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The Perspective Matters: A Multi-informant Study on the Relationship Between Social–Emotional Competence and Preschoolers’ Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms

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Abstract

Recent research demands a multi-informant and multi-factorial assessment of preschool-age psychopathology. Based on a tripartite model, we tested the relationship between emotional and social competence and their contribution to externalizing and internalizing symptoms in a preschool-age community sample (N = 117, M = 4.67 years, SD = 2.75 months). We assessed teachers’ (N = 109) and parents’ (N = 77) perspective using the Strengths-and-Difficulties-Questionnaire and children’s perspective using the Berkeley-Puppet-Interview and a standardized emotional-competence-test (MeKKi). We found externalizing symptoms being negatively related to prosocial behavior in teachers’ and parents’ reports and positively related to social initiative in teachers’ reports. In teachers’ reports only, a mediation effect of emotional competence via social competence on externalizing symptoms was shown. Children, but not caregivers, reported internalizing symptoms being positively related to prosocial behavior. These results highlight the importance of multiple informants and especially of children’s self-perception in preschool-age psychopathology.

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Funding

This research project was funded by a stipend of the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation, granted to the first author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Leipzig, Neumarkt 9-19, 04109, Leipzig, Germany

    Laura Huber, Maria Plötner & Julian Schmitz

  2. Leipzig Research Centre for Early Childhood Development, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Laura Huber, Maria Plötner & Julian Schmitz

  3. Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany

    Tina In-Albon

  4. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Stephanie Stadelmann

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  1. Laura Huber
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Huber, L., Plötner, M., In-Albon, T. et al. The Perspective Matters: A Multi-informant Study on the Relationship Between Social–Emotional Competence and Preschoolers’ Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 50, 1021–1036 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-019-00902-8

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