Children with poor emotion knowledge (EK) skills are at risk for externalizing problems; less is known about early internalizing behavior. We examined multiple facets of EK and social-emotional experiences relevant for internalizing difficulties, including loneliness, victimization, and peer rejection, in Head Start preschoolers (N = 134; M = 60 months). Results based on multiple informants suggest that facets of EK are differentially related to negative social-emotional experiences and internalizing behavior and that sex plays a moderating role. Behavioral EK was associated with self-reported loneliness, victimization/rejection, and parent-reported internalizing symptoms. Emotion recognition and expressive emotion knowledge were related to self-reported loneliness, and emotion situation knowledge was related to parent-reported internalizing symptoms and negative peer nominations. Sex moderated many of these associations, suggesting that EK may operate differently for girls versus boys in the preschool social context. Results are discussed with regard to the role of EK for social development and intervention implications.

Some children show emotion that is not consistent with normative appraisal of the context and can therefore be defined as context inappropriate (CI). The authors used individual growth curve modeling and hierarchical multiple regression analyses to examine whether CI anger predicts differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, as manifest in salivary cortisol measures. About 23% of the 360 children (ages 6-10 years, primarily 7-8) showed at least 1 expression of CI anger in situations designed to elicit positive affect. Expression of anger across 2 positive assessments was less common (around 4%). CI anger predicted the hypothesized lower levels of cortisol beyond that attributed to context appropriate anger. Boys' CI anger predicted lower morning cortisol and flatter slopes. Results suggest that this novel approach to studying children's emotion across varying contexts can provide insight into affective style. Keywordscortisol; emotion; children; context; anger Emotional processes are integral to the development of behavior problems (Cicchetti, Ackerman, & Izard, 1995;Cole, Michel, & O'Donnell-Teti, 1994;Keenan, 2000). However, the fund of knowledge about behavioral and physiological correlates of maladaptive emotional responses is predominately based on observations of emotional reactivity to situations that normatively elicit a particular discrete emotion (context appropriate [CA] affect; e.g., Kagan, Reznick, Snidman, Gibbons, & Johnson, 1988). Early differences in CA emotional responses modestly predict levels of maladaptive behavior (Prior, Smart, Sanson, & Oberklaid, 2000;Rende, 1993) and do not always predict behavior with much specificity (Biederman et al., 1990(Biederman et al., , 1993. Therefore, we might overlook potential differences in affective style by limiting assessment of emotional responses to appropriate contexts such as fear to unfamiliar persons and novel objects (Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000).Although emotional expressions can be associated with prototypical incentives (i.e., fear with perceived threat, anger with blocked goals, sadness with lost goals, pleasure with safety; see Lazarus, 1991), emotional expression is not a simple reaction to the immediate context. In a given context, it is unlikely that one will observe the expression of a particular emotion by all individuals or by the same individual consistently (Ekman, 1984;Frijda, 1986;Scherer, © 1988). Emotion is also influenced by personal concerns or dispositions to express an emotion (i.e., temperament; Goldsmith & Campos, 1982;Lazarus, 1991), genetics (Deater-Deckard, Petrill, & Thompson, 2007;Goldsmith & Lemery, 2000), or environmental factors (e.g., cultural differences in socialization; Camras, Bakeman, Chen, Norris, & Cain, 2006). Therefore, some children will show emotional responses that are not concordant with normative appraisal of the context (context inappropriate [CI] affect). Affective responses are the observed behavioral expressions of emotion in a given situation. Although what is e...

This study examined contextually-inappropriate (CI) anger in relation to emotion recognition and situation knowledge, negative social experiences, and externalizing behavior among low-income 4-year-olds attending Head Start (n=134). Approximately one-quarter of children (23%) showed anger when presented with positive/neutral slides and videos (valence-incongruent CI anger), whereas 2/5 of children (40%) showed anger when presented with negative slides and videos (valence-congruent CI anger). Valence-incongruent CI anger was associated with lower emotion situation knowledge (for boys only), more self-reported peer rejection and loneliness, and greater negative nominations by teachers and peers. Both valence-incongruent and (for boys only) valence-congruent CI anger were positively associated with externalizing behavior. Overall, valence-incongruent CI anger was more strongly associated with negative child outcomes than valence-congruent CI anger.

This was a prospective longitudinal multisite study of the effects of prenatal cocaine and/or opiate exposure on temperament in 4-month-olds of the Maternal Lifestyle Study (N = 958: 366 cocaine exposed, 37 opiate exposed, 33 exposed to both drugs, 522 matched comparison). The study evaluated positivity and negativity during The Behavior Assessment of Infant Temperament (Garcia Coll et al., 1988). Parents rated temperament (Infant Behavior Questionnaire; Rothbart, 1981). Cocaine-exposed infants showed less positivity overall, mainly during activity and threshold items, more negativity during sociability items, and less negativity during irritability and threshold items. Latent profile analysis indicated individual temperament patterns were best described by three groups: low/moderate overall reactivity, high social negative reactivity, and high nonsocial negative reactivity. Infants with heavy cocaine exposure were more likely in high social negative reactivity profile, were less negative during threshold items, and required longer soothing intervention. Cocaine- and opiate-exposed infants scored lower on Infant Behavior Questionnaire smiling and laughter and duration of orienting scales. Opiate-exposed infants were rated as less respondent to soothing. By including a multitask measure of temperament we were able to show context-specific behavioral dysregulation in prenatally cocaine-exposed infants. The findings indicate flatter temperament may be specific to nonsocial contexts, whereas social interactions may be more distressing for cocaine-exposed infants.

Some children show anger inappropriate for the situation based on the predominant incentives, which is called context-inappropriate anger. Children need to attend to and interpret situational incentives for appropriate emotional responses. We examined associations of context-inappropriate anger with emotion recognition and attention problems in 43 preschoolers (42% male; M age = 55.1 months, SD = 4.1). Parents rated context-inappropriate anger across situations. Teachers rated attention problems using the Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher Report Form. Emotion recognition was ability to recognize emotional faces using the Emotion Matching Test. Anger perception bias was indicated by anger to non-anger situations using an adapted Affect Knowledge Test. 28% of children showed context-inappropriate anger, which correlated with lower emotion recognition (β = -.28) and higher attention problems (β = .36). Higher attention problems correlated with more anger perception bias (β = .32). This cross-sectional, correlational study provides preliminary findings that children with context-inappropriate anger showed more attention problems, which suggests that both "problems" tend to covary and associate with deficits or biases in emotion knowledge.