Indirect Effects of Temperament on Social Competence via Emotion Understanding

Research Findings: Links between children’s temperament and social competence are well established, and this study focuses on the indirect effects of temperament on social competence via emotion understanding. Participants were preschoolers (N = 142) who completed emotion understanding tasks along with their parents and teachers who provided ratings of temperament and social competence. Expected associations emerged between temperament traits, particularly positive and negative affective reactivity, and emotion understanding. Tests of indirect effects of these traits on social competence reached significance via emotion situation reasoning but not via emotion situation knowledge, with somewhat different patterns for parent and teacher informants. The impact of these temperament traits on children’s outcomes are amplified through their effects on the acquisition of competencies such as emotion understandings that in turn support socially effective behaviors and further growth. Practice or Policy: Although further study is needed to unpack temperament’s indirect influences over time and in various contexts, findings have implications for those serving early childhood populations to design and implement interventions to mitigate otherwise cascading adverse effects of dispositional risk factors. Hence, even if intervention programs reduce unregulated behaviors associated with temperament, it is still important to track the growth of competencies, such as emotion understanding, and to address limitations.