The role of emotion regulation and temperament in the prediction of the quality of social relationships in early childhood

ABSTRACT

In the present study, the associations between emotion regulation, temperament, and the quality of social relationships in early childhood were investigated. Thirty-one grade-one students were the focus of the study. Teachers completed the School Social Behavior Scale [Merrell, K. W. (1993). Using behaviour-rating scales to assess social skills and anti-social behaviour in school settings: Development of the school social behaviour scales. School Psychology Review, 22(1), 115–133], while parents completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist [Shields, A., & Cicchetti, D. (1997). Emotion regulation among school-age children: The development and validation of a new criterion Q-sort scale. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 906–916] and the Colorado Child Temperament Inventory [Buss, A. H., & Plomin, R. (1984). Temperament: Early developing personality traits. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum].

It was expected that children rated as possessing a difficult temperament would experience greater difficulty regulating emotions and experiencing positive social relationships and children rated as possessing an easy temperament would demonstrate the reverse pattern. Also, it was anticipated that children rated as high in emotion regulation would be rated as having positive social relationships and would demonstrate few anti-social behaviours and children rated as low in emotion regulation would demonstrate the opposite set of outcomes.

Some of the hypotheses were supported, but the role of temperament was found to be central to the findings. Analyses revealed temperament variables account for 41% of the variance in Peer Relations, 40% of the variance in Self-Management, and 49% of the variance in Academic Behavior beyond the contribution of emotion regulation. A discussion regarding speculation behind the current findings, and implications of the current research is provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion regulation
• temperament
• peer relations
• academic well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Daniel G. Séguin is an associate professor of Psychology at Mount Saint Vincent University and has published extensively in the area of social development, parenting, and childhood regulation and temperament.

Beth MacDonald is a practicing School Psychologist and resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Notes

1. Emotion regulation and temperament were examined separately to predict social behaviours. While there were significant results for some of the temperament variables in this prediction, no statistically significant results were noted for the emotion regulation variables. As well, emotion regulation variables did not predict social behaviour over and above temperament. Therefore, the focus of this analysis is on temperament as the driving force in the prediction of social behaviours.