• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.1-10
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• 2009

This study investigated the influence of children's emotional expression and sociability, and their mothers' communication pattern on their prosocial behavior. The participants were 65 preschool children aged between 5 and 6, and their mothers. Each child-mother dyad was observed for 30 minutes in a lab setting, which was designed to evaluate the child's socioemotional competence and the mother's socialization behavior. Videotaped data were analyzed by two coders for aspects of sharing behavior, the expression of happiness, sadness, anger, anxiety, and sociability for children, and mothers' communication strategies. Results showed that children's anger and anxiety expression were the most significant predictors for their prosocial behavior. Mothers' punitive communication pattern negatively affected children's prosocial behavior. However, when compared to the children's emotional expression, its' accountability were not significant. The influence of negative emotions, and its' adverse role in interpersonal interactions are discussed.