2022, Vol.35, No.4

THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.67

pISSN : 1229-0718 / eISSN : 2671-6542
https://journal.kci.go.kr/baldal

This study aimed to examine moderated mediation effect according to the task-focused behavior and teacher-child relationship on the influence of children’s executive function on play behavior type. The participants included 107 children(aged 4-5 years) and their mothers, and 72 teachers. Mediation(Model 4), moderation(Model 1), and moderated mediation (Model 15) models were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and PROCESS macro 4.0 programs(Hayes, 2022). The study shows, first, task-focused behavior mediated the relationship between children's executive function and social play behavior. Second, the teacher-child intimacy moderated the effects of the children’s executive function on the social play, rough-tumble play, and reticent play. Third, the indirect effect of executive function through children’s task-focused behavior on rough-tumble play was moderated by teacher-child intimacy. These results suggest that the effect of the executive function on the play type through task-focused behavior is different according to the level of teacher-child intimacy. Therefore, the importance of the children’s executive function and teacher-child relationship that influences the level of participation of children in play behavior type was emphasized.

From an early childhood, children evaluate others based on the amount of resources, and they tend to prefer wealthy individuals over poor ones. What is less clear is how strong this bias is in children. The present study probes the relative strength of amount of resource bias and in-group bias, a robust bias in children. Prior to, conducting our analysis we first confirmed that four to six year-old children preferred peers with more resources (Study 1a) and those who were in the same group (wearing the same color t-shirt that they were wearing; Study 1b). Importantly, children preferred an in-group member with less resources over a outside the with more resources, suggesting that the in-group membership is a stronger social cue than the amount of resource cue in early childhood.

The goal of the current study was to investigate emerging adults’ help-seeking from friends as one of the adaptive coping strategies in stressful social situations. Participants included 300 emerging adults who were currently enrolled in college (Mage = 23.28; 48.3% male). They self-reported their perceived goal structures, help-seeking from friends, and levels of friendship quality, anxious solitude, and social self-efficacy. A confirmatory factor analysis supported the two-factor structure of help-seeking from friends: Mastery and Avoidance. Structural equation modeling results indicated that individuals’ perceived goal structures were linked to different types of help-seeking from friends, and different types of help-seeking were associated with levels of friendship quality and anxious solitude. Further, mastery help-seeking from friends mediated the associations between perceived mastery goal structures and friendship quality. The results underscore that help-seeking from friends can be an adaptive coping strategy in stressful social situations and individuals’ perceptions of goal-related messages can have important implications for emerging adults’ help-seeking from friends.