Browsing by Author "Zajac, Lindsay"
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Item Children’s Social Information Processing Predicts Both Their Own and Peers’ Conversational Remarks(Developmental Psychology, 2022-11-22) Hubbard, Julie A.; Bookhout, Megan K.; Zajac, Lindsay; Moore, Christina C.; Dozier, MaryThe goal of the current study was to investigate whether children’s social information processing (SIP) predicts their conversations with peers, including both their remarks to peers and peers’ remarks to them. When children (N = 156; 55% male; United States; Representation by Race: 60% African American, 18% Mixed race, 15% European American, 7% Other; Representation by Latino/a Ethnicity: 22% Latino/a, 78% Not Latino/a; Mincome = $39,419) were 8 years old, we assessed their aggressive and prosocial SIP using the Social Information Processing Application (SIP-AP). When children were 9 years old, they participated in playgroups typically consisting of four same-sex unfamiliar children who interacted in a round-robin format. Each dyad completed a five-minute frustration task and a five-minute planning task. Observers coded children’s verbalizations into six prosocial categories (Suggest, Agree, Solicit Input, Ask, Encourage, State Personal) and four antisocial categories (Command, Disagree, Discourage, Aggress). Children with higher aggressive SIP made more antisocial and fewer prosocial statements, whereas children with higher prosocial SIP made more prosocial and fewer antisocial statements. Furthermore, children with higher aggressive SIP elicited more antisocial and fewer prosocial statements from peers, whereas children with higher prosocial SIP elicited more prosocial and fewer antisocial statements from peers. Children’s antisocial and prosocial remarks mediated relations between their aggressive SIP and peers’ subsequent antisocial and prosocial remarks. Findings are discussed in terms of: (a) the use of SIP to predict more subtle social behaviors in children’s social interaction, and (b) cycles of social interactions that maintain and reinforce children’s SIP patterns. Public Significance Statement: Findings of the current study suggest that children who think more aggressively about social interactions speak to their peers using more negative and fewer positive statements. Peers respond using similar language, and their responses help to maintain children’s aggressive thinking patterns.Item Emotion transmission in peer dyads in middle childhood(Child Development, 2024-03-09) Hubbard, Julie A.; Moore, Christina C.; Zajac, Lindsay; Bookhout, Megan K.; Dozier, MaryThis study investigated emotion transmission among peers during middle childhood. Participants included 202 children (111 males; race: 58% African American, 20% European American, 16% Mixed race, 1% Asian American, and 5% Other; ethnicity: 23% Latino(a) and 77% Not Latino(a); Mincome = $42,183, SDincome = $43,889; Mage = 9.49; English-speaking; from urban and suburban areas of a mid-Atlantic state in the United States). Groups of four same-sex children interacted in round-robin dyads in 5-min tasks during 2015–2017. Emotions (happy, sad, angry, anxious, and neutral) were coded and represented as percentages of 30-s intervals. Analyses assessed whether children's emotion expression in one interval predicted change in partners' emotion expression in the next interval. Findings suggested: (a) escalation of positive and negative emotion [children's positive (negative) emotion predicts an increase in partners' positive (negative) emotion], and (b) de-escalation of positive and negative emotion (children's neutral emotion predicts a decrease in partners' positive or negative emotion). Importantly, de-escalation involved children's display of neutral emotion and not oppositely valenced emotion.Item Examining links between an early intervention, attachment, and peer relations at age nine among child protective services (CPS)-referred children(University of Delaware, 2020) Zajac, LindsayThe current study examined attachment during infancy and middle childhood as a predictor of peer relations at age nine among a sample of Child Protective Services (CPS)-referred children. The current study also explored whether an attachment-based intervention delivered in infancy (i.e., Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up; ABC) was related to peer relations, and whether attachment in infancy or middle childhood mediated these intervention effects. Participants included 83 children. Attachment was assessed using the Strange Situation in infancy and the Kerns Security Scale in middle childhood. Children’s emotion expression, verbal and non-verbal behaviors with peers were assessed during frustration and positive collaboration tasks when children were approximately 9-years-old (Mage = 9.45, SD = .35). Disorganized attachment did not predict any peer relations variables at age nine. Children with insecure attachments in infancy demonstrated happiness for significantly more time and neutral affect for significantly less time during the collaboration tasks than children with secure attachments. Children with insecure attachments also gave more commands during the frustration tasks than children with secure attachments. These effects persisted even when controlling for attachment in middle childhood. Perceived attachment security ratings at age nine were significantly and positively associated with discouraging statements during frustration tasks, and significantly and negatively associated with disengagement during collaboration tasks. Last, ABC did not have a significant direct effect on engagement during positive collaboration tasks, but its indirect effect via perceived attachment security ratings was marginally significant. The present study highlights the importance of including observational assessments of peer relations, assessing attachment at multiple timepoints, and intervening early to promote attachment relationships.Item Increasing secure base script knowledge among parents with Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up(Development and Psychopathology, 2021-01-25) Raby, K. Lee; Waters, Theodore E. A.; Tabachnick, Alexandra R.; Zajac, Lindsay; Dozier, MaryThis study evaluated whether Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), a parenting intervention, altered the attachment representations of parents (average age of 34.2 years) who had been referred to Child Protective Services (CPS) due to risk for child maltreatment when their children were infants. Approximately 7 years after completing the intervention, parents who had been randomized to receive ABC (n = 43) exhibited greater secure base script knowledge than parents who had been randomized to receive a control intervention (n = 51). Low-risk parents (n = 79) exhibited greater secure base script knowledge than CPS-referred parents who had received a control intervention. However, levels of secure base script knowledge did not differ between low-risk parents and CPS-referred parents who had received the ABC intervention. In addition, secure base script knowledge was positively associated with parental sensitivity during interactions with their 8-year-old children among low-risk and CPS-referred parents. Mediational analyses supported the idea that the ABC intervention enhanced parents’ sensitivity 7 years later indirectly via increases in parents’ secure base script knowledge.Item Individual differences and dyadic processes in conversations with peers in middle childhood(Social Development, 2022-09-01) Moore, Christina C.; Hubbard, Julie A.; Bookhout, Megan K.; Zajac, Lindsay; Dozier, MaryThe goal of the current study was to investigate the contribution of both trait-like individual differences and dyadic processes to the content of children's conversations. Fifty-two groups typically consisting of four same-sex unfamiliar nine-year-old children (N = 202) interacted in all possible dyads, resulting in six dyads per group. Each dyad completed a 5-min frustration task and a 5-min planning task. Observers coded children's verbalizations into 10 categories and further summed these categories into prosocial (suggest, agree, solicit input, ask, encourage, state personal) and antisocial (command, disagree, discourage, aggress) verbalizations, resulting in 24 variables (12 per task). Across both tasks, Social Relations Model analyses provided evidence of the role of both individual differences [significant effects for actor variance (15 of 24 variables), actor-actor correlations, and intrapersonal correlations] and dyadic processes [significant effects for partner variance (4 of 24 variables), relationship variance (18 of 24 variables), dyadic reciprocity correlations (10 of 24 variables), and interpersonal correlations] in children's conversations with peers.Item The importance of both individual differences and dyadic processes in children’s emotion expression(Applied Developmental Science, 2023-01-06) Hubbard, Julie A.; Moore, Christina C.; Zajac, Lindsay; Marano, Elizabeth; Bookhout, Megan K.; Dozier, MaryAlthough children display strong individual differences in emotion expression, they also engage in emotional synchrony or reciprocity with interaction partners. To understand this paradox between trait-like and dyadic influences, the goal of the current study was to investigate children’s emotion expression using a Social Relations Model (SRM) approach. Playgroups consisting typically of four same-sex unfamiliar nine-year-old children (N = 202) interacted in a round-robin format (6 dyads per group). Each dyad completed two 5-minute tasks, a challenging frustration task and a cooperative planning task. Observers coded children’s emotions during the tasks (happy, sad, angry, anxious, neutral) on a second-by-second basis. SRM analyses provided substantial evidence of both the trait-like nature of children’s emotion expression (through significant effects for actor variance, multivariate actor-actor correlations, and multivariate intrapersonal correlations) and the dyadic nature of their emotion expression (through significant effects for partner variance, relationship variance, dyadic reciprocity correlations, and multivariate interpersonal correlations).