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.
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.
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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.