The influence of provocateurs’ emotion displays on the social information processing of children varying in social adjustment and age

The Effect of Induced Mood on Children’s Social Information Processing: Goal Clarification and Response Decision

“…Those with instrumental goal orientations evaluated nonhostile responses less positively and had higher self efficacy for hostile responses to ambiguous provocation. Thus the current study suggests that children's goals may exert a selective effect on the response decision and evaluation phase of SIP, and this pattern of results converges with other work showing effects of discrete emotions on goal clarification and social problem-solving responses (Lemerise et al 2006(Lemerise et al , 2005.…”

“…These results support Lemerise and Arsenio's (2000) hypothesis that individual differences in emotionality and emotion regulation may influence the types of goals pursued in provoking situations. In addition, these results converge with those of Lemerise et al (2006) who showed that rejected-aggressive children's goals and social problem-solving responses (see also Lemerise et al 2005) were more hostile when provocateurs displayed anger. Finally our findings are consistent with work from several researchers suggesting that rejected-aggressive children and adolescents have difficulty managing their anger in challenging social situations (DiLiberto et al 2002;Graham et al 1992;Hubbard et al 2002;Orobio de Castro et al 2005) and that negative arousal has a more disruptive effect on the SIP of aggressive than nonaggressive children (Dodge and Somberg 1987;Orobio de Castro et al 2003;Vitaro et al 1989).…”

“…Our results do suggest that goals may be more important markers of aggression than are response decision processes at this age (see also Lemerise et al 2006). Other data suggest that younger children's problem-solving responses, especially in the context of sad or angry provocateurs are also associated with aggression (Lemerise et al 2006(Lemerise et al , 2005.…”

“…This pattern of results suggests that discrete emotions are particularly important for the goal clarification step of SIP, and that children's goals may influence the subsequent SIP step of response decision. Previous work on emotion and SIP has shown that manipulation of provocateurs' emotion displays in SIP stimuli yields both effects of discrete emotions and emotion × social adjustment effects on children's goals and social problem-solving (Lemerise et al 2006;Lemerise et al 2005). The present study shows that manipulating discrete emotions in the social information processor yields similar effects.…”

Temperamental Factors Associated with the Acquisition of Information Processing Biases and Anxiety

“…BI and anxiety in children are both associated with perturbations in the way social and emotional cues are encoded and interpreted, which can be linked to poor social and emotional outcomes (Lemerise, Gregory and Fredstrom, 2005;Mathews and MacLeod, 2002). These biases, when left unchecked and amplified by environmental factors, may increase behaviourally inhibited children's risk of developing anxiety disorders.…”