Research Findings: Empathy plays an important role in children's early social-emotional development. However, there are not many instruments available for measuring the different aspects/levels of empathy in preschool children. Moreover, few studies examined the validity of the existing measures for empathy in Chinese children. The present study…

Research Findings: Prosocial behavior in early childhood can be assessed by various informants and methodologies, but the information each provides may differ in meaningful ways. The present study measured and compared young children's (N = 486; age: M = 48.51 months, SD = 8.22) prosocial behavior based on parent reports, teacher reports, and…

Research Findings: A substantial body of research has demonstrated social and academic benefits of sociodramatic play (SDP) for young children. However, substantially less research has explored the factors related to increased amounts of SDP occurring during free play, an activity time that comprises the greatest portion of the daily schedule in…

Research Findings: In this study, we investigated associations among social cognition skills (specifically, emotion knowledge and theory of mind), language abilities, and 3 varieties of prosocial behavior (helping, sharing, and comforting) in early childhood. The effects of age and gender were also taken into account. Participants were 149 Italian…

Research Findings: The present study investigated the role of ethnic similarity in the peer preferences and play quality of Latino and Chinese children enrolled in Head Start classrooms and the relationship between peer acceptance and social adjustment in these groups. Participants were 244 children (M = 4.6 years old) from Head Start preschools…

Research Findings: Pretend play is an essential part of child development and adjustment. However, parents, teachers, and researchers debate the function of aggression in pretend play. Different models of aggression predict that the expression of aggression in play could either increase or decrease actual aggressive behavior. The current study…

Research Findings: Studies of children's prosocial behavior typically focus on prosocial acts with a specific partner (e.g., a friend, peer, or sibling), and comparisons of prosociality in different contexts are rare. To address this gap, the current study examined predictive links among children's spontaneous sharing (a common and important form…

Research Findings: This study examined 56 young (prekindergarten through 2nd grade) urban-dwelling African American children's understanding of the affective attributions and consequences of 3 types of sociomoral rule systems: prosocial, active, and inhibitive morality. It also tested the relationship of affective attributions and consequences to…

Research Findings: This study examined the effects of educators' participation in an in-service training program on the aggressive and prosocial behaviors of preschool-age children. Seventeen early childhood educators were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. A total of 68 preschool children, 4 from each educator's classroom, also…

Research Findings: The transition to school is a major developmental milestone, and behavior tendencies already evident at the point of school entry can impact upon a child's subsequent social and academic adjustment. The current study aimed to investigate stability and change in the social behavior of girls and boys across the transition from day…