Children with reading difficulties (RD) are also likely to experience psychosocial problems. However, a significant proportion (30-50%) are indistinguishable, in psychosocial terms, from their typically-achieving (TA) peers. The aim of the current study was to identify aspects of social information processing which serve a protective function for children with RD, in terms of their at-risk status for concomitant psychosocial problems. Method: The sample comprised 42 children (21 with RD, and 21 TA), aged 9-11 years, with 11 boys and 10 girls in each group. A multifactor procedure was used to classify children as RD, based on the inclusionary criteria of teacher selection, and reading achievement below the 25th percentile, as well as several exclusionary criteria. The reading subtests of the WIAT-II, and the KBIT-2 (non-verbal IQ) measures were used to identify the presence of RD according to these criteria. The dependent variable, behavioural symptoms, was assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, which was rated by both parents and teachers. Children (RD and TA) completed measures of theory of mind, understanding emotions in facial expression and tone of voice, attachment style, and affective experience. Results: As expected, RD were correlated with increased levels of psychosocial problems, and poorer theory of mind skills predicted increased psychosocial problems. Consistent with hypotheses, emotion understanding, positive affect, and secure attachment, moderated the link between RD and psychosocial problems. That is, better emotion understanding, more positive affect, and secure attachment status, functioned as protective factors for children in the RD group, but not those in the TA group. Conclusion: The findings are discussed in relation to extant findings, as well as within a risk and protective framework. Finally, strengths and limitations of the current study are described, and implications for psychosocial interventions suggested.

Bullying is a pervasive problem among children and adolescents worldwide, but relevant research, although growing, lacks coherence. The proposed study is the first to integrate three large bodies of research - on children's attachment, anger, and Social Information Processing (SIP) - in a comprehensive, developmentally informed, multi-method, multi-trait design to elucidate the origins of bullying behavior, victimization, and anti-bullying attitudes and emotions. It was predicted that (1) children's early attachment insecurity would be linked to their maladaptive SIP patterns and to higher anger proneness; (2) higher anger proneness would be associated with maladaptive SIP; (3) anger proneness and maladaptive SIP would both predict greater parent-reported aggression; (4) parent-reported aggression would predict both bullying behavior and victimization; (5) lower anger proneness and more adaptive SIP would be associated with anti-bullying attitudes and sympathy for victims of bullying. A series of path analyses revealed overall well-fitting models; however, the analyses of the specific pathways described in the hypotheses above were less conclusive. Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that attachment security, anger proneness, and social information processing each plays a role in the development of positive or negative peer relations, but how these factors come together needs to be further elucidated.

The role of emotion within the reformulated Social Information Processing (SIP) Model of Children’s Social Adjustment (Crick and Dodge, 1994) has not been well investigated, particularly for young children. A developmental model of SIP and emotion proposed by de Castro (2010), provided the theoretical foundation for the current study to incorporate emotion processing variables into a pre-existing SIP interview for preschool children (SIPI-P, Ziv and Sorongon, 2011). The primary aims of this study were to (1) investigate age differences across social and emotional information processing between early childhood and early primary school aged children, (2) to describe the associations among children’s social and emotional information processing and behavioural characteristics, and (3) to replicate and extend the results of Helmsen,Koglin, and Petermann(2012) by examining the relationship between regulation (emotion and behavioural), information processing (social and emotional), and child behavioural difficulties (externalising and internalising). Two cohorts of children were recruited (30 children aged 4 years old and 30 children aged 6 to 7 years old), who were administered an expanded SIPI-P interview and a self-regulation task. In addition, children’s parents completed a questionnaire assessing internalising and externalising behaviours and emotion regulation. The results showed very few differences between the two groups of children for SIP, but consistent differences for emotion processing. Younger children rated aggressive responses more favourably, perceived more emotional intensity in the hypothetical vignettes, and showed lower levels of emotional reasoning and perspective taking skills when compared to the older children. Results also showed rather distinct patterns of associations for the two groups between social and emotion processing variables and behavioural and regulatory measures. For the preschool aged children there were consistent substantive associations between behavioural regulation and the social and emotion information processing variables, but very few associations with emotion regulation and internalising or externalising behaviours. For the early primary school aged children, there were several substantive associations between the social and emotion information procesing variables and internalising behaviours, but very few associations with behaviour regulation, emotion regulation, or externalising behaviours. Finally, when emotion information processing and emotion regulation were jointly tested as predictors of internalising behaviours with the primary school children, the results showed that only emotion regulation remained a significant predictor. Overall, the inclusion of emotion understanding variables in a social information processing interview format demonstrated that parsimonious integration of the two areas is both achievable and successful in yielding useful research information and suggests that the SIP model may be effectively used to explore other domains of social cognition and social competence.

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Children with reading difficulties (RD) are also likely to experience psychosocial problems. However, a significant proportion (30-50%) are indistinguishable, in psychosocial terms, from their typically-achieving (TA) peers. The aim of the current study was to identify aspects of social information processing which serve a protective function for children with RD, in terms of their at-risk status for concomitant psychosocial problems. Method: The sample comprised 42 children (21 with RD, and 21 TA), aged 9-11 years, with 11 boys and 10 girls in each group. A multifactor procedure was used to classify children as RD, based on the inclusionary criteria of teacher selection, and reading achievement below the 25th percentile, as well as several exclusionary criteria. The reading subtests of the WIAT-II, and the KBIT-2 (non-verbal IQ) measures were used to identify the presence of RD according to these criteria. The dependent variable, behavioural symptoms, was assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, which was rated by both parents and teachers. Children (RD and TA) completed measures of theory of mind, understanding emotions in facial expression and tone of voice, attachment style, and affective experience. Results: As expected, RD were correlated with increased levels of psychosocial problems, and poorer theory of mind skills predicted increased psychosocial problems. Consistent with hypotheses, emotion understanding, positive affect, and secure attachment, moderated the link between RD and psychosocial problems. That is, better emotion understanding, more positive affect, and secure attachment status, functioned as protective factors for children in the RD group, but not those in the TA group. Conclusion: The findings are discussed in relation to extant findings, as well as within a risk and protective framework. Finally, strengths and limitations of the current study are described, and implications for psychosocial interventions suggested.

The relationship between exposure to violence and aggression has been examined by many researchers. It has been reported that physically abused children and children from violent communities have more aggressive behavior than non-abused peers or peers from non-violent communities (Dodge et al., 1990; Dodge, 1993; Miller et al., 1999). In addition, it has been reported that children who are physically abused have social information processing deficits. However, the relationship between community violence exposure and aggression has yet to be fully explored. The present study proposed an underlying mechanism (i.e., social information processing deficits) that could be mediating the relationship between exposure to community violence and subsequent aggressive behavior. This study also looked at aggression more specifically and categorized the sample into reactive and proactive aggression. Thirty-nine children, aged 7-13 years, from a mostly rural setting were recruited to participate in this study. Self-report measures of community violence exposure, social information processing deficits (i.e., hostile or instrumental biases), and aggression (i.e., reactive or proactive) were included while controlling for child abuse potential and conflict in the home. The hypotheses of this study were not supported. Instead, the results supported a relationship between child abuse potential, social information processing biases, and aggression. Child abuse potential remained significant throughout the analyses, which suggests that it plays a larger role in the manifestation of aggressive behavior in children than does community violence exposure. Overall, the findings from this study are consistent with Dodge's work and has implications for treating children who are aggressive. / Master of Science

This research investigates how communal and exchange brand relationship norms determine consumers’ tendencies in processing brand information in morality or competence terms, respectively. Study 1 tests the hypothesized relationships between relationship norms and morality/competence social cognition. The results show that exchange norm-oriented consumers evaluate a brand mainly based on its competence attributes, whereas communal norm-oriented individuals place additional focus on the brand’s moral conduct. As an extension of Study 1, Study 2 examines the effectiveness of morality-framed and competence-framed advertising messages in relation to the relationship norms salient at brand exposure. The findings reveal that exchange norm-oriented individuals demonstrate more favorable attitudes towards the competence-framed message, whereas communal norm-oriented individuals show more positive attitudes towards the morality-framed message. Finally, Study 3 investigates how the norms dominant in the relationships with a brand influence consumers’ attitude change in response to morality- and competence-based negative information on the brand. The results show that exchange norm-oriented individuals are more susceptible to immoral brand information, and communal norm-oriented individuals are equally affected by both types of negative brand information. This research suggests that the different emphasis on morality and competence information in communal and exchange brand relationships not only influences how consumers form their initial impressions of a brand and evaluations of advertisements but also how they interpret negative brand information as brand relationships unfold. / text

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国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

The present study examined social information processing in a sample of teenagers with various comorbid neurodevelopmental disabilities and typically developing controls. Crick and Dodge’s (1996) model of social information processing was used as the theoretical framework for the current study. Specifically, emotion recognition of self and others, attribution biases, and outcome expectations were measured in adolescents with and without a neurodevelopmental disability. Performance on these social measures was compared to caregiver ratings of social skills, and was also compared across diagnostic groups. 52 adolescents with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and/or learning disability participated in the current study, as well as 51 typically developing control participants. Analyses showed that individuals with any neurodevelopmental disability were less accurate at recognizing sadness in others and at identifying their own feelings and emotions. An interaction between participant group and sex was found, such that females with a neurodevelopmental disability were most likely to report feeling badly after acting aggressively and reported that acting aggressively would be difficult, but that they believed aggression would result in a successful social outcome. Males with a neurodevelopmental disability believed the opposite, that acting aggressively would be socially unsuccessful, but that they would feel good about themselves and that acting aggressively would be easy. Additionally, caregiver ratings of social skills were positively related to participants’ abilities to identify their own feelings, and negatively related to participants’ ratings of the ease of aggressive social encounters. Interestingly, although diagnostic group differences were predicted on these measures, few were found. This research has implications for clinical and educational work with individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities. First, individuals with any neurodevelopmental disability appeared to have similar social impairments, suggesting that deficits may be related to the presence of any diagnosis, rather than one in particular. Analysis of the steps of social information processing in this population is useful for teachers and clinicians when trying to plan social skills interventions.