Relationship between SES and preschoolers’ sociality: the mediating effect of household screen media experience

ABSTRACT

This study tested potential mediating effects of household screen media experience (HSME) on the relationship between SES and six aspects of preschooler’s sociality: social cognition, independence, aggression, social adaptivity, peer relationship and emotional control. A total of 471 parents of 3- to 6-year-old children completed an online questionnaire on SES, household screen media experience and social behaviours of children. Our results revealed that the effects of SES on Social Cognition, Independence and Aggression were partly mediated by HSME. Specifically, higher SES predicted lower HSME scores, which predicted better Social Cognition, higher Independence and lower Aggression. HSME did not appear to mediate the effects of SES on Social Adaptivity, Peer Relationship, and Emotional Control. This study affords novel insights into the role of screen use in children’s sociality development.

KEYWORDS:

• Media experience
• SES
• sociality
• preschooler
• mediating effect

Acknowledgements

We thank families and parents for their participation in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Subscales which measure internal psychological characteristics (i.e. self-consciousness, self-esteem, empathize, honesty, attachment) were not included as the questions were more suited for older children. We did not include ‘rule consciousness’ as it was about classroom behaviour which was irrelevant to the current household context. We also did not include subscale ‘living habits’ as the items were similar to those in our media experience measure.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Jiangsu Student's Platform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program [grant number 201910320110Y].

Notes on contributors

Linghao Xie

Miss Linghao Xie is an undergraduate student at the School of Education Science, Jiangsu Normal University, China.

Zhidan Wang

Dr Zhidan Wang is an associate professor at the School of Education Science, Jiangsu Normal University, China. His research interests focus on social learning, cognitive development, and children with autism.

Zhou Yu

Miss Zhou Yu is a PhD student whose research falls in the area of neuro- and socio-cognitive psychology, current focus is early brain processing of emotional stimuli (e.g. emotional faces).

Frankie T. K. Fong

Dr Frankie T. K. Fong is a postdoctoral research fellow studying socio-cognitive development in preschool children.