and social understanding in shy and non-shy preschoolers

What we want to know.

Young children have characteristic temperamental styles, believed to have a biological basis, that influence how they interact with the world.

We are interested in how temperamentally shy preschoolers aged 3 to 5, who are wary or fearful of unfamiliar objects, people, and places, develop social understanding - an understanding of their own and others minds and emotions. This ability allows children to understand a person's actions in terms of the person's thoughts, desires, beliefs and emotions. Social understanding is recognized as a crucial development for all children, and social interaction, including mother-child interaction, is widely recognized as central to this development.

Much of the early social experience of preschoolers typically occurs with their mothers, thus mother-child interaction may play a particularly important role in the social development of children who are initially reticent to interact with the world. A closer look at how preschoolers with an inhibited temperament interact with their mothers during play may shed light on how these children understand the social world.

About the study.

In this study, mothers and their preschoolers will be observed in the lab while engaged in some play tasks, mothers will complete questionnaires, and the preschoolers will participate in some lab tasks and be given some established measures of social understanding.

Your participation will help us better understand how an inhibited temperament in early childhood relates to mother-child interaction and children's social understanding.

Who are we looking for?

We will be recruiting families for this study soon.