• Human Ecology Research
• /
• v.54 no.1
• /
• pp.45-56
• /
• 2016

This study investigates: (1) children's proactive aggression according to age and the emotional condition of the counterpart child, (2) if children's intention attribution, emotional attribution (victim and perpetrator) and language ability influences proactive aggression according to age and the emotional condition of the counterpart child. The subjects were 68 3-year-old and 70 5-year-old children. Each child was individually interviewed with picture cards. Collected data were coded and analyzed in SPSS with frequencies, percentiles, means, standard deviations, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), t -tests, Pearson correlations and multiple linear regression. The results showed that 3-year-old children showed more proactive aggression and physical aggression than 5-year-old children. They showed more proactive aggression when counterpart child was in a happy condition than in a fear condition. Intention attribution, emotional attribution, and language ability partially affected a children's proactive aggression according to age and the emotional condition of the counterpart child. This study has practical implications for teachers in regards to children's proactive aggressive behavior at child care centers. Teachers use specific to develop advantages as the basis for developing aggression prevention programs that consider emotional and cognitive factors.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.127-138
• /
• 2017

Objective: This study examined differences in preschoolers' prosocial decision-making, emotion understanding in prosocial dilemmas based on the age and emotional conditions of a counterpart child, and the effects of emotion understanding on preschoolers' prosocial decision-making. Methods: The participants were 114 children (35 3-year-olds, 39 4-year-olds, and 40 5-year-olds). Each child was presented individually with prosocial dilemma tasks and was asked to make decisions and understand emotions (in prosocial and desire-fulfilled situations) based on the emotional conditions of a counterpart child. Results: First, the 4- and 5-year-olds showed more prosocial decision-making in prosocial dilemmas than the 3-year-olds. Prosocial decision-making was significantly lower when the counterpart child was angry, rather than neutral or sadness. Second, in prosocial situations, the 5-year-olds displayed higher positive emotion understanding scores than the 3-year-olds, And in desire-fulfilled situations, the 3-year-olds showed positive emotion understanding, whereas the 4- and 5-year-olds showed negative emotion understanding. Finally, children were more inclined toward prosocial decision-making when they showed higher emotion understanding in prosocial situations, lower emotion understanding in desire-fulfilled situations, and greater age. These were equal to all emotional conditions of the counterpart child. Conclusion: These results suggest that emotion understanding is an important component of social cognition, which effects preschoolers' prosocial decision-making.