Relationship Between Emotional Contagion and Cognitive Development in Early Infancy

Empathy incorporates cognitive and emotional responses (Hastings, Zahn-Waxler, & McShane, 2006), both of which have been widely studied at many developmental stages, revealing that attention (Braaten & Rosén, 2000), inhibition (Hansen, 2011), effortful control (Valiente, et al., 2004), and perspective-taking skills (Farrant, Devine, Maybery, & Fletcher, 2012) all influence emotional responding, i.e. empathy. In relation to empathy in infancy, however, these cognitive operations have not been thoroughly examined. Cognitive measures of attention, habituation, and memory were used as predictors of emotional contagion (as measured by latency to distress, duration, and intensity of distress, heart rate baseline and change, and baseline cortisol), a precursor of empathy, in infants at 3, 6, and 9 months of age (n = 37).Emotional measures of distress were assessed in response to recorded cries of another infant. Cognition was assessed through an infant-controlled habituation procedure using a static, adult face, and by two novelty preference trials. Heart rate and looking time toward the stimulus were recorded to examine attention, information processing speed, and memory. Salivary cortisol was assessed at the beginning of the procedure.More time spent in the disengaged attentional phase related to longer latency to distress, lower baseline heart rate, and lower baseline cortisol levels. A long latency to distress also related to less time in the sustained attention phase, failure to demonstrate an novelty preference, longer look duration, and fewer trials to habituation. Intensity was also negatively related to look duration. These findings suggest that a relationship between cognition and emotion may be observable in early infancy. More specifically, these findings indicate a potential relationship between faster processing speed (shorter look durations), attentional control (less time in the disengagement phase), and an increase in emotional sensitivity (shorter latency to distress) and emotion regulation (lower intensity).Some emotional and cognitive variables demonstrated consistency over time and demonstrate developmental patterns that are consistent with the current literature. Gender differences and maternal influences were also found. Maternal influences are discussed as an important contributor to infant emotional responding and socioemotional development.Psycholog

Empathy and Prosocial Behaviors in Infancy

Empathic and prosocial behaviors foster cooperation between individuals, making such behaviors essential to successful social functioning. Infants are generally thought to have the foundation for, but be developmentally incapable of, prosocial behaviors because of their physical and cognitive limitations. To address this, the current study had three aims: 1) to replicate the findings of Hamlin and colleagues (2007) in which infants make social evaluations and prefer a helpful character to a harmful one, 2) to utilize new methodology to assess infants' propensity for prosocial behaviors toward third parties, and 3) to assess potential predictive factors of these infants' prosocial behaviors. Forty-two infants between 9 and 11 months old were first shown a replication of the puppet show used in Hamlin and colleagues (2007) and then were taught through operant conditioning techniques to manipulate the characters in the puppet show in order to either help or hinder the puppet in need. Infant motor development and salivary cortisol, parental social support, and mother-infant behavioral and physiological synchrony were measured. Infants did not reliably choose either the helper or hinderer characters, thus not successfully replicating previous research. However, when helping the character in need, the infants who initially preferred the helper also subsequently responded more quickly and frequently than their peers who initially preferred the hinderer or those who were in the control group. The possibility of perceptual preferences affecting these behaviors is discussed as well as the influences on these prosocial behaviors of infant motor skills and salivary cortisol and mother-infant behavioral and physiological synchrony. These results provide preliminary, albeit limited, support for the early emergence of prosocial behaviors in infancy through the use of developmentally appropriate procedures.Psycholog

Legacies of civil wars: a 14‐year study of social conflicts and well‐being outcomes in farming economies

Community processes to address fractured social relationships and well‐being remain the least examined dimensions in studies of legacies of civil wars. This article addresses these limitations by analyzing how the wartime and postwar generations have negotiated the legacies of the civil war (1976–1992) in a farming economy region in Mozambique. Based on a 14‐year (2002–2015) study of community courts in Mozambique, we analyzed the types of social conflicts and the associations with gender, age, risk factors, self‐described health impairments, and the timing of farming activities. We identified n = 3,456 participants and found that perennial sources of disputes were related to family formation and maintenance, defamation, accusations of perpetration of serious civil wartime violations, mistrust, debts, and domestic violence. Furthermore, conflict relations were associated with gender, age, risk factors, and health problems. This study concludes that civil wars have lasting multifaceted legacies, but generational tensions, availability of community institutions, and economic resources shape social relationships and well‐being outcomes while averting revenge cycles among civilian war survivors

A machine learning analysis of predictors of neurocognitive function in the ABCD sample

This project uses a machine learning approach to identify demographic, environmental, and clinical variables that positively or negatively influence neurocognitive function in youth

Extracurricular activities, screen media activity, and sleep may be modifiable factors influencing children’s cognitive functioning: Evidence from the ABCD study

Purpose Fluid cognitive functioning (FCF), or the capacity to learn, solve problems, and adapt to novel situations, is instrumental for academic success, psychological well-being, and adoption of healthy behaviors. Our knowledge concerning factors associated with FCF, including those that may be targeted with interventions to improve outcomes, remains limited. Methods We used a machine learning (ML) framework in conjunction with a large battery of measures from 9,718 youth from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study to identify factors associated with the observed variability in FCF performance. Youth age-corrected composite FCF score was derived from the National Institutes for Health Toolbox Neurocognitive Battery. A ML pipeline using a stack ensemble of multiple ML algorithms and nested cross-validation to avoid overfitting was conducted to examine factors associated with FCF. Results The identified ML algorithm explained 14.74% of variance (95%CI: 14.53-14.88%) in FCF. Among the most important factors were those that replicated previous research (e.g., socioeconomic factors), as well as novel, potentially modifiable factors, including extracurricular involvement, screen media activity, and sleep Conclusions Pragmatic and scalable interventions targeting these behaviors may not only enhance cognitive performance but may also protect against the negative impact of socioeconomic and mental health factors on cognitive performance in at-risk youth. The longitudinal data from ABCD will be able to begin to assess causality by examining how changes in these factors affect subsequent cognitive performance