‘You Feel Sad?’ Emotion Understanding
Mediates Effects of Verbal Ability and
Mother–Child Mutuality on Prosocial
Behaviors: Findings from 2 Years to 4 Years

sode_572

93..110

Rosie Ensor, Debra Spencer and Claire Hughes, Centre for Family
Research, University of Cambridge

Abstract

Early individual differences in prosocial behaviors are pivotal for children’s peer
relationships. To investigate the interplay among verbal ability, emotion understand-
ing, and mother–child mutuality as predictors of prosocial behaviors, we observed 102
children at the ages of two, three, and four. All time points included verbal ability and
emotion understanding tests and both video-based and maternal ratings of prosocial
behavior. The first two time points also included video-based ratings of mother–child
mutuality. The third time point included teacher ratings of prosocial behavior and an
experimental task. Regression analysis demonstrated robust associations between
emotion understanding at the age of three and prosocial behavior at the age of four.
Path analysis showed that emotion understanding at the age of three mediated asso-
ciations between verbal ability/mother–child mutuality at the age of two and prosocial
behavior at the age of four.

Introduction

Prosocial behaviors are actions, such as sharing and helping, that benefit others (Eisen-
berg, 1982). Numerous studies have shown that prosocial behaviors also reap their own
rewards. Prosocial behaviors are pivotal for the quality of friendships (Wojslawowicz
Bowker, Rubin, Burgess, Booth-Laforce, & Rose-Krasnor, 2006) and peer relations
(Lansford, Putallaz, Grimes, Schiro-Osman, Kupersmidt, & Coie, 2006); equally, the
absence of prosocial behaviors predicts peer rejection (Vitaro, Gagnon, & Tremblay,
1990) and deviant peer group affiliation (Lacourse, Nagin, Vitaro, Cote, Arseneault, &
Tremblay, 2006). Together, these findings highlight the importance of understanding
the origins of individual differences in prosocial behaviors.

For most children, displays of prosocial behaviors are occasional in the first 2 years

of life (Hay & Cook, 2007) but more frequent thereafter (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998).
Between the second and fourth years of life, children’s prosocial behaviors also show
important qualitative changes (Hay & Cook, 2007). Specifically, newly acquired skills
and sensitivities enable toddlers to tailor prosocial behaviors (e.g., Levitt, Weber,

Correspondence should be addressed to Rosie Ensor, Centre for Family Research, Free School
Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF, UK. Email: [e-mail]

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00572.x

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2010. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Clark, & McDonnell, 1985). The likelihood of prosocial behaviors also depends upon
whether the recipient is a friend or acquaintance (Farver & Branstetter, 1994), or
particularly prosocial themselves (Dunn, Cutting, & Fisher, 2002). Despite these
examples of context sensitivity, stable individual differences in prosocial behaviors
emerge by the preschool years (Eisenberg, Guthrie, Murphy, Shepard, Cumberland, &
Carlo, 1999).

Early theoretical accounts of prosocial behaviors (e.g., Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989;

Hoffman, 1982) highlighted the importance of perspective taking, such as understand-
ing visual perspectives, thoughts, and feelings. Children make impressive gains in
perspective taking in the toddler and preschool years (Pons, Harris, & de Rosnay,
2004). Specifically, from around 18 months, children can identify simple emotions
such as happiness (Borke, 1971), anger, and sadness (Michalson & Lewis, 1985), and
use others’ emotional expressions to interpret desires (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997). By
three years of age, children start to understand both how situations relate to emotions
(Harris, 1989) and the subjectivity of emotions (Harris, Johnson, Hutton, Andrews, &
Cooke, 1989). Although their nature and magnitude in later years remain poorly
understood, individual differences in perspective-taking skills in the preschool years
are striking (de Rosnay & Hughes, 2006).

Variation in perspective-taking skills is associated with individual differences in

preschoolers’ prosocial behaviors (Denham, 1986; Iannotti, 1985). A simple explana-
tion is that children’s linguistic skills are associated with both emotion understanding
(e.g., Hughes, Lecce, & Wilson, 2007) and positive social behaviors (e.g., Cassidy,
Werner, Rourke, Zubernis, & Balaraman, 2003). In other words, the relationship
between emotion understanding and prosocial behavior may simply reflect common
associations with verbal ability. Ruling out this ‘third factor’ account is thus an
important step toward elucidating the processes that underpin individual differences in
prosocial behaviors. Moreover, evidence from two separate studies of school-age
children suggests that predictive relationships between emotion understanding and
later social skills are independent of effects of verbal ability (Denham et al., 2003;
Mostow, Izard, Fine, & Trentacosta, 2002). However, findings from studies of younger
children are less consistent. In one study, verbal ability and emotion understanding
showed overlapping associations with children’s co-operative play with friends (Dunn
& Cutting, 1999); in another, covarying effects of verbal ability fully explained rela-
tions between emotion understanding and prosocial behaviors (Cassidy et al., 2003).
However, in a third study, the association between emotion understanding and proso-
cial behaviors was statistically independent from effects of verbal ability (Ensor &
Hughes, 2005). These mixed findings highlight the need for further research to disen-
tangle relations among young children’s verbal ability, emotion understanding, and
prosocial behaviors.

By definition, prosocial behaviors are directed toward others: Elucidating the origins

of individual differences in such acts therefore requires attention to children’s relation-
ships. In particular, children’s prosocial behaviors are nurtured through the parent–child
relationship (Grusec, 1991). For example, there is extensive evidence that authoritative/
democratic disciplinary style (e.g., Dekovic & Janssens, 1992) and victim-centered/
other-orientated reasoning (Krevans & Gibbs, 1996) each promote children’s prosocial
behaviors, perhaps because such strategies catch children’s attention without provoking
anxiety/distress (Hoffman, 1975). Conversely, a large-scale multilevel study reported
reduced prosocial behaviors in children whose mothers engaged in punitive disciplinary
strategies (Romano, Tremblay, Boulerice, & Swisher, 2005).

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Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

However, disciplinary strategies are not equally effective with all children. In par-

ticular, children who are temperamentally fearless (e.g., Kochanska, 1997a) or who
show callous unemotional traits (Frick & White, 2008) typically show little discomfort
about wrongdoing, even when parents engage in victim-centered reasoning (but see
also Valiente, Fabes, Eisenberg, & Spinrad, 2004). For such children, parental respon-
siveness appears critical (e.g., Kochanska). Parents who are particularly responsive to
their children’s needs are likely to engender children’s wholehearted compliance to
parental requests (Kochanska & Aksan, 2004), leading to the development of prosocial
behaviors (Maccoby, 1992).

Although research on parent–child dyadic synchrony focuses on infancy, there are

striking and readily observable individual differences in the toddler years (Harrist &
Waugh, 2002). Specifically, studies highlight that both parents and toddlers modulate
their behaviors (Rutter & Durkin, 1987) to work toward common goals (Rocissano,
Slade, & Lynch, 1987). Longitudinal studies have demonstrated that children who
engage in such mutually responsive interactions with their parents appear more proso-
cial than their peers (e.g., Kochanska, 1997b). This may be because consistent parental
practices are cumulative in their effects (Ruffman, Slade, Devitt, & Crowe, 2006) such
that, over extended periods of time, parenting style becomes a strong predictor of
behavior (Rothbaum & Weisz, 1994).

How should the effect of the parent–child relationship on children’s prosocial

behaviors be explained? That is, what processes underpin the association between
mutually responsive parent–child interactions and later prosocial behaviors? The
importance of these questions is underscored by evidence that individual differences in
the parent–child relationship and in children’s emotion understanding are closely
entwined. For example, good emotion understanding is associated with secure attach-
ment (e.g., Laible & Thompson, 1998) and emotionally contingent (Denham, Zoller, &
Couchod, 1994), high-quality affective interactions (Laible & Song, 2006) between
parents and children. Thus, the specificity of emotion understanding as a correlate of
prosocial behaviors remains unknown: Addressing this issue is an important first step
toward elucidating the role of emotion understanding in prosocial behavior. A prelimi-
nary aim in this study was to test whether emotion understanding remains associated
with children’s prosocial behaviors when effects of parent–child relationships and
verbal ability are taken into account (H1).

The next step in elucidating the role of emotion understanding in explaining indi-

vidual differences in prosocial behavior is to test whether good emotion understanding
explains why verbally able children or children who enjoy mutually responsive inter-
actions with their parents are more likely than their peers to be prosocial. In other
words, we hypothesized that young children’s emotion understanding mediated the
associations between prosocial behaviors and both verbal ability (H2) and mutually
responsive parent–child interactions (H3). With regard to H2, evidence that emotion
understanding mediates the relationship between verbal ability and prosocial behaviors
(H2) is available for school-age children (Mostow et al., 2002); there is also consistent
(albeit cross-sectional) evidence from toddlers (Ensor & Hughes, 2005). For pre-
schoolers, it is worth noting that the marked developmental changes in the quality and
quantity of prosocial behaviors, described earlier, appear in tandem with rapid devel-
opments in preschoolers’ emotion vocabulary (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982; Hughes
et al., 2007). In sum, there is suggestive, but not conclusive, evidence that emotion
understanding is the proximal process through which verbal ability predicts prosocial
behaviors.

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Turning to H3, there is only indirect evidence that emotion understanding mediates

the relationship between parent–child mutuality and prosocial behaviors (H3). Specifi-
cally, emotional regulation (a construct that overlaps in part with emotion
understanding—Thompson & Goodvin, 2007) has been reported to mediate associa-
tions between (1) parental emotional expressivity and children’s social competence in
the early school years (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2001), and (2) attachment and peer
relationships in middle childhood (Contreras, Kerns, Weimer, Gentzler, & Tomich,
2000). Two further findings also deserve mention. Firstly, young children’s effortful
control (a construct closely allied to emotion regulation—Eisenberg, Zhou, Spinrad,
Valiente, Fabes, & Liew, 2005) mediates links between supportive parenting and social
competence (Spinrad et al., 2007). Second, in middle childhood, children’s use of
display rules (a construct that reflects emotion regulation—Campos, Campos, &
Barrett, 1989) mediates links between parental style and children’s social competence
(McDowell & Parke, 2005). The current study builds on these findings to assess directly
whether emotion understanding mediates relations between prosocial behaviors and
both verbal ability and parent–child mutuality.

Method

Overview

This study included longitudinal data from a socially diverse sample of children seen at
the ages of two, three, and four, and capitalized on the availability of several indexes of
prosocial behaviors. At the ages of two and three, measures included (1) maternal
questionnaire ratings, and (2) video-based coding of the children sharing toys or food
with unfamiliar peers. At the age of four, measures included (1) maternal and teacher
questionnaire ratings, (2) video-based coding of the children sharing toys and/or helping
a friend, and (3) an experimental assessment of the children’s intentions to share task
rewards with a friend (Moore, Barresi, & Thompson, 1998). Individual differences in
aggregates were examined in relation to the children’s performance on well-validated
tests of verbal ability and emotion understanding (at the ages of two, three, and four), and
video-based coding of parent–child mutuality (at the ages of two and three).

Recruitment and Participants

A socially diverse sample was recruited via face-to-face contact in mother–toddler
groups or support groups for mothers in Cambridge, UK. Core inclusion criteria
included: toddler age between 24 months and 36 months at the first wave of data
collection and English as a home language. Of the 192 eligible families, 140 gave
informed consent and took part in the first wave of the study (hereafter ‘time 1’ or ‘t1’);
of these, 125 participated in the second and third waves of data collection (hereafter
‘time 2/3’ or ‘t2/3’). Information about family background and structure was collected
from the mothers during home visits at time 1 and time 2 and phone calls prior to
school visits at time 3. Note that, compared with the 102 families with complete
experimental and observational data, the 23 families with missing data had marginally
lower levels of maternal education: t

= 1.70, p = .09; but did not significantly differ on

head of household occupational status: t

= 1.45, p = .15; number of children: t = 1.30,

p

= .20; and lone parents: c

2

= 1.30, p = .25. At time 3, teachers nominated a friend for

each of the target children: 11 target children were friends with another target child

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Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

(one child was a nominated friend of two children), and we recruited 91 further
children (hereafter ‘friends’). Reflecting the local population, all but four target chil-
dren and two friends were White. Table 1 shows the target children’s and friends’
characteristics, family background, and structure; note that, at time 3, 15 target chil-
dren were seen between 1 month to 4 months prior to their fourth birthday because of
the constraints of the school year.

Procedure

At times 1 and 2 (interval: M

= 12.18 months, SD = 1.2 months), two researchers

visited each family, typically on a weekday evening; as part of each visit, target
children completed an emotion understanding task. Within approximately 6 weeks of
the home visit (intervals: t1 M

= 1.10 months, SD = .82 months; t2 M = 1.25 months,

SD

= .99 months), pairs of unfamiliar children matched for sex visited a lab, accom-

panied by their mothers (who received free transport or travel cost refunds). In a
playroom, one child was filmed with his/her mother in 10 minutes free play (with a
train track and doll set), approximately 5 minutes tidy up, and 10 minutes structured
play (with Duplo, jigsaws and Mrs Potato Head). In an adjacent room, the other child
completed a verbal ability assessment. The mother–child dyads then swapped rooms
and completed the other activity before being filmed together for 30 minutes in the
playroom. Here, the children were introduced and invited to play together with pretend
play toys (e.g., umbrellas, puppets, tools) with their mothers (5 minutes); the mothers
were then asked to (1) sit on a sofa (5 minutes), and (2) leave the room (5 minutes). The
children then had a 5-minute snack break before playing with a rocking horse (5
minutes) and a double trampoline (5 minutes). At time 3 (t2–t3 interval: M

= 8.81

months, SD

= 1.44 months), researchers visited each child and a friend (N = 97 pairs;

40 boy–boy, 32 girl–girl, 25 boy–girl) at their preschool and filmed the children for
15–20 minutes playing with dressing-up materials and role-play toys (e.g., nurse and
doctor outfits/kits; light sabers; fairy wand). The children also completed a vocabulary
assessment and an emotion understanding task. Finally, all teachers (N

= 82) completed

questionnaires. Questionnaires were mailed with a prepaid envelope to the families; 95
(93 percent) mothers completed and returned the questionnaires. At each time point,
each family received a DVD of their child, as well as £20 at times 1 and 2, and a £10
gift voucher at time 3; each school also received a £10 gift voucher.

Verbal Ability

At time 1 and time 2, the children completed the vocabulary and comprehension
subtests from the British abilities scales (Elliott, Murray, & Pearson, 1983). Standard
scoring procedures were applied and possible scores range from 0 to 20 points for
vocabulary and 0 to 27 points for comprehension. For simplicity, we summed scores
from the two subtests. At time 3, the British picture vocabulary scale (Dunn, 1997) was
used to assess the children’s vocabulary.

Emotion Understanding

We used Denham’s (1986) widely used puppet task, a measure that taps individual
differences in young children’s recognition and identification of emotional expressions
and understanding of ties between situations and emotions. The task materials included

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T

a

b

le

1

.

Sample

Char

acteristics

of

Stud

y

P

ar

ticipants

T

ime

point

‘T

ar

get’

‘F

riend’

XS

D

Range

XS

D

Range

Child

characteristics

Age

(y

ears)

1

2.36

.26

2.02–2.98

—

2

3.45

.28

3.05–4

—

3

4.24

.31

3.73–4.95

4.24

.48

3.33–5.68

N

Bo

ys

:

Girls

60:42

43:47

Head

of

household

occupation

(percent)

Professional/managerial

48

57

Non-manual

24

26

Manual/unemplo

y

ed

2

8

1

7

Mater

nal

education

(percent)

De

g

ree

32

33

A-le

v

els

(high

school

diploma)

31

21

GCSEs

(GED)

24

40

No

qualification

13

5

F

amil

y

str

ucture

(percent)

Lone

mothers

17

17

Singletons

7

1

3

One

sib

ling

48

53

T

w

o

sib

lings

31

20

Three

sib

lings

10

10

F

our

or

fiv

e

sib

lings

4

4

GCSE

=

General

Cer

tificate

of

Secondar

y

Education;

GED

=

general

educational

de

v

elopment;

SD

,

standard

de

viation.

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a puppet with a blank face (male for boys, female for girls) and four felt faces
portraying happy, sad, angry, and scared expressions. In the emotion-labeling subtask,
the children were asked to name how the puppet felt when each face was placed on the
puppet; the children were then told how the puppet felt and asked to choose the
appropriate face. In the emotion perspective-taking subtask, vignettes associated with
feelings of happiness, sadness, anger, or fear were enacted (four of each type) with
matching affective tone and the children were asked to choose the face that matched
how the puppet was feeling in each vignette. Eight unambiguous vignettes reflected
what most children typically feel in a given situation and eight ambiguous vignettes
presented scenarios in which the puppet’s emotion differed from the emotion that the
mother had previously stated his/her child would typically express in that situation.
Fully correct responses received 2 points, whereas responses correct in valence but not
specific emotion (e.g., calling the angry face sad) received 1 point. Possible scores on
this task range from 0 to 32 points at time 1 (note here that, despite providing clear
measures of perspective taking, the ambiguous vignettes were not administered at time
1 because of their complexity) and 0 to 48 points at time 2 and time 3.

Mother–Child Mutuality

The parent–child interaction system (Deater-Deckard, Pylas, & Petrill, 1997) was used
to code each 1-minute segment from videos of mother–child interaction at time 1 and
time 2. We focused on four 7-point Likert scale ratings:

(1) mother responsiveness to child’s comments, questions, and behaviors (0

= ignored

child’s comments, questions, and behaviors; 3

= responded to about half of child’s

comments, questions, or behaviors, although some responses may be delayed; 6

=

always responds immediately to child; expands on some comments made by child);

(2) child responsiveness to mother’s comments, questions, and behaviors;
(3) dyadic reciprocity: shared positive affect, eye contact, a ‘turn taking’ (conversation

like) quality of interaction; and

(4) dyadic co-operation: explicit agreement and discussion about how to proceed with

and complete task.

Within each time point, we averaged, across intervals, ratings for each behavior
separately. Following the example of other studies (Deater-Deckard & O’Connor,
2000; Deater-Deckard & Petrill, 2004), we then averaged the mother/child responsive-
ness and dyadic reciprocity/co-operation scores to create mother–child mutuality
scores (Cronbach’s

a at t1 = .78 and t2 = .73).

Prosocial Behaviors

Observations. We coded videos of the children’s play with unfamiliar peers at time 1
and time 2, and with friends at time 3 for two types of prosocial behaviors:

(1) share: child offers object previously in their possession or gives object into other’s

hands or laps, or adds object to array within which other is situated; and

(2) help: child provides physical or verbal assistance.

Note that sharing and helping could be spontaneous or in response to peer requests
(e.g., peer points to or reaches for an object) or distress. We converted the raw
frequencies of the two behaviors into hourly rates, for two reasons. Firstly, the length

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of observations at times 1 and 2 (M

= 30.25 and 27.17 minutes, respectively) were

longer than those at time 3 (M

= 18.74 minutes). Secondly, at time 1 only, three children

became distressed when their mothers left the room; as a result, this part of the
observation was omitted for these children.

Experimental Assessment. At time 3, the children received reward trials in which they
could choose between an immediate reward (one sticker now), a delayed reward for self
(two stickers later), and a delayed shared reward (two stickers to share with a friend
later) (Moore et al., 1998). Each child was offered the choice of reward after he/she had
completed a cognitive task (such as the British picture vocabulary scale); there were 14
trials in total. We focused on the frequency with which the children elected to share the
reward with a friend. Possible scores ranged from 0 to 14 points.

Questionnaire. The strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) (Goodman, 1997)
was completed by the mothers at all three time points and by the teachers at time 3. For
each of the 25 items, the mothers/teachers rated ‘not true’ (0), ‘sometimes true’ (1), or
‘certainly true’ (2). Our focus is on the five questions that make up the prosocial
subscale (e.g., considerate of other people’s feelings; shares readily with other chil-
dren; helpful if someone is upset, hurt, or feeling ill; kind to younger children; often
volunteers to help others) (Cronbach’s

a at t1 = .73, t2 = .62, t3 mother ratings = .69,

and t3 teacher ratings

= .82); possible scores range from 0 to 10 points.

Reliability of Coding

Twenty percent of videos were double coded, with good to excellent agreement
between coders. Intra-class correlations for mother–child mutuality at time 1 and time
2 were .99 and .82, respectively. Kappa coefficients were 1.00, 1.00, and .79 for sharing
at time 1, time 2, and time 3, respectively, and 1.00, 1.00, and .72 for helping at time
1, time 2, and time 3, respectively.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Sharing behaviors were observed in over 70 percent of the children at each of the three
time points; 43 percent of the children also helped their friends at time 3 (see Table 2).
In contrast, helping was very infrequent at time 1 (

<7 percent of the children) and time

2 (

<13 percent of the children), and so these measures were excluded from our

analyses.

Gender Differences. Girls showed higher frequencies of sharing/helping than did
boys. These gender differences were marginal for sharing at time 1: t

= 1.64, p = .10;

and time 2: t

= 1.82, p = .07; non-significant for sharing at time 3: t = 1.28, p = .20; and

significant for helping at time 3: t

= 3.63, p

< .001. In addition, compared with boys,

girls elected to share marginally more often on the sticker task: t

= 1.74, p = .09; and

received marginally higher SDQ prosocial behavior ratings from the mothers at time 2:
t

= 1.77, p = .08; and teachers at time 3: t = 1.74, p = .09. In contrast, the mother SDQ

prosocial behavior ratings showed no gender differences at times 1 and 3: t

ⱕ 1.54,

p

ⱖ .13. With the exception of time 2 emotion understanding scores, which were

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significantly higher in girls than in boys: t

= 2.43, p

< .05; there were no gender

differences on any other measure: t

ⱕ 1.61, p ⱖ .11.

Developmental Change. Here, we focus on measures available at all three time points.
Repeated measure analyses of variance showed age-related increases in hourly rates of
sharing: F

= 53.11, p

< .001 (reflecting significantly higher frequencies of the chil-

dren’s sharing with friends at time 3 vs. unfamiliar peers at times 1: t

= 7.29, p

< .001;

and 2: t

= 6.87, p

< .001); the mothers’ SDQ prosocial behavior ratings: F = 22.48,

p

< .001; and the children’s performance on emotion understanding task (with scores

at time 1 prorated to a possible maximum score of 48): F

= 367.17, p

< .001.

Data Reduction

At times 1 and 2, hourly rates of sharing were significantly correlated with the mothers’
SDQ prosocial behavior ratings: t1 r

= .20, p

< .05; t2 r = .27, p < .01. We therefore

converted these measures into z-scores and averaged them to create times 1 and 2
prosocial behavior composites. At time 3, a principal components analysis with
varimax rotation showed that the five measures (hourly rates of sharing with and
helping friends; planned sharing within sticker task; the mothers’ and teachers’ SDQ
prosocial behavior ratings) loaded onto a single factor that accounted for 42 percent of
the variance (with loadings that ranged from .54 to .73). The analysis was rerun with
standardized residuals to control for the effects of age: A single factor was again
evident, with moderate to substantial loadings (.56–.73) that explained 43 percent of

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Study Measures

Measure

Time point

X

SD

Range

BAS: vocabulary/comprehension

1

20.30

10.02

0–38

2

32.14

6.04

18–44

BPVS: vocabulary

3

35.02

11.39

11–72

Emotion understanding

1

9.00

7.27

0–26

2

29.80

11.01

0–47

3

40.70

7.03

4–48

Mother–child play: mutuality

1

3.21

.32

2.17–3.92

2

3.20

.30

2.42–3.92

Unfamiliar peer play: share

1

5.19

5.41

0–22.76

2

5.44

5.36

0–22.50

Friend play: share

3

12.95

11.07

0–60

Friend play: help

3

2.85

4.33

0–22.86

Sticker task: share

3

5.69

4.81

0–14

Mother SDQ: prosocial

1

6.01

2.26

0–10

2

6.99

1.90

2.50–10

3

7.26

2.06

1–10

Teacher SDQ: prosocial

3

5.92

2.97

0–10

BAS

= British abilities scales; BPVS = British picture vocabulary scale; SDQ = strengths and

difficulties questionnaire.

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Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

the variance. To maximize reliability, the observational, experimental, and question-
naire measures of prosocial behaviors at time 3 were therefore converted into z-scores
and averaged to create a multi-informant and multi-measure aggregate with modest but
acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s

a = .65).

Correlations

Table 3 shows the full correlations between all study measures; partial correlations
with effects of concurrent/later age controlled are shown in parentheses. Note that
although individual differences in prosocial behaviors were correlated across all time
points, this correlation was especially strong between times 1 and 2. Individual differ-
ences in prosocial behaviors were significantly correlated (both concurrently and
longitudinally) with individual differences in: (1) emotion understanding at time 2 and
time 3; (2) verbal ability (with the exception of a marginally significant correlation
between prosocial behaviors at time 1 and verbal ability at time 3); and (3) mutuality
at time 1 (mutuality at time 2 was only significantly correlated with time 3 prosocial
behaviors). In contrast, individual differences in prosocial behaviors were unrelated to
maternal education, head of household occupational status, and family structure (mean
r

= .04); for reasons of space and simplicity, these family background measures were

excluded from our analyses.

Regression and Mediation Analyses

Rather than examining all possible cross-lagged associations, our next analyses
focused on the significant correlations reported above. We selected independent vari-
ables (verbal ability and mother–child mutuality at time 1), a posited mediator
(emotion understanding at time 2), and a dependent variable (prosocial behavior at
time 3) assessed at different study time points. Before conducting mediation analyses,
we addressed our first study hypothesis by using a hierarchical regression analysis to
establish whether emotion understanding at time 2 remained significantly associated
with prosocial behaviors at time 3 when effects of verbal ability and mutuality at time
1 were controlled. Specifically, we entered age, gender, and prosocial behaviors at time
1 at step 1, and verbal ability and mutuality at time 1 at step 2. At step 3, emotion
understanding at time 2 explained an additional 8 percent of variance in prosocial
behaviors at time 3. Table 4 shows the coefficients. In sum, emotion understanding at
time 2 predicted unique variance in prosocial behaviors at time 3 beyond effects of age,
prosocial behaviors, verbal ability, and mutuality at time 1.

To test our mediation hypotheses, we used a path analysis and applied the multi-

variate delta method (Sobel, 1982) to estimate indirect effects and derive their standard
errors. We selected MPlus 5 (Muthén & Muthén, Los Angeles, CA) to analyze the
sample variance–covariance matrix because this program directly estimates specific
indirect effects. We tested the model that emotion understanding at time 2 mediated the
impact of verbal ability and mother–child mutuality at time 1 on prosocial behaviors at
time 3. In addition, on the basis of the results of the regression analysis, we covaried
prosocial behaviors at time 1. Each coefficient shown in Figure 1 is the ratio of the
parameter estimate to its standard error. The model was saturated; thus, there were no
degrees of freedom and the

c

2

test of fit equaled zero. In order to obtain model

fit statistics, we omitted the (non-significant) path between verbal ability at time 1
and prosocial behavior at time 3. Goodness of model fit was evaluated using the

102

Rosie Ensor, Debra Spencer and Claire Hughes

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2010

Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

T

a

b

le

3

.

Corr

elations

betw

een

Stud

y

Measur

es

(Corr

elations

with

Concurr

ent/Later

Ag

e

P

ar

tialled)

V

erbal

ability

(V)

Emotion

understanding

(E)

Mutuality

(M)

Prosocial

beha

vior

(P)

t1

t2

t3

t1

t2

t3

t1

t2

t1

t2

t3

V

t2

.77***

(.76***)

V

t3

.65***

.69***

(.68***)

(.69***)

E

t1

.61***

.53***

.34***

(.57***)

(.51***)

(.33***)

E

t2

.70***

.69***

.59***

.53***

(.68***)

(.67***)

(.59***)

(.49***)

E

t3

.61***

.64***

.58***

.34***

.71***

(.61***)

(.64***)

(.57***)

(.33***)

(.71***)

M

t1

.39***

.48***

.27***

.28***

.43***

.47***

(.39***)

(.47***)

(.26***)

(.22**)

(.42***)

(.46***)

M

t2

.23**

.17*

.22**

.14

.32***

.27**

.27***

(.16)

(.15)

(.24**)

(.09)

(.27**)

(.25***)

(.16)

P

t1

.30***

.30***

.19*

.19*

.24***

.26***

.35***

.08

(.28***)

(.30***)

(.19*

)

(.16)

(.24**)

(.26**)

(.35***)

(.07)

P

t2

.30***

.32***

.22**

.21**

.25**

.39**

.31**

.20*

.52**

(.29***)

(.33***)

(.22***)

(.19*)

(.20*)

(.30**)

(.39**)

(.15)

(.52**)

P

t3

.28**

.30**

.37**

.17*

.37***

.40***

.31***

.29***

.21**

.21**

(.26*)

(.31**)

(.37**)

(.14)

(.35***)

(.40***)

(.31***)

(.27***)

(.20**)

(.20**)

*

p

<

.10;

**

p

<

.05;

***

p

<

.01.

Prosocial Behavior, Emotion Understanding

103

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2010

Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

standardized root mean square residual

ⱕ.08, root mean square error of approximation

ⱕ.06, comparative fit index ⱖ.95, and the Tucker–Lewis index ⱖ.95 (Brown, 2006).
The model fitted the data well:

c

2

(1)

= .05, p = .82, standardized root mean square

residual

= .00, root mean square error of approximation = .00, comparative fit index =

1.00, Tucker–Lewis index

= 1.03.

In relation to H2, the indirect effect of verbal ability at time 1 on prosocial behaviors

at time 3 through emotion understanding at time 2 was .02 (SE

= .01) with 95 percent

confidence intervals of .01 to .03. The confidence intervals did not include zero,
indicating that the difference between the indirect effect of verbal ability at time 1 on
prosocial behaviors at time 3 through emotion understanding at time 2 and the direct
effect of verbal ability at time 1 on prosocial behaviors at time 3 was significantly
different from zero. This analysis supports our hypothesis that emotion understanding at
time 2 mediated the effect of verbal ability at time 1 on prosocial behaviors at time 3.

Turning now to H3, the indirect effect of mutuality at time 1 on prosocial behaviors

at time 3 through emotion understanding at time 2 was

-.86 (SE = .32) with confidence

intervals of

-1.48 to -.23. Thus, the difference between the indirect effect of mutuality

at time 1 on prosocial behaviors at time 3 through emotion understanding at time 2 and
the direct effect of mutuality at time 1 on prosocial behaviors at time 3 was again

Table 4. Regression Analysis: Emotion Understanding
at Time 1 Predicts Prosocial Behavior at Time 3,
Beyond Effects of Age, Gender, Prosocial Behavior,
Verbal Ability, and Mother–Child Mutuality at Time 2

DV: Prosocial behavior t3

B

SE B

b

p

Step 1

Age

.01

.01

.06

.58

Gender

.01

.01

.11

.30

Prosocial behavior t1

.01

.01

.24

**

R

2

= .08, F = 2.77, p

< .05

Step 2

Age

.01

.01

.09

.36

Gender

.01

.01

.10

.34

Prosocial behavior t1

.01

.01

.10

.35

Verbal ability t1

.02

.01

.20

*

Mutuality t1

.27

.12

.24

**

DR

2

= .11, DF = 6.33, p

< .01

Step 3

Age

.01

.01

.09

.37

Gender

.00

.01

.05

.62

Prosocial behavior t1

.01

.01

.09

.37

Verbal ability t1

.00

.01

.16

.85

Mutuality t1

.18

.12

.16

.13

Emotion understanding t2

.05

.02

.36

***

DR

2

= .08, DF = 9.93, p

< .01

* p

< .10; ** p < .05; *** p < .01.

104

Rosie Ensor, Debra Spencer and Claire Hughes

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2010

Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

significantly different from zero. This analysis supported our hypothesis that emotion
understanding at time 2 mediated the effect of mutuality at time 1 on prosocial
behaviors at time 3.

Discussion

This study examined three hypotheses. Our first, preliminary hypothesis was that
variation in children’s emotion understanding would be robustly associated with later
individual differences in prosocial behaviors. In support of this hypothesis, emotion
understanding at the age of three was significantly associated with prosocial behaviors
at the age of four, even when effects of both verbal ability and parent–child mutuality
at the age of two were controlled. Note, however, that interpretations of this association
must be tentative, given the considerable concurrent and longitudinal correlations
between verbal ability and emotion understanding. Next, we hypothesized that emotion
understanding would mediate the associations between early verbal ability and parent–
child mutuality, and later prosocial behaviors. Our results supported each of these
hypothesized mediation effects. Specifically, including emotion understanding at the
age of three in our regression analyses attenuated relations between verbal ability/
parent–child mutuality at the age of two and prosocial behaviors at the age of four. A
path analysis confirmed these mediation effects, which are discussed in turn below.

In relation to the first mediation effect, it is worth noting that the use of emotion

terms is a key milestone in early language development (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982;
Hughes et al., 2007). In the present study, verbal skills appeared necessary but not
sufficient for the children’s prosocial behaviors, because intervening individual differ-
ences in emotion understanding carried the association between verbal ability and

2.82**

.23

3.06**

5.57**

9.91**

2.98** .18

2.15**

1.40**

Emotion

understanding t2

Verbal ability

t1

Prosocial

behavior t3

Prosocial

behavior t1

Mother-child

mutuality t1

6.89**

Figure 1. Mediation Analysis: Emotion Understanding at Time 2 Mediates Associa-
tions between Verbal Ability and Mother–Child Mutuality at Time 1 and Prosocial
Behavior at Time 3. **p

< .01.

Prosocial Behavior, Emotion Understanding

105

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2010

Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

prosocial behaviors. Indeed, in our path analysis, the direct association between verbal
ability at the age of two and prosocial behaviors at the age of four was not significant.
Such a link between the predictor and outcome is not necessarily required to test a
mediation effect (Kenny, Kashy, & Bolger, 1998); however, studies often lack power to
detect the direct association between distal predictors and outcomes (Shrout & Bolger,
2002).

One simple interpretation of the above finding is that verbal ability enables children

to initiate discussions about emotions and to assimilate others’ talk about feelings. A
second, more complex interpretation hinges on the regulatory role of children’s verbal
ability (Winsler, Diaz, McCarthy, Atencio, & Chabay, 1999). Specifically, some proso-
cial acts require children to simultaneously observe others’ emotional expressions,
monitor their own affective response, and plan an adaptive action. From a Vygotskian
perspective, these higher order processes depend heavily upon children’s early lan-
guage skills. This perspective is consistent with the view that emotional regulation plays
a key role in prosocial activity (e.g., Blair, Denham, Kochanoff, & Whipple, 2004).

Turning to the second mediation effect, it is worth noting that responsive, reciprocal,

and co-operative parent–child interactions (i.e., parent–child mutuality) are tradition-
ally thought to lead directly to children’s prosocial behaviors. The findings from this
study suggest that children’s abilities to detect and reflect on feelings are implicated in
the association between parent–toddler mutuality and preschool prosocial behaviors. In
other words, early close relationships may influence later prosocial behaviors by
motivating children to apply their emotion understanding to prosocial ends. That said,
direct associations with parent–child mutuality may have been weakened in our study
because our measures focused on prosocial behaviors directed toward peers rather than
parents.

The findings described above also provide a fresh perspective on the results of earlier

studies of mother–child conversations. Secure attachment is associated with types of
communication that promote young children’s abilities to identify feelings and under-
stand their causes (e.g., Harris, 1999). In particular, mutually responsive mother–child
dyads have been shown to refer frequently to feelings (Farrar, Fasig, & Welch-Ross,
1997) and to engage in fluent and connected conversations (Askan, Kochanska, &
Ortmann, 2006); moreover, such connectedness predicts later individual differences in
emotion understanding (Ensor & Hughes, 2008). These prior findings suggest a con-
versationally mediated pathway from mother–child mutuality to emotion understand-
ing. Our current findings extend this model by demonstrating that, via effects on
emotion understanding, parent–child mutuality may also encourage children’s proso-
cial behaviors.

We turn now to a few methodological issues. There is a relative lack of research

addressing the processes that underpin individual differences in prosocial behaviors
(Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). The current study followed recommendations for
tests of mediation (Maxwell & Cole, 2007) as far as sample size and power permitted
but did not attempt a full autoregressive mediation model. Finally, a basic prerequisite
for testing mediation is the availability of reliable measures of individual differences.
However, establishing convergence between different informants and methods is a
particular challenge for studies of young children (Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002);
we were therefore encouraged by the (albeit modest) agreement, not only between
maternal and teacher questionnaire ratings, but also with disparate measures of pre-
schoolers’ observed sharing and helping friends, and experimental assessments of
planned sharing.

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Social Development, 20, 1, 2011

Future studies should address the shortfalls of our own study. Chief among these is

the lack of similarity between our aggregate measures of prosocial behaviors at the
ages of two and three vs. the age of four. Constructing reliable and equivalent measures
of prosocial behaviors at several ages would enable future studies to assess whether
emotion understanding matters not only for individual differences but also for devel-
opmental change in prosocial functioning. Nevertheless, we believe that the current
study provides insights into the mechanisms that underlie individual differences in
prosocial behaviors. This transactional perspective allows us to go beyond demonstrat-
ing the importance of parent–child interactions to identify the specific mechanisms
through which these everyday family exchanges may shape children’s propensities to
be prosocial.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the Health Foundation and the Economic and Social
Research Council.

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