In a 3-wave longitudinal study (with assessments 2 years apart) involving 186 early adolescents (M ages of approximately 9.3, 11.4, and 13.4), the hypothesis that parental warmth/positive expressivity predicts children's effortful control (EC) (a temperamental characteristic contributing to emotion regulation) 2 years later, which in turn predicts low levels of externalizing problems another 2 years later, was examined. The hypothesis that children's EC predicts parenting over time was also examined. Parents were observed interacting with their children; parents and teachers reported children's EC and externalizing problems; and children's persistence was assessed behaviorally. Children's EC mediated the relation between positive parenting and low levels of externalizing problems (whereas there was no evidence that children's EC predicted parenting).The development of externalizing problems has been linked to both heredity and environmental factors (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, in press). In regard to the latter set of influences, one of the more consistent findings is that parental warmth and support are associated with relatively low levels of children's externalizing problems (Caspi et al., 2004;Rothbaum & Weisz, 1994; see Dodge et al., in press). Similarly, parental expressions of positive emotions in the home and in children's presence (albeit not necessarily directed at the child) have been related to low levels of externalizing problems (Eisenberg et al., 2001b; see Halberstadt, Crisp, & Eaton, 1999).Some investigators (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998;Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997) have suggested that one reason for the association between parental warmth/positive expressivity and children's externalizing behavior is through its effects on children's emotionrelated regulation, which includes the modulation of emotion-related physiological responses, motivational states, felt experience, and associated behaviors. According to this view, warm, positive parents rear better-regulated children, who are, in turn, less likely to experience anger or frustration or display externalizing problems such as aggression that stem from these emotional responses.Effortful control (EC), an aspect of temperament defined as "the efficiency of executive attention, including the ability to inhibit a dominant response and/or to activate a subdominant response, to plan, and to detect errors," is believed to play a fundamental role in the regulation of emotion (Rothbart & Bates, in press) and often is used as an index of this capacity (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000). EC includes the abilities to voluntarily focus and shift attention and to inhibit or initiate behavior-processes used to modulate both internal emotionrelated experience and the overt expression of emotion. The purpose of this study was to Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nancy Eisenberg, Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104. Electronic mail may be sent tonancy.eisenberg@asu.edu.. This study is...

The purpose of the study was to examine the relations of effortful control (EC), impulsivity, and negative emotionality to at least borderline clinical levels of symptoms and change in maladjustment over four years. Children's (N = 214; 77% European American; M age = 73 months) externalizing and internalizing symptoms were rated by parents and teachers at 3 times, 2 years apart (T1, T2, and T3) and were related to children's adult-rated EC, impulsivity, and emotion. In addition, the authors found patterns of change in maladjustment were related to these variables at T3 while controlling for the T1 predictor. Externalizing problems (pure or co-occurring with internalizing problems) were associated with low EC, high impulsivity, and negative emotionality, especially anger, and patterns of change also related to these variables. Internalizing problems were associated with low impulsivity and sadness and somewhat with high anger. Low attentional EC was related to internalizing problems only in regard to change in maladjustment. Change in impulsivity was associated with change in internalizing primarily when controlling for change in externalizing problems. Keywords regulation; effortful control; externalizing problems; internalizing problemsIn recent years, there has been increasing evidence of concurrent and longitudinal relations between children's temperamental characteristics and their maladjustment (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). However, in most of this research, investigators have not differentiated between effortful components of temperamentally based self-regulation (effortful control) and reactive control-related aspects of temperament (e.g., impulsivity), or among various negative emotions. In addition, investigators often have used continuous measures of internalizing or externalizing problem behavior so findings relevant to borderline or clinical levels of problem behaviors were not examined, and issues pertaining to co-occurring symptoms or comorbidity, as indexed in many studies, were not considered. In the present study, relations of effortful control, impulsivity, anger, and sadness to contemporaneous and future externalizing and internalizing problems (co-occurring or pure), as well as to change or stability in maladjustment status, were examined in a 4-year longitudinal study. Dispositional Regulation, Reactivity, and MaladjustmentTemperament has been defined as "constitutionally based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation, in the domains of affect, activity, and attention" (Rothbart & Bates, 2006, p. 100). Self-regulation refers to "processes such as effortful control and orienting that function to modulate reactivity" whereas reactivity refers to "the arousability of motor, affective, and sensory response systems" (Rothbart, Ahadi, Hersey, & Fisher, 2001, p. 1395. Effortful Control, Reactive Behavioral Undercontrol (Reactivity), and MaladjustmentThe component of temperament associated with voluntary self-regulation is effortful control (EC), defined as "the efficiency of ex...

Effortful control (EC) and executive function (EF) are 2 constructs related to children's self-regulation that have historically been the subject of research in separate fields, with EC primarily the focus of temperament research and EF the focus of cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology. This article selectively reviews and compares the EC and EF literature. The review indicates considerable similarities and overlaps in the definitions, core components, and measurement of EC and EF. Differences between the 2 literatures seem to primarily reflect differences in research focus as influenced by each field's ''tradition'' rather than ''real'' differences in EC and EF as developmental constructs. Thus, developing an integrated theory of self-regulation encompassing the EC and EF perspectives is critical for reducing overlap and confusion in future research. The article provides a number of recommendations on how to integrate the theory and methodology of EC and EF in future research for (a) the components and organization of self-regulation, (b) the relation of self-regulation to children's adaptive functions, (c) the neurological basis of self-regulation and its devel-opment, and (d) the development and evaluation of interventions targeting children's self-regulation.

This study examined the main and interactive relations of stressors and coping related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) with Chinese college students' psychological adjustment (psychological symptoms, perceived general health, and life satisfaction) during the 2003 Beijing SARS epidemic. All the constructs were assessed by self-report in an anonymous survey during the final period of the outbreak. Results showed that the relations of stressors and coping to psychological adjustment varied by domain of adjustment. Regression analyses suggested that the number of stressors and use of avoidant coping strategies positively predicted psychological symptoms. Active coping positively predicted life satisfaction when controlling for stressors. Moreover, all types of coping served as a buffer against the negative impact of stressors on perceived general health. These findings hold implications for university counseling services during times of acute, large-scale stressors. In particular, effective screening procedures should be developed to identify students who experience a large number of stressors and thus are at high risk for developing mental health problems. Intervention efforts that target coping should be adapted to take account of the uncontrollability of stressors and clients' cultural preferences for certain coping strategies. A multidimensional battery of psychological adjustment should be used to monitor clients' psychological adjustment to stressors and evaluate the efficacy of intervention.

This study examined the concurrent and cross-time relations of parental observed warmth and positive expressivity to children's situational facial and self-reported empathic responding, social competence, and externalizing problems in a sample of 180 elementary school children. Data was collected when the children were in second to fifth grades (age: M = 112.8 months), and again 2 years later. Cross-sectional and longitudinal structural equation models supported the hypothesis that parents' (mostly mothers') positive expressivity mediated the relation between parental warmth and children's empathy, and children's empathy mediated the relation between parental positive expressivity and children's social functioning. These relations persisted after controlling for prior levels of parenting and child characteristics. Moreover, concurrent and cross-time consistencies were found on measures of parenting, children's situational empathic responding, and social functioning.

Consistency of measures of a prosocial personality and prosocial moral judgment over time, and the interrelations among them, were examined. Participants' and friends' reports of prosocial characteristics were obtained at ages 21-22, 23-24, and 25-26 years. In addition, participants' prosocial judgment was assessed with interviews and with an objective measure of prosocial moral reasoning at several ages. Reports of prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding in childhood and observations of prosocial behavior in preschool also were obtained. There was interindividual consistency in prosocial dispositions, and prosocial dispositions in adulthood related to empathy/sympathy and prosocial behavior at much younger ages. Interview and objective measures of moral reasoning were substantially interrelated in late adolescence/early adulthood and correlated with participants' and friends' reports of a prosocial disposition.

Relations among authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, children's effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration, and children's social functioning were examined for 425 first and second graders (7-10 years old) in Beijing, China. Parents reported on parenting styles; parents and teachers rated children's effortful control, anger/frustration, externalizing problems, and socially appropriate behaviors: and peers rated aggression and leadership/sociability. High effortful control and low dispositional anger/frustration uniquely predicted Chinese children's high social functioning, and the relation of anger/frustration to social functioning was moderated by effortful control. Authoritarian parenting was associated with children's low effortful control and high dispositional anger/frustration, which (especially effortful control) mediated the negative relation between authoritarian parenting and children's social functioning. Effortful control weakly mediated the positive relation of authoritative parenting to social functioning.

The goal of this study was to examine demographic and individual difference variables that predict level of prosocial moral judgment and self-reported prosocial behavior and to test mediating or moderating relations among predictors. The relations of prosocial moral reasoning and self-reported prosocial behavior to perspective taking, sympathy, age, sociometric status, and gender-role orientation were examined with a sample of 149 Brazilian adolescents who completed a series of questionnaire measures. Prosocial moral judgment was expected to be predicted by both sympathy and perspective taking, whereas sympathy or prosocial moral judgment was expected to mediate the relations of femininity and perspective taking to prosocial behavior. Self-reported perspective taking and sympathy interacted when predicting prosocial moral judgment; adolescents who were high in either sympathy or perspective taking (or both) scored high in prosocial moral reasoning. A feminine orientation predicted sympathy and perspective taking, perspective taking predicted prosocial moral reasoning and sympathy, and sympathy had both direct and indirect paths (through moral judgment) to prosocial behavior. The findings generally were consistent with the contention that both the tendency to take others' perspectives and to sympathize are related to level of prosocial moral reasoning, which in turn motivates prosocial behavior. Moreover, patterns of correlations among variables were similar to those found in the United States.