• Human Ecology Research
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.177-186
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among mothers' reflective function, preschoolers' empathy, executive function, caring behaviors. Subjects for this study were 498 preschoolers and their mothers. Mothers' reflective function was assessed by the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire(PRFQ). Preschoolers' empathy was assessed by the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy(QCAE). Preschoolers' executive function was assessed by the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Functions-Preschool Version(BRIEF-P), and caring behaviors were assessed by the caring behaviors scale(Kim, 2015). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis(CFA), and structural equation model(SEM) with the SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 23.0 program. The major results of this study were as follows. First, mothers' reflective function showed direct effects on preschoolers' empathy, executive function, and caring behaviors. Second, the preschoolers' empathy and executive function showed direct effects on preschoolers' caring behaviors. Third, preschoolers' empathy mediated the effects of mothers' reflective function on preschoolers' caring behaviors. The findings of this study will contribute to designing intervention programs to improve preschoolers' empathy, executive function, and caring behaviors.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.79-89
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• 1999

Children's sex, temperament, and empathy were studied as antecedents of preschoolers' prosocial development. Eighty eight 5-, and 6-year-old children, 41 boys and 47 girls, were sampled in two kindergartens. Children's naturally occurring prosocial behaviors were videotaped in their classrooms for 21 minutes in 3 days. Teachers rated the children's prosocial tendency using a questionnaire. Empathy was measured individually with a picture/story measure, and mothers provided information on children's temperament using a questionnaire. The two measures of preschoolers' prosocial behaviors, teacher ratings and free play observations, were moderately related. Girls were more prosocial in terms of helping/sharing/cooperation in both teacher-ratings and free-play observations. Preschoolers' adjustability was moderately related to the prosocial behaviors of children in both teacher-ratings and observations. Boys' verbal empathy was related to the observed prosocial behaviors.

• Korean Journal of Child Education & Care
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.171-182
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of empathy, aggression, and self-esteem on social preference and social impact in preschoolers. Methods: The participants were 307 five year olds who were recruited from day care centers and preschools located in Seoul and Gyeonggi province. Social preference and social impact was measured with peer nominations. Empathy and aggression were measured by teacher ratings. Moreover, self-esteem was asessed using self-reports. The data was analysed using Pearson correlation and hierarchial regression. Results: Findings indicate that social preference is associated with empathy, however, social impact was associated with physical as well as relational aggression. Conclusion/Implications: The findings suggest that the practice of physical and relational aggression may be related with peer status as early as preschool.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1-16
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• 2022

Objective: The purpose of this study is to test the psychometric properties of the Maternal Emotion Coaching Questionnaire (MECQ, Lim et al., 2018) in order to measure emotion coaching in mothers of preschoolers. Methods: A total of 316 preschoolers and their mothers participated in this study. Maternal emotion coaching was assessed by self-report and child emotion regulation ability was evaluated by the teacher. Data were analyzed with chi-square tests, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, latent profile analysis, and F-test. Results: Each item of the MECQ showed proper discriminative power. The MECQ and each subscale demonstrated adequate internal consistency and split-half reliability. Evidence of construct validity was provided by confirmatory factor analysis. The five-factor model including maternal attention, awareness, acceptance, empathy, and guidance showed a good fit. Results of the latent profile analysis revealed three profiles of emotion coaching: excellent, good, and poor. Preschoolers with mothers in the poor coaching profile showed significantly lower emotion regulation ability compared to those in the excellent or good coaching profiles, which suggested discriminative validity of the MECQ. Conclusion/Implications: The MECQ presents a reliable and valid tool to assess emotion coaching in mothers of preschool children and can thus be effectively used for mothers of preschoolers.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.389-400
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• 2014

This study identified the mediating effect of the child's emotional expression on the relationship between the mother's empathy and the child's prosocial behavior. The participants included 310 mothers of children between the ages of 2 and 5 from two kindergartens and four day care centers located in Gyeonggi-do. The mother's empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The child's prosocial behavior was measured using the Preschoolers' Prosocial Behavior Index. The child's emotional expression was assessed using a questionnaire from previous research. First, older mothers and less educated mothers showed a higher level of empathy. Mothers over the age of 30 were more likely to have the ability to imagine other roles in movies or books, and to show empathic concern than those under 36. Mothers without a college degree showed a higher level of perspective-taking than those with a college degree. Second, girls were more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors and show emotional expressions than boys. Three-year-old children were more likely to share than two-year-old children, showed more initiative than two- and four-year-old children. Third, the mother's perspective-taking and empathic concern were significantly related to the child's prosocial behavior and emotional expression. The mother's personal distress was related to the child's control over emotions and awareness of other's emotion. Finally, the child's emotional expression had a mediating effect on the relationship between the mother's empathy and the child's prosocial behavior.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.123-153
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• 2020

Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop an education program using music activities for promoting young children's creativity and personality and to analyze the impact of this program on the creativity and personality of young children in child care classrooms. Methods: The study consisted of how the creativity and personality education program using music activities for young children was developed and the impact of the program on 5-year-old children's creativity and personality. The experimental treatment was conducted on a total of 16 occasions for eight weeks. The data were collected through the preschooler Creativity test(K·CCTYC) and The Empathy Index for Children and Adolescents (IECA) and Skill Situation Measures were used to analyze the effects of experimental treatment with paired t-test. Results: First, the program had positive effects on fluency, flexibility, originality and imagination of creativity. Second, the program had positive effects on empathy ability and prosociality. Conclusion/Implications: The effectiveness of the creativity and personality education programs using music activities for promoting young children's creativity and personality and the ways to promote young children's creativity and personality in early childhood educations institutes were discussed.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.219-232
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• 2006

The purpose of this research is to develop and validate an instrument that can be used to measure critical aspects of a parent's attitude and behavior that influence child development and adaptation. This instrument is named Parenting Style Inventory and self-reporting assessment of parent for preschoolers. We reported findings from 578 preschooler's care-givers. Five factors were extracted from 55 items developed for preschooler version and finally 29 items were selected. Subscales were empathy, respect, parental authority, coerciveness, perfectionism. Internal consistency of these subscales were .77, .86, .70, .74, .68 relatively. Empathy, respect and authoritative scales were regarded as the basic dimensions of parent's behavior. For clinical validation, we divided the preschooler care-giver sample into 8 groups according to scores of the basic dimensions and compared the 8 groups with parenting stress and parenting self-efficacy scores. The results indicated that three basic factors would have different effects on parental experiences and satisfaction. We suggested the clinical implication and limitation of this instrument.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 1993

감정이입은 친사회적 행동의 잠재적 동기요인으로서 발달심리학자들 (e.g., Feshbach, 1978 ; Hoffman, 1975)로부터 지대한 관심을 받아왔다. 어려움에 처한 다른 사람에 대해 감정이입적으로 자극된 사람은 상호 체험하는 심적 고통(distress)으로부터 벗어난다는 기대에 의해서, 또는 지원적 행위 후에 대리체험할 수 있는 긍정적인 감정에 대한 기대에 의해서, 그 사람을 지원하도록 동기유발 되어질 수 있다(Barnett & Thompson, 1985; Hoffman, 1975). 감정이입과 친사회적 행동 사이의 긍정적 관계에 대한 충분한 이론적 근거에도 불구하고, 그 관련성을 실증하는데 실패한 많은 연구들에서 나타난 개념적, 방법론적 문제들이 본 논문에서 분석되었다. 성인의 감정이입과 친사회적 행동과의 관계에 대한 연구들은 상당히 일관된 긍정적 결과를 제시해온 반면, 아동들, 특히 어린 유아들을 대상으로 한 경우, 명백하거나 쉽게 해석할 수 있는 패턴의 관련성이 확립되지 못했다. 이러한 종전 연구에서의 문제점은 감정이입에 대한 개념적 논쟁 및 측정방법의 어려움에 기인할 수 있다. 감정이입과 친사회적 행동 사이의 실험적인 관련성의 강도는 이 변인들을 측정하기 위해 사용된 방법들의 특성과 제한성에 다분히 의존하는 것으로 보인다. 친사회적 반응에 영향을 미치는 것으로 가정되어지는 다양한 상황적, 동기적 요소들을 감안하여, 유아의 감정이입 능력이 구체적인 사회적 상황에서 작용되는 과정이 보다 면밀하게 연구되어져야 한다.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.167-187
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• 1988

The purpose of this study is to explore whether wives communicate differently over the family life cycle(FLC), and whether their communication contents and frequencies are differently over the FLC. Marital communication scales are composed of six subfactors such as The selectivity of channel (SC), Channel direction (CD), communication style(CS), Comprehension of nonverbal communication (CNC), Communication contents and frequencies(CCF) and Olson's marital communication (LCQ). The number of the subjects are 582, who are living in Pusan in 1987 and they divided into six stages family life cycle; The newly married (FLC 1). The family with preschoolers(FLC 2), The family with schoolages (FLC3), The family with teenages(FLC4)， The family with launching children(FLC 5) and The postparenthood (FLC 6). This study is surveyed by Frequencies and Mean score from six subfactors and tested by chi-square test and ANOVA. the results are as follows; 1) There are a few significant differences in CS and CNC by FLC. The wives from FLC 1 and FLC 2 use the most open communication style and them form FLC5 use the most closed style. There are revealed that comprehension of nonverbal communication is the highest of FLC2, but on FLC 1 it is the lowest. 2) There are significant difference in CCF. Children, Wive's life, Husband's life, Affection and sex and Empathy show significant differences over the over the FLC. Regardless of FLC, there are conclueded that Children, Wive's and husband's life and economy management are the most frequence communicative contents. These results suggest that there needs to be further investigation on Olson's marital communication scale for comparing another country with ours and on the training and programs for couple's skillful communication ability.