La capacite de simuler et de dissimuler des expressions faciales émotionnelles a été éxaminée auprès d'enfants dont l'âge variait entre 6 et 10 ans. Suite à la lecture de courtes histoires, les enfants devaient montrer avec leur visage comment les personnages exprimeraient leurs émotions (joie, colère et tristesse) ou les dissimuleraient à leur entourage social. Dans un premier temps, nous avons codifié les expressions à l'aide du Facial Action Coding System développé par Ekman & Friesen (1978). Cette méthode a été employée puisque très peu d'études ont utilisé un critère objectif pour évaluer les habiletés des enfants. Par la suite, un ensemble des expressions a été soumis à la perception de juges naïfs afin de vérifier le caractère reconnaissable et vraisemblable des expressions. Nous concluons que les enfants sont capables de simuler et de dissimuler les émotions de joie, colère et de tristesse dès l'âge de 6 ans. De plus, la joie est simulée avec plus de succès que la colère et la tristesse, indépendamment de l'âge. Nous avons noté certaines divergences entre les résultats de l'étude de composantes et ceux de l'étude de jugement, notamment en ce qui concerne les différences selon le genre. Les résultats sont discutés en termes du contrôle de la musculature faciale et de l'apprentissage des règles sociales d'expression des émotions.

The goal of the present study was to examine and directly compare actual peer acceptance and perceived peer acceptance in peer-identified withdrawn, aggressive, and nondeviant children. The children also rated how important it was for them to be liked by each of their peers. It was hypothesized that withdrawn children would underestimate their degree of acceptance in the peer group and would rate importance of peer acceptance higher compared to aggressive and nondeviant children. Children's self-reported social anxiety was also explored as a way of examining its effect on their perceptions of how they thought they were perceived by their peers. Participants included 479 children from Grades 3, 5, and 7 from middle-class elementary and junior high schools in the Western Quebec School Board. These children completed a peer assessment measure of social behaviour, a self-report measure of social anxiety, and sociometric rating measures of peer acceptance ("actual" peer acceptance, "perceived" peer acceptance, and "importance" of peer acceptance). Using a peer assessment measure of social behaviour, three groups of children were identified: (1) withdrawn (n = 68); (2) aggressive (n = 70); and (3) nondeviant (n = 242). When directly comparing children's actual versus perceived peer acceptance, contrary to our hypothesis, results showed no significant difference for withdrawn children. Conversely, aggressive children perceived themselves to be significantly better liked by their peers than they actually were, while results showed that nondeviant children were significantly better liked by their peers than they perceived themselves to be. The results also showed that aggressive children believed it was significantly less important for them to be liked by their peers compared to withdrawn children. Moreover, withdrawn children had significantly higher scores on social anxiety (i.e., social anxiety total score, and social avoidance and distress specific to new peers or situations and general situations) than aggressive or nondeviant children. Implications of the present findings and directions for future research are discussed.

No description available.

A community sample of depressed women, their spouses, and their 8 to 12 year old children participated in a 6 month longitudinal study. Aspects of their mothers' depression, their marital relationship, and their parenting style were investigated in terms of their association with child adjustment. Fathers' marital relationship and their parenting style were also assessed to examine their association with child adjustment. Severity, duration, and chronicity of the mothers' depression were assessed at two time points. Similarly academic and nonacademic self-concept, mathematics and verbal achievement, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms of the children were assessed at both time points. Marital functioning (i.e., warmth, intimacy, and control) and parenting style (i.e., expressiveness, cohesion, and conflict) were assessed at Time 1 only for both mothers and fathers. Using data from Time 1, children were classified into adjustment groups (well or poorly adjusted). They were considered well adjusted if they functioned at or above normal limits on at least two out of the three domains investigated. Results indicated that less than 30% of the children of depressed mothers were classified as poorly adjusted. Analyses revealed that both chronicity and severity of maternal depression distinguished the child adjustment groups at Time 1. Child adjustment groups did not differ on any of the marital or parenting variables for either mothers or fathers. Longitudinal analyses indicated that mother-child cohesion at Time 1 predicted a decline in children's self-concept from Time 1 to Time 2. Specifically, the closer the relationship with the depressed mother at Time 1, the more negative the child's combined academic and nonacademic self-concept was at Time 2. These results are discussed in terms of attachment theory. Additionally, the merits of longitudinal research investigating variability within the families of depressed mothers are highlighted.

Recently, investigators have become increasingly interested in developing methods that would accurately identify neonates who are experiencing pain. Given that neonates are unable to provide verbal reports of their pain, several indirect assessment tools (e.g., facial expression, physiological and hormonal/metabolic changes in response to painful events) have been presented in the literature. In addition, previous research has uncovered several contextual variables that impact on the expression of pain in neonates, such as behavioural state, gestational age, weight, illness severity, analgesic use, and number of previous procedures. However, the methodological limitations of these studies have prevented the development of a more comprehensive model of contextual influences on pain behaviour either by not considering these variables simultaneously or by using a restricted sample. In the present study, the facial expressions of neonates in the tertiary neonatal intensive care units of a children's hospital, and a general hospital with maternity facilities, were videotaped during a routine venepuncture procedure to determine the degree to which the various contextual variables influence pain behaviour. Using covariance structure analyses, this study found support for a well-fitting model that explained 94% of the observed covariance in the data. Specifically, 27% of the variance of the facial expression of pain was influenced by behavioural state, and illness severity. There was also an indirect effect of physical maturity on pain behaviour, mediated through illness severity. The number of previous procedures was not found to impact on subsequent pain behaviour, and this path was removed from the model. Finally, the ability of analgesic medication to attenuate the experience of subsequent pain could not be tested because too few neonates received such medication during their stay in the NICU.

For years, researchers have debated the structure of affect. Although many researchers claim positive and negative affect are independent, others present evidence that the two are bipolar. The current study used a behavioral genetic design as a unique way to address this debate. A national sample of 783 sibling pairs, including 117 identical twins, 160 fraternal twins, and 506 full-sibling non-twin pairs provided information on their positive and negative affect over the past month. A sub-sample of 210 twin pairs provided additional information on their positive and negative affect over daily and weekly time frames. Several different analyses indicated that at the phenotypic level, affect demonstrated a bipolar structure. Multivariate behavioral genetic analyses were used to estimate common genetic and environmental factors that influence the relationship between positive and negative affect, as well as the specific genetic and environmental factors that influence each. These analyses indicated that specific genetic and shared environmental factors were not necessary to explain the relationship between positive and negative affect. This pattern of results was consistent with the bipolar viewpoint. The structure of affect looked to be bipolar across differing time frames. No age differences in the structure of affect were found.

This study examines the rote of parenting style and the family characteristics of organization and control in the home as they relate to self-regulation skills in children ages 5–7. A theoretical model of the relationship between the independent variables of parenting style, levels of organization and control in home and the demographics of race, gender and SES with the dependent variable of self-regulation was constructed. A clinical group of 32 children, who scored poorly on measures of self-regulation, and a comparison group of 33 children, selected at random, were formed from the initial sample of 318 children within a local urban school district. The primary caretaker for each child was interviewed via telephone using the Parental Authority Questionnaire to measure parenting style and the Family Environment Scale to measure levels of organization and control in the home. Demographic information was also obtained. Data was analyzed through t-tests, correlational and multiple regression analysis. Results indicated positive correlations between authoritative parenting style and level of organization in the home and level of organization and level of control in the home. Negative correlations were reflected between authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles and permissive parenting style and level of organization. Negative correlations were also found between permissive parenting style and level of control and race and level of control. Results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that authoritative parenting style was a predictor of self-regulation skills in young children, accounting for 27.6% of the variance of the independent model while the overall model revealed two predictors, authoritative and permissive parenting style, of self-regulation skills in young children, accounting for 35.1% of the variance of this dependent variable. Implications of this study for parents, schools and researchers are discussed.

The present study investigated the effects of background television, or television designed for adults, on very young children's play with toys. One-, 2-, and 3-year-old children were individually observed playing with an array of toys in the lab for one hour. For each child, during half of the one-hour session, a TV set played the television program Jeopardy! ; during the other half of the session, the TV set was off. For the first half hour, the average duration of play episodes was reduced at all ages in the presence of background television. Given that overall levels of looking at the television were low (about 3.2% of their time in the first half hour), this effect is probably due to a generalized interference from television (perhaps tied to its auditory features) rather than looking at the set. One-year-olds specifically had less focused attention in the presence of background television. These results were not obtained for the second half hour. Only three-year-old boys had shorter play episodes in the presence of background television. The data suggests that background television may have a disruptive effect on very young children's play with toys, especially when the toys and the room are novel to the children.

Many aspects of development appear to follow a trajectory that is, in part, dependent upon biological maturity. Reaching, attention, and haptic development proceed along trajectories that progress from slower, less controlled forms of behavior to quicker and more optimal forms. In the absence of major medical complications, preterm development has been hypothesized to follow biologically based trajectories. Based on this assumption, preterm and full-term development are often equated, following correction for prematurity. This study examined the reaching, attentional, and haptic development, and novelty/familiarity preference, of full-term (6-, 8-, and 10-months) and preterm (8-, 10-, and 12-months) infants, using a longitudinal paired-comparison paradigm. The majority of the preterm infants were considered to be healthy and of low-risk status, with an average gestational age of 34 weeks and an average birth weight of 4.91 pounds. Behavioral and kinematic measures were assessed and compared within and between groups, in an effort to determine how, if at all, development was affected by preterm birth. The results reveal a complex developmental trajectory for preterm infants, with patterns of behaviors following paths that were similar but advanced, similar but delayed, and atypical, when compared to full-term infants. In addition, the patterns of development were not consistent within any one area, with similar/advanced, similar/delayed, and atypical behaviors prevalent within the reaching, visual attention, and haptic domains. Despite the behavioral differences of the preterm infants, their functional abilities were similar to those of the full-term infants. Preterm infants were just as likely to reach for and obtain the object of interest, even though certain aspects of the developmental trajectory of the reaches differed from those of full-term infants. In addition, although the preterm infants' visual and haptic explorations differed, both quantitatively and qualitatively, from those of the full-term infants, they distinguished and preferred the novel toy as readily. Thus, correcting for prematurity does not sufficiently equate preterm and full-term infant development. Preterm birth appears to fundamentally alter aspects of development, which results in behaviors that cannot be measured by comparison with full-term development. Instead, preterm infants should be evaluated based on the characteristics inherent in the preterm population.

Premature newborns were observed longitudinally while undergoing heelsticks. Behavioral and cardiac measures were taken over 5 tests days. On Tests 1, 3, and 5, the phlebotomist picked up the baby's leg and held it for 10 s and then proceeded to collect blood. This manipulation was geared towards observing whether, over days, babies learned that the pick-up of the leg was predictive of a painful event. Infants' reactions were also observed during the invasive parts of the blood collection. It was hypothesized that if infants increased their reactivity to the leg pickup over days, it would suggest that this neutral event had acquired signal value for the subsequent painful stimulus. If infants' response to the heelstick itself increased over days, this could be due to either maturation, sensitization and/or anticipation. However, if infants decreased their reactivity, it could be due to a specific learning mechanism, Stress-Induced-Analgesia. Results or the leg pick-up yielded a marginally significant cardiac increase on the final test day, suggesting anticipation. Infants demonstrated reliable behavioral and cardiac reactions to the heelstick but no change was observed in reactivity over days. Behavioral pain reactions were positively related with gestational age at Test 1, 2, 4 and 5. A greater number of heelsticks was related to fewer facial reactions at Test 5. Further research needs to be done to specify the nature of anticipation and to separate the effects of gestational age and number of invasive procedures on facial reactivity.