Relations of effortful control, reactive undercontrol, and anger to Chinese children's adjustment

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the zero-order and unique relations of effortful attentional and behavioral regulation, reactive impulsivity, and anger/frustration to Chinese first and second graders' internalizing and externalizing symptoms, as well as the prediction of adjustment from the interaction of anger/frustration and effortful control or impulsivity. A parent and teacher reported on children's anger/frustration, effortful control, and impulsivity; parents reported on children's internalizing symptoms; and teachers and peers reported on children's externalizing symptoms. Children were classified as relatively high on externalizing (or comorbid), internalizing, or nondisordered. High impulsivity and teacher-reported anger/frustration, and low effortful control, were associated with externalizing problems whereas low effortful control and high parent-reported anger were predictive of internalizing problems. Unique prediction from effortful and reactive control was obtained and these predictors (especially when reported by teachers) often interacted with anger/ frustration when predicting problem behavior classification.

Relations of Parenting and Temperament to Chinese Children’s Experience of Negative Life Events, Coping Efficacy, and Externalizing Problems

“…Consistent with Chinese cultural values regarding the expression of anger/frustration (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) and encouragement of emotional and behavioral control/regulation in Chinese schools (Phelps, 2005), high temperamental susceptibility to anger showed a persistent positive relation to externalizing. The results are similar to those with Euro-American samples (e.g., Eisenberg et al, 2001;Eisenberg, Shepard, Fabes, Murphy, & Guthrie, 1998;Zahn-Waxler, Cole, Richardson, & Friedman, 1994) and extended the cross-sectional findings on Chinese children (Eisenberg et al, 2007;Zhou et al, 2004).…”

“…As one of the first longitudinal studies on parenting, temperament, and Chinese children's behavior problems (e.g., Chen, Liu, & Li, 2000;Chen et al, 2002), this study extended the previous research with this population (which was mostly cross-sectional and/or did not simultaneously include both parenting and temperament as predictors of adjustment, e.g., Chen et al, 2002;Eisenberg et al, 2007;Nelson et al, 2006;Porter et al, 2005). The most important findings are the prospective and unique relations of authoritative and authoritarian parenting and temperamental anger/frustration to Chinese children's externalizing problems, which provided evidence for the generalization of socialization and temperament models for externalizing problems to the Chinese culture.…”

“…Third, due to the emphasis on teachers' imparting information to students in typical Chinese classroom education, attributes such as attentiveness and self-regulation are positively reinforced (Phelps, 2005). Indeed, in two cross-sectional samples (including the first wave of the present study), effortful control was negatively related to, and anger/frustration was positively related to, Chinese children's externalizing problems and low social competence (Eisenberg et al, 2007;Zhou et al, 2004). …”

Promoting social emotional learning in Chinese schools: a feasibility study of PATHS implementation in Hong Kong

“…Epidemiological findings suggested that Hong Kong Chinese children face the same kind of developmental and mental health challenges as those faced by children in the West (Leung et al 2008). Eisenberg and colleagues found that Chinese and U.S. children have similar patterns of effortful control and emotionality (Zhou et al 2004;Eisenberg et al 2007). On the other hand, in studies on cultural variation in emotional expression, it was found that Chinese and other Asians tended to dampen their emotional expressions in the interests of maintaining group harmony (Tsai et al 2002).…”

“…These teachers usually teach major subjects in class, and they are also responsible for taking care of the students in their classes (Eisenberg et al 2007). In the present study, the class teachers implemented the PATHS in two of the schools, while in the other school, the SGT taught PATHS to all the first grade classes.…”