The understanding of emotions possesses important implications for elucidating normal as well as abnormal development. The contributions that the emotions have made for enhancing our understanding of psychopathology have been evident throughout history. In this article, an overview of the historical links between the emotions and psychopathology is presented. Despite its rich history, much contemporary theory and research on emotions has been conducted primarily within a nonpathology perspective. In recent decades, investigators have become more interested in examining the role and development of the emotions in atypical populations. It has been argued that the modularity of the emotions system requires a developmental model of emotion regulation.

Salivary cortisol concentrations (10:30–11:30 a.m.) and social behavior (observations and teacher reports) were examined in 33 maltreated (26 boys) and 16 comparison (8 boys) children. The maltreated children were studied for 31 days while they attended a therapeutic preschool for abused and neglected children. Children in the comparison sample were studied while attending a preschool serving economically disadvantaged families. Each child's cortisol values over days were used to compute measures of basal activity (median cortisol) and reactivity (ratio of quartile ranges). Median cortisol was not significantly correlated with social behavior measures. Cortisol reactivity was positively correlated with social competence and negatively correlated with shy/internalizing behavior. Maltreated children exhibited less cortisol reactivity then did comparison children. Maltreated children also scored lower in social competence and higher in shy/internalizing and acting out/externalizing behaviors. In additional analyses, maltreated children failed to show elevations in cortisol on days of high versus low social conflict in the classroom. Social competence was also found to correlate positively with cortisol levels on high-conflict days. In all, the results suggest a reduction in cortisol reactivity in maltreated children related to the impairment in social competence frequently noted among these children.

This study focused on empathic and prosocial orientations in preschool children who vary in externalizing problems. Children were categorized as low, moderate, or high risk for developing disruptive behavior disorders, depending on severity of current behavior problems. Hypothetical and real encounters with others in distress were used to examine children's affect, behavior, autonomic activity, and social cognitions. When children witnessed someone in distress, empathic concern and prosocial behaviors were present at similar levels for all risk groups. However, moderate and high-risk children were less able than low-risk children to remain positively engaged with distress victims. Girls showed more prosocial behavior than boys, and boys showed more anger than girls. During sadness mood inductions to assess autonomic activity, risk groups did not differ on heart rate or vagal tone. Girls showed higher skin conductance than boys, with high-risk girls showing the highest levels. Higher heart rate (and heart rate deceleration) predicted empathic concern and prosocial behavior, whereas lower heart rate was associated with aggression and avoidance, irrespective of risk. Although biological correlates of emotions and behaviors that reflect caring versus indifference to others' distress are identified, they do not support an early direct link to externalizing psychopathologies.

It was proposed that the interaction between the constructs of emotion regulation and social interaction would predict social adaptation in preschoolers. Ninety-six 4-year-olds were observed in quartets of unfamiliar same-sex peers. Based on parent temperament ratings and observed free play behaviors, 68 children from the original sample were classified as: low social interaction, good emotion regulators; low social interaction, poor emotion regulators; high social interaction, good emotion regulators; high social interaction, poor emotion regulators; or average. The results indicated that the low social interaction children who were poor regulators displayed more wary and anxious behaviors during free play and other episodes, and were rated as having more internalizing problems than both the low social interaction children who were good regulators and the average group. The high social interaction children who were poor regulators were rated as having more externalizing problems than either the high social interaction children who were good regulators or the average group. Thus, it seems as if emotion dysregulation is associated with psychological maladaptation, but that this association is tempered by the degree to which children engage in social interaction.

Autism is a development disorder that is characterized by a significant disturbance of social development. Research strongly suggests that this disorder results from neurological anomalies or deficits. However, both the specific neural systems involved in autism, and the most pertinent behavioral functions of those systems remains unclear. One current topic of debate concerns the degree to which the social disturbance of autism may result from developmental anomalies in neurological systems that subserve cognitive, or affective processes. In this paper a model of the neurological, cognitive, and affective processes involved in the pathogenesis of autism will be described in the context of an attempt to understand dissociations in the early social-skill development of these children. Young children with autism are better able to use social-communication gestures to request objects or events than they are able to use similar gesture simply to initiate joint or socially shared attention relative to an object or event. An integration of recent research suggests that joint attention skill development differs from requesting skill development with regard to affective and cognitive processes that may be associated with frontal and midbrain neurological systems. In particular, this integration of the literature suggests the following: (a) there is a specific neurological subsystem that regulates and promotes what are called social-emotional approach behaviors; (b) the tendency to initiate joint attention bids is prototypical of a social-emotional approach behavior; and (c) attenuation of social-approach behaviors in children with autism leads to a specific impoverishment of social information processing opportunities. This impoverishment has a lifelong negative effect on the social cognitive development of these children.

In a previous article we reported linkages between marital hostility and children's externalizing behavior problems (Katz & Gottman, 1993). In this paper we examined whether individual differences in children's ability to regulate emotion (as indexed by vagal tone, a physiological measure of parasympathetic nervous system activity) could buffer children from the deleterious effects of marital hostility. Observational data was collected on 56 families during marital interaction when the children were 5 years-old. Baseline recordings of children's cardiac interbeat interval were also obtained for computations of vagal tone. Teacher ratings of children's behavior problems were obtained 3 years later when the children were on average 8 years old. Results indicated that children with low vagal tone showed a strong link between the amount of marital hostility displayed by their parents and subsequent displays of children's externalizing behavior. There was no relationship between marital hostility and children's externalizing for children with high vagal tone, suggesting that high vagal tone can buffer children from the negative effects of marital hostility.

The present study examined children's reported frequency and efficacy of strategies for regulating their negative affect in response to a description of a particular affiliative (fight with a friend) or achievement (loss at a game) situation. The 275 children were in kindergarten through eighth grade; they completed the Children's Depression Inventory and either the “Fight” or “Game” version of the Child Affect Questionnaire (CAQ-F or CAQ-G). Children who endorsed higher levels of depressive symptoms generally reported using affect regulation strategies significantly less often than did nondepressed children, and they rated these responses as significantly less effective in altering their negative mood. Depressed girls rated mother-initiated affect regulation strategies as less effective than did nondepressed girls. Younger children rated both self- and mother-initiated strategies as more effective than did older children. Several directions for future research are suggested.

This study examined the effectiveness of the PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) curriculum the emotional development of school-aged children. PATHS, a school-based preventive intervention model was designed to improve children's ability to discuss and understand emotions and emotion concepts. The intervention field trial included 30 classrooms in a randomized design and involved the assessment of 286 children from grades 2 and 3. Approximately 30% of the children were in self-contained special needs classrooms, with the remainder in regular education. Teachers were trained in the intervention model and provided PATHS lessons during most of the one school year. Results indicated that the intervention was effective for both low- and high-risk (special needs) children in improving their range of vocabulary and fluency in discussing emotional experiences, their efficacy beliefs regarding the management of emotions, and their developmental understanding of some aspects of emotions. In some instances, greater improvement was shown in children with higher teacher ratings of psychopathology. Discussion focused on the nature of change school-based prevention trials.

This study examined the relationships between perceived self-competence, intellectual ability, emotional understanding, and parent report of social adaptation in 18 nonretarded children with autism. Children who perceived themselves as less socially competent demonstrated stronger intellectual capabilities, greater understanding of others' emotional experiences, and were better able to access their own emotional experiences than were those who perceived themselves as more socially competent. According to their parents, children who reported less social competence also displayed more socially adaptive behavior, and expressed more interest and less sadness and fear than did those who reported greater social competence. Discussion focuses on potential effects of this heightened capacity for emotional understanding on self-esteem and implications for intervention with highly intelligent persons with autism.

Previous studies of theory of mind abilities in young people with autism have found that their understanding of false belief is specifically impaired, but that simple aspects of desire are understood in line with mental age. We explored the possibility that more complex aspects of desire (in which comparison of goals with outcomes is not a sufficient strategy) are not understood by children with autism. In two experiments, we found that these children were specifically impaired in understanding desire satisfaction and desire change, when compared with children with mental handicap and normal 4-6-year-olds. Although there was some evidence that understanding of desires may be easier for individuals with autism than understanding false belief, it would appear that they have difficulties in understanding both epistemic and volitional mental states.

In this article, I explore whether there might be two separable components to person-perception and interpersonal engagement in infancy: the ability to apprehend other people's attitudes on the one hand, and the ability to perceive actions on the other. In support of this approach, I summarize some evidence from recent study of autistic adolescents' judgments of attitudes and actions manifest in moving point-light displays of people. I highlight the far-reaching cognitive as well associal-developmental implications of early interpersonal-affective engagement. I conclude by speculating that certain abnormalities that would stem from autistic individuals' impaired ability to perceive and engage with people's attitudes may be somewhat mitigated by their relative ability to perceive the actions of others.

This paper uses a functionalist view of emotion to consider family factors that create risk for depressive symptoms in adolescents. Two adolescent siblings and their mothers were assessed for emotion regulation during autonomy-related communication tasks, whereas their mother's attachment- and intimacy-related functioning was assessed through interview and self-report. The results indicate that older teens' failure to establish autonomous stances during communication and their mothers' dissatisfaction with intimate relationships increase risk for teenagers reporting depressive symptoms. Further, mothers' preoccupation attachment-related issues was found to be associated with less autonomous communication from older teenagers. Implications of these findings and future directions for investigating the family factors associated with adolescent depression are discussed.

This study explored developmentally salient cognitive and emotional facets of personality during adolescence and their contribution to psychological functioning in young adulthood. Specifically, we examined the of relations among two kinds of actual-ideal self-discrepancies, expressed negative emotions, and self-dissatisfaction during midadolescence and assessed their longitudinal contribution to young adult symptoms of hostility and depression, as well as self-worth. We drew upon a dataset that included both a group of youngsters who had been psychiatrically hospitalized at age 14 and a normative comparison group of high school students studied over an 11-year period. Findings demonstrated that the magnitude of particular actual-ideal discrepancies, expressed negative emotions, and self-dissatisfaction differed between the groups. Contrary to expectation, actual-ideal self-discrepancies were not related to expressed negative emotions during midadolescence. For the psychiatric group, however, both self-discrepancies and expressed negative emotions made unique contributions to individuals' general sense of self-dissatisfaction. Moreover, particular types of actual-ideal self-discrepancies, specific expressed emotions, and self-dissatisfaction differentially predicted symptoms of hostility and depression, as well as diminished self-worth in young adulthood, albeit differently for the two groups. The importance of cognitions and emotions in the course diverse developmental pathways and future directions of the study are discussed.

This study examined the relationship between psychiatric symptomatology and the representations of attachment relationships held by adults with serious psychopathological disorders. Psychiatric symtomatology was assessed by self-report and three sets of expert ratings. Seventy-six persons with serious psychopathological disorders were included as participants. As expected, persons relying on hyperactivating strategies of attachment reported generally more psychiatric symptoms than did those relying on deactivating strategies of attachment. However, the three sets of experts rated persons relying on deactivating strategies as more symptomatic than others. More specifically, interviewers who conducted Quality of Life Interviews rated dismissing subjects as exhibiting looser thinking than others. Interviewers who conducted Attachment Interviews rated dismissing subjects as experiencing more delusions, hallucinations, and suspiciousness, and case managers rated dismissing subjects as generally more psychotic. These findings suggest that, although greater preoccupation with attachment issues is associated with more acknowledgment of distress generally and symptoms specifically, greater reliance on deactivating strategies may be associated with greater symptomatology observed by others.