Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, School of Education and Human Development, University of Virginia.
Dev Psychol. 2022 Nov;58(11):2049-2063. doi: 10.1037/dev0001415. Epub 2022 Sep 1.
Emotion regulation is foundational to children's psychological wellbeing and future school adjustment. As young children are spending increasing amounts of time in preschool programs, investigating how early childhood classrooms can foster emotion regulation development is warranted. In this study, we tested individual children's interactions with teachers and peers as potential mechanisms through which inhibitory control supports emotion regulation in the preschool classroom. Participants included 767 preschool children (49% female; = 4.39 years old, SD = .08) from low-income households (income-to-needs ratio = 1.45, = 1.06). Fifty percent of children were Black, 22% White, 13% Latino, and 15% Other race/ethnicity. Children completed direct assessments of inhibitory control in the fall, teachers reported on children's emotion regulation in the fall and spring of the preschool year, and trained observers rated the quality of individual children's interactions with teachers and peers in the fall, winter, and spring. Accounting for earlier emotion regulation, mediation analyses indicated that children's inhibitory control operates through individual children's (a) positive interactions with peers and (b) negative interactions with teachers and peers to support their subsequent emotion regulation. These findings underscore the role of the preschool classroom as an emotion socialization context for children from low-income households, along with providing additional evidence about the importance of social interactions to understand children's emotional development in context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
情绪调节是儿童心理健康和未来学校适应的基础。由于幼儿在学前教育计划中花费的时间越来越多，因此有必要研究幼儿课堂如何培养情绪调节能力。在这项研究中，我们测试了儿童与教师和同伴的个体互动，作为支持抑制控制在学前课堂中调节情绪的潜在机制。参与者包括 767 名来自低收入家庭的学前儿童（49%为女性；平均年龄=4.39 岁，标准差=0.08）。这些儿童中有 50%为黑人，22%为白人，13%为拉丁裔，15%为其他种族/族裔。儿童在秋季完成了抑制控制的直接评估，教师在秋季和春季报告了儿童的情绪调节情况，经过培训的观察者在秋季、冬季和春季评估了儿童与教师和同伴互动的质量。考虑到早期的情绪调节情况，中介分析表明，儿童的抑制控制通过儿童（a）与同伴的积极互动，以及（b）与教师和同伴的消极互动，来支持他们随后的情绪调节。这些发现强调了学前课堂作为低收入家庭儿童情绪社会化环境的作用，同时也提供了更多证据表明，社会互动对于理解儿童在情境中的情绪发展很重要。（美国心理协会，2022）。
