation. Validation of parent and teacher versions. European journal of developmental psychology, 11(5), 624-634.

Morgan, J. K., Izard, C. E., & King, K. A. (2010). Construct validity of the Emotion Matching Task: Preliminary evidence for convergent and criterion validity of a new emotion knowledge measure for young children. Social development, 19(1), 52–70.

Nichols, S. R., Svetlova, M., & Brownell, C. A. (2010). Toddlers’ understanding of peers’ emotions. Journal of genetic psychology, 171(1), 35–53.

Osmanowski, M., & Cardona, A. (2012). Resource dilution or resource augmentation? number of siblings, birth order, sex of the child and frequency of mother’s activities with preschool children.

Paine, A. L., Pearce, H., van Goozen, S. H. M., de Sonneville, L. M. J., & Hay, D. F. (2018). Late, but not early, arriving younger siblings foster firstborns’ understanding of second-order false belief. Journal of experimental child psychology, 166, 251–265.

Recchia, H. E., Wainryb, C., & Howe, N. (2013). Two sides to every story? Parents’ attributions of culpability and their interventions into sibling conflict. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 59(1), 1.

Ross, H. S., & Lazinski, M. J. (2014). Parent mediation empowers sibling conflict resolution. Early Education and Development, 25(2), 259–275. 

Salmon, K., Evans, I. M., Moskowitz, S., Grouden, M., Parkes, F., & Miller, E. (2013). The components of young children’s emotion knowledge: Which are enhanced by adult emotion talk? Social Development, 22(1), 94–110

Satourian, S.A., Tahmassian, K., & Ahmadi, M.R. (2014). Comparison of children's behavioral problems in families with one child and two child. Ravanshenasi-va ـDin. 7 (3), 65-80. [Persian]

Shewark, E. A., & Blandon, A. Y. (2015). Mothers’ and fathers’ emotion socialization and children’s emotion regulation: A within-family model. Social Development, 24(2), 266–284.

Shields, A., & Cicchetti, D. (1997). Emotion regulation among school-age children: The development and validation of a new criterion Q-sort scale. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 906–916.

Taumoepeau, M., & Reese, E. (2014). Understanding the self through siblings: Self-awareness mediates the sibling effect on social understanding. Social Development, 23(1), 1–18.

Tucker, C. J., & Kazura, K. (2013). Parental responses to school-aged children’s sibling conflict. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 22(5), 737–745.

Wang, Q. (2003). Emotion situation knowledge in American and Chinese preschool children and adults. Cognition & Emotion, 17(5), 725-746.

Wang, Q., Hutt, R., Kulkofsky, S., McDermott, M., & Wei, R. (2006). Emotion situation knowledge and autobiographical memory in Chinese, immigrant Chinese, and European American 3-year olds. Journal of Cognition and Development, 7(1), 95–118.

Website of the National Statistics Portal, News Archive of the Statistics Center of Iran, Results of the General Census of Population and Housing in 1995. https://www.amar.org.ir[persian]

Weimer, A. A., Sallquist, J., & Bolnick, R. R. (2012). Young children’s emotion comprehension and Theory of Mind understanding. Early Education and Development, 23(3), 280–301.

Williford, A. P., Whittaker, J. E. V., Vitiello, V. E., & Downer, J. T. (2013). Children’s engagement within the preschool classroom and their development of self-regulation. Early Education & Development, 24(2), 162–187.