A sample of 209 children was followed longitudinally to examine the impact of growing perspective-taking skills on positive and negative emotionality in middle and late childhood.Perspective-taking skills were assessed through interviews. Teachers rated children's emotional reactivity and capacity to regain a neutral state following emotional arousal.Analyses of contemporaneous data revealed that more developed perspective-taking skills were associated with moderate levels of emotional reactivity. In addition, in children with high emotional reactivity, good perspective-taking skills were associated with good capacity to regain a neutral affective state following emotional arousal. Longitudinal analyses revealed that children who made gains in perspective-taking skills over a two-year-period became more moderate in negative emotional reactivity and improved their ability to down-regulate strong positive emotions. The overall findings support the notion that children use perspective-taking skills as a tool for optimal regulation of emotional responses.

Prior research indicates that high negative emotionality in combination with low peer status is conducive of clinically identified problems in childhood. This three-wave longitudinal study examined how negative emotionality and peer status are linked over time in middle and late childhood. Participants were recruited from second grade ( n = 90, mean age = 8.85) and fourth grade ( n = 119, mean age = 10.81) and were followed across a period of 2 years. Cross-lagged structural models examining concurrent and longitudinal associations between teacher-reported negative emotionality and peer ratings of likability were analyzed separately for externalizing emotion (anger) and internalizing emotion (sadness and fear). Both analyses provided support for a conceptual model in which high negative emotionality lowers peer status, and low peer status, in turn, through a feedback loop, increases negative emotionality over time. Bidirectional influences are interpreted as reflecting a transactional process involving the effects of negative emotionality on social behavior. The findings highlight the need for active efforts to help children with high negative emotionality gain acceptance from classmates.