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Child abuse and neglect affect the development of social cognition in children and inhibit social adjustment. The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to identify the emotional states of others between abused and non-abused children. The participants, 129 children (44 abused and 85 non-abused children), completed a children’s version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). Results showed that the mean accuracy rate on the RMET for abused children was significantly lower than the rate of the non-abused children. In addition, the accuracy rates for positive emotion items (e.g., hoping, interested, happy) were significantly lower for the abused children, but negative emotion and neutral items were not different across the groups. This study found a negative relationship between child abuse and the ability to understand others’ emotions, especially positive emotions.

We conducted a simple resource allocation game known as the ultimatum game (UG) with preschoolers to examine the role of cognitive and emotional perspective-taking ability on allocation and rejection behavior. A total of 146 preschoolers played the UG and completed a false belief task and an emotional perspective-taking test. Results showed that cognitive perspective taking ability had a significant positive effect on the proposer’s offer and a negative effect on the responder’s rejection behavior, whereas emotional perspective taking ability did not impact either the proposer’s or responder’s behavior. These results imply that the ability to anticipate the responder’s beliefs, but not their emotional state, plays an important role in the proposer’s choice of a fair allocation in an UG, and that children who have not acquired theory of mind still reject unfair offers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of direct and indirect monitoring on generosity among five-year-old preschoolers and to reveal the primary motivation for their generosity. Forty-two preschoolers completed one-shot dictator games in Condition 1 while being monitored by the experimenter (the direct monitoring condition). In Condition 2, an image of staring eyes was displayed on the computer monitor (the indirect monitoring condition). In Condition 3, the computer monitor showed a picture of flowers (the non-monitoring condition). The results showed that while there was no difference between the mean levels of allocation in the indirect and non-monitoring conditions, the mean level of allocation in the direct monitoring condition was significantly higher than in the non-monitoring condition. These results showed that five-year-old preschoolers concerned with being monitored by, and receiving direct responses from, others tend to be more generous.

BackgroundChild maltreatment is a major risk factor for psychopathology, including reactive attachment disorder (RAD).AimsTo examine whether neural activity during reward processing was altered in children and adolescents with RAD.MethodSixteen children and adolescents with RAD and 20 typically developing (TD) individuals performed tasks with high and low monetary rewards while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging.ResultsSignificantly reduced activity in the caudate and nucleus accumbens was observed during the high monetary reward condition in the RAD group compared with the TD group (P=0.015, family-wise error-corrected cluster level). Significant negative correlations between bilateral striatal activity and avoidant attachment were observed in the RAD and TD groups.ConclusionsStriatal neural reward activity in the RAD group was markedly decreased. The present results suggest that dopaminergic dysfunction occurs in the striatum of children and adolescents with RAD, leading towards potential future risks for psychopathology.Declaration of interestNone.Copyright and usage© The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2015. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of peer monitoring on generosity in boys and girls aged 6–12 years. A total of 120 elementary school students played a one-shot dictator game (DG) with and without peer monitoring by classmates. Children decided how to divide 10 chocolates between themselves and a classmate either in a condition in which their allocations were visible to their peers, or in private. While the effect of peer monitoring on the allocation amount in the DG was clearly present in boys, it was not observed in girls. Furthermore, the effect of peer monitoring in boys appeared at the age of 9 years. These results suggest that the motivation to draw peers’ attention plays a stronger role for older boys than for girls or younger boys. The potential roles of higher-order theory of mind, social roles, and emergence of secondary sex characteristics on the influence of peer monitoring on generosity shown by boys are discussed.

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BackgroundThe development of the ability to understand others' facial expressions is thought to be dependent on the environment in which one has been reared.MethodsThis study compared the ability to understand others' facial expressions between 15 children who were in an unstable environment, 11 children who had been maltreated before and were in a stable environment, like a foster family, and 33 children who had never been maltreated. We used the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) as measure.ResultsChildren who were in an unstable environment scored higher on the RMET than children who had never been maltreated.ConclusionsThe results suggested that hypersensitivity to others' facial expressions might be an adaptive response to a harmful environment and that it might decline when in a stable environment because such sensitivity is no longer needed.