Social cognition and its effects on young children's social and mental health outcomes

The current research clarifies the comprehensive nature of the relationship between children's social cognition and their social and mental health outcomes. Participants were 245 3.5-year-old children at Wave 1 and the same children at 5.5 years old at Wave 2, 107 girls and 133 boys. The first study investigated the association between social cognition and mother report of positive social outcomes. The second examined the interplay between social cognition and teacher report of internalizing problems. Laboratory data included measures of social cognition, both emotion understanding and theory of mind.;In study one, theory of mind was associated with understanding and adhering to parents' expectations for behavior, and indeed, structural equation modeling at age 3.5 showed theory of mind to be predictive of positive social behavior more generally. In contrast, positive social functioning directly influenced emotion understanding at the same time point. Positive social behavior was consistent across Waves, and social cognition at 3.5 did not directly predict positive social behavior at 5.5, therefore, any association between earlier social cognition and later positive social functioning was indirect. These data more comprehensively elucidate the influential but complex relationships between early social cognition and children's positive social functioning in the preschool years.;The second study assessed the interplay between internalizing behaviors and social cognitive reasoning in early childhood. Results from structural equation modeling showed that the relationship between theory of mind and internalizing problems is bidirectional at age 3.5, with theory of mind positively predicting internalizing problems and internalizing problems negatively predicting mental state understanding at the same time point. Additionally, emotion understanding negatively predicted internalizing tendencies at age 3.5. Importantly, no significant longitudinal findings were observed. The results from this study suggest that lack of social cognitive understanding contributes to the development of internalizing problems in some young children, although this association varies depending on which social cognitive foci is under investigation.;Our findings from both studies indicate that social cognition is strongly associated with children's positive and negative behavioral outcomes in early childhood and argue for the development of early interventions focusing on social cognitive skills in the preschool period.