Premium
A Longitudinal Study of Conflict and Inner State Talk in Children's Conversations with Mothers and Younger Siblings
Author(s) -
Hughes Claire,
Marks Alex,
Ensor Rosie,
Lecce Serena
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00561.x
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , context (archaeology) , longitudinal study , variation (astronomy) , social psychology , paleontology , statistics , physics , mathematics , astrophysics , biology
This study examined developmental change and variation across social context in the quality of children's conversations, with a dual focus on (1) conflict and (2) inner state talk (IST). Each measure was coded as a proportion of total talk, using transcripts from 57 three‐ to six‐year‐olds, filmed at home at two time points (12 months apart) in two distinct contexts (dyadic play with younger siblings and unstructured routine interactions with mothers). Frequencies of conflict and IST did not change between time points. However, IST changed in function, such that the proportion of IST within explanations increased over time. At each time point: (1) children talked about inner states (especially others' inner states) more often with younger siblings than with mothers; and (2) conflict was more strongly associated with talk about children's own inner states within conversations with mothers (mean r = .46) than with younger siblings (mean r = .02). Together, these findings highlight the need to consider both conflict and IST as relationship‐specific constructs.