Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Experimental Child

Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp

Attachment and prosocial behavior in middle

childhood: The role of emotion regulation
Sohayla Elhusseini a, Kyle Rawn a, Mona El-Sheikh b, Peggy S. Keller a,⇑
a
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
b
Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: There is a lack of research on the development of prosocial behav-

Received 14 August 2021 ior in middle childhood. The current study addressed this gap
Revised 3 August 2022 through the application of attachment theory; attachment security
Available online 26 August 2022
has been shown to promote prosocial behavior in early childhood,
and emotion regulation may be an important intervening variable
Keywords:
in this association. A sample of 199 children (aged 6–12 years)
Attachment
Prosocial behavior reported on their attachment internal working models for the
Emotion regulation mother–child and father–child relationships, parents reported on
Fathers child emotion regulation and emotional lability/dysregulation,
Middle childhood and children completed a sticker donation task to assess their
Emotional Lability prosocial behavior. Child emotional lability/dysregulation served
as an intervening variable in the association between father–child
attachment security (communication and trust) and greater sticker
donation. Mother–child and father–child attachment security was
also associated with child emotion regulation, but emotion regula-
tion was not associated with sticker donation. Findings suggest
that secure attachment may foster prosocial behavior toward peers
in middle childhood primarily by reducing dysregulated responses
to the distress of others.
Ó 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (P.S. Keller).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105534
0022-0965/Ó 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Introduction

Prosocial behavior is behavior that seeks to promote the safety and welfare of others such as coop-
eration, caregiving, comforting, assistance, and defense (Dunfield, 2014; Geraci & Franchin, 2021;
Tomasello, 2018). Attachment theory has been useful for understanding how prosocial behavior devel-
ops (Brumariu, 2015; Deneault & Hammond, 2021). Studies have demonstrated that secure attach-
ment to parents may promote prosociality in children, whereas insecure attachment may decrease
prosociality (Ainsworth, 1993; Rholes & Simpson, 2004). One reason why secure attachment may
influence prosocial behavior is that it fosters healthy emotion regulation (Shaver & Mikulincer,
2007). However, little research has examined emotion regulation as a process linking attachment
and prosocial behavior (Panfile & Laible, 2012; Tur-Porcar et al., 2018). Moreover, there has been scant
consideration of attachment and prosociality in middle childhood, a time when peer relationships
become increasingly relevant, leaving a major gap in the understanding of prosocial development
(Gross et al., 2017). Finally, there has been relatively little research on father–child attachment in rela-
tion to emotion regulation and prosocial development. The purpose of the current study was to
address these gaps in research by testing emotion regulation as an intervening variable in associations
between mother–child and father–child attachment security and prosocial behavior in middle child-
hood (ages 6–12 years).
Although there is a paucity of research on associations between attachment and prosocial behavior
in middle childhood, there is research that supports these associations in early childhood (e.g.,
preschoolers). One recent study found that preschoolers’ attachment security is associated with these
children giving more stickers to disliked peers (sticker sharing or donation tasks are a common assess-
ment of child prosocial behavior; Paulus et al., 2016). Moreover, attachment security in 3- to 5-year-
old children is associated with a greater likelihood of comforting (i.e., attempts to soothe a distressed
experimenter), spontaneous helping (e.g., picking up an item the experimenter has dropped but can-
not reach), and sharing behaviors (e.g., offering a cookie to an experimenter who does not have any
cookies) (Beier et al., 2019). Moreover, other studies have found links between greater attachment
security and greater cooperation in early childhood (Goffin et al., 2018; Kochanska et al., 2005).
Secure attachment is proposed to promote the development of healthy emotion regulation skills
(Shaver et al., 2008), which may explain why it is associated with prosocial behavior. A key tenet of
attachment theory is that children develop internal working models (IWMs) comprising a set of beliefs
and expectations of the self and others as competent, trustworthy, and worthy of love (secure IWMs)
or as incompetent, unreliable, and undeserving of love (insecure IWMs). Attachment IWMs provide a
set of expectations of how parents will react to child emotional expressions and thus determine chil-
dren’s willingness to evoke these expressions (Bowlby, 1973). Children with secure attachments have
caregivers who are more sensitive and responsive to their emotional needs and who encourage emo-
tional communication and exploration (Cassidy, 1994). These caregivers help children to develop
IWMs in which emotions serve as signals for parental care and are not ignored or punished and dis-
tress is successfully managed through a variety of techniques. Parents of ambivalently attached chil-
dren are typically less available, which can lead their children to engage in intense emotional
outbursts to gain the attention of their parents. In contrast, avoidantly attached children tend to min-
imize and suppress their emotions as way of avoiding rejection from their emotionally dismissive par-
ents. Overall, insecurely attached children are expected to be less likely to develop IWMs that help
them to understand and regulate emotions (Cassidy, 1994; Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 2008).
These theoretical propositions are supported by empirical research. For example, during the
Strange Situation, 13-month-old infants classified as secure use more positive social engagement to
regulate their emotions than infants classified as avoidant; infants classified as ambivalent use more
negative social engagement strategies, whereas infants classified as avoidant focus more on objects
than other infants (Crugnola et al., 2011). Especially pertinent to the current study, Kerns and
colleagues (2007) assessed secure attachment in 9- to 11-year-old children through multiple attach-
ment measures (Security Scale: Kerns et al., 2001; Attachment Doll Story Completion Task: Granot &
Mayseless, 2001; Child Rearing Practices Report: Rickel & Biasatti, 1982) as well as emotion regulation
questionnaires (Children’s Coping Strategies Scale: Eisenberg et al., 1996; frustration tolerance

2
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

subscale from Teacher–Child Rating Scale: Primary Mental Health Project, 1995). Secure attachment
was associated with better mother-reported and teacher-reported emotion regulation (higher frustra-
tion tolerance). Furthermore, a study of children aged 10 to 18 years (Gresham & Gullone, 2012) using
the same measure of attachment employed in the current study (Inventory of Parent and Peer Attach-
ment–Revised: Gullone & Robinson, 2005) found that greater attachment security (better communi-
cation and less alienation) was related to lower use of emotional suppression and greater use of
cognitive reappraisal (as assessed via the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Gross & John, 2003).
In turn, children’s abilities to regulate their emotional states may support their capacity and will-
ingness to attend to others’ distress (Eisenberg et al., 1990; Fabes et al., 1994). Children who are skilled
at modulating their emotions experience less emotional arousal or are able to regulate their arousal in
response to the distress of others (Hastings et al., 2014). Such children may be more successful at
directing their attention toward others’ aversive conditions and providing care and support. Children
who are not skilled at emotion regulation might focus on their own emotional states when encounter-
ing the distress of others, causing them to withdraw and act in less prosocial ways. Indeed, an early
study found that kindergarten and second-grade boys’ avoidant coping tendencies, as reported by
mothers, were associated with their attempts to escape a crying infant rather than comfort him
(Fabes et al., 1994). A more recent study found that better sadness regulation in middle childhood
is related to greater mother-reported prosocial behavior (Song et al., 2018). Among preschoolers, there
has even been a study showing that attachment security is indirectly associated with prosocial behav-
ior via emotion regulation and empathy (Panfile & Laible, 2012). However, most research on associa-
tions between emotion regulation and prosocial behavior has been conducted with adults (e.g.,
Lockwood et al., 2014).
The role of emotion regulation in the association between attachment and prosocial behavior is fur-
ther supported by Gross and colleagues’ (2017) theoretical model. In this model, the association
between secure attachment and greater prosocial behavior is mediated by children’s experiences of
coregulation with supportive caregivers and, thus, their capacity to manage emotions. When children
can remain calm in stressful situations, they are then much more likely to attend to others’ distress
and offer support. This dynamic is thought to extend to multiple forms of prosociality, including help-
ing, sharing, and comforting; it has also been shown to promote children’s comforting and helping
behaviors in the context of maternal depressive symptoms (Brett et al., 2020).
The dearth of extant research on associations among attachment, emotion regulation, and prosocial
behavior in middle childhood has left a significant gap in understanding how prosocial behavior devel-
ops. Middle childhood is a crucial developmental period in which many changes in the relationship
between the child and the parent occur (Di Folco et al., 2017; Kerns & Brumariu, 2016). Children
become more self-reliant and less physically dependent on their parents, valuing psychological avail-
ability of attachment figures rather than their physical proximity (Ainsworth, 1993; Bowlby, 1973).
This availability (or unavailability) is represented in children’s IWMs (Kerns & Richardson, 2005).
Secure children have models of trustworthiness and closeness in their attachment relationship,
whereas insecure children have models of distance and alienation from their attachment figure.
Because middle childhood is the time when children enter formal schooling, novel opportunities
for social interaction arise, allowing children to engage in greater exploration of their social environ-
ments (Seibert & Kerns, 2009). Consequently, parents exert less control and influence over children’s
activities and environments (Bowlby, 1988; Bronfenbrenner, 1986). These changes present children
with increased demands and responsibilities that function to heighten their autonomy, self-
awareness, emotion regulation, metacognition, and empathy toward others (Koehn & Kerns, 2016).
These individual characteristics may then influence prosocial behavior. For example, empathic con-
cern in 5- and 6-year-olds is associated with their greater sticker sharing with a fictional peer
(Williams et al., 2014).
However, middle childhood is a relatively long period of development (roughly ages 6–12 years),
and significant changes in associations among attachment, emotion regulation, and prosocial behavior
may occur from early to late middle childhood. In early middle childhood (ages 6–8 years), children
are making the transition into formal schooling and adjusting to its behavioral requirements and
are marking major milestones in learning (e.g., reading). In contrast, later middle childhood (ages
9–12 years) is a period in which peer relationships are becoming increasingly important, adrenarche
3
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

may occur, and the transition to middle school is made. Because so little research on family influences
on middle childhood prosocial behavior has been conducted, it is important to determine whether the
hypothesized associations are consistent across the entirety of this period.

The current study

This study examined emotion regulation as an intervening variable in associations between attach-
ment security and prosocial behavior in middle childhood. Prior research has investigated this indirect
association in early childhood or among adolescents and adults (e.g., Panfile & Laible, 2012), but this is
the first study, to our knowledge, to do so in middle childhood. The current study further advances
prior research by investigating children’s security in the father–child relationship in addition to the
mother–child relationship. Assessment of the father–child relationship is often missing from studies
of attachment and prosocial behavior (e.g., Beier et al., 2019; Kochanska et al., 2005). Fathers have
grown increasingly involved in their children’s lives, and this involvement is associated with positive
developmental outcomes for children, including improvements in cognitive functioning (Cano et al.,
2019) and reductions in behavioral problems (Kroll et al., 2016; Yoon et al., 2018). Therefore, it is
important that father–child attachment is considered in relation to prosocial behavior (Ferreira
et al., 2016). It was hypothesized that children with more secure IWMs (reporting better communica-
tion, more trust, and less alienation in the relationships with mothers and fathers) would engage in
greater prosocial behavior (sticker donations). Furthermore, an indirect association was expected in
which more secure IWMs would be associated with better emotion regulation and better emotion reg-
ulation would be related to more prosocial behavior. The current study also examined whether
hypothesized associations are consistent across early and later middle childhood; these analyses were
exploratory, and no specific hypotheses about differences were made.

Method

Participants

Participants were 199 children aged 6 to 12 years (M = 8.76 years, SD = 1.91; 50.3% female) and
their two parents recruited from a small southeastern U.S. city. Most female parents were biologically
related to the children (92.8%; 7.2% were stepmothers), and therefore we use the term mothers to refer
to the female parents. Similarly, the majority of male parents were biologically related to the children
(89.1%; 10.9% were stepfathers), and we use the term fathers to refer to the male parents. To be eligible
to participate in the study, couples were required to have been together for at least 2 years
(M = 13 years, SD = 6). Families were recruited via newspaper and radio advertisements, postcards,
community flyers, afterschool programs, and referrals from other parents. Mothers and fathers were
each compensated with $60 cash; children received a $10 toy. Based on the goal of the larger study
to examine potential effects of parental problem drinking on child development, families were
recruited so that one third of parents met Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for being
light drinking, one third had at least one parent who met criteria for moderate drinking, and one third
had at least one parent who met criteria for heavy drinking based on self-report. Children were pre-
dominantly White (77%), 14% were Black, 7.5% were multiracial, and 1.5% were another race or
unknown. Parents rated their yearly income as $55,000 to $74,999 on average (23.3%); there was a
wide range of income levels in the sample, with 11.1% of families having yearly income less than
$25,000 and 23.3% of families having yearly income greater than $100,000.

Procedures

Data were drawn from a larger study on family relationships and child development (‘‘Child Sleep
Project”); three prior research articles have been published using these data: one focused on couples
(mothers and fathers specifically; Elsey et al., 2019), another on observed father–child interactions (Bi
et al., 2018), and one on personality pathology in children (Keller et al., 2022). Sample size for the
4
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Child Sleep Project was determined based on a priori power analyses for the proposed analyses. The
study was conducted with the approval of the university institutional review board, and informed
consent from parents and informed assent from children were obtained. Participants visited a labora-
tory to complete the questionnaires described below. During the laboratory visit, a version of the stan-
dard dictator game (Forsythe et al., 1994) was administered, which has been used extensively in past
studies to assess prosocial and altruistic behaviors in children (Moore, 2009; Paulus & Moore, 2017;
Samek et al., 2020; Sticker et al., 2021; Thompson et al., 1997). Stickers were chosen as the item that
children would receive and potentially distribute to unknown peers. Prior research has shown no sig-
nificant differences in children’s willingness to share stickers and candy (Prencipe & Zelazo, 2005), and
sticker donation tasks have been used from 3 to 11 years of age (Posid et al., 2015) and from 3 to
12 years of age (Samek et al., 2020).
Children were told, ‘‘Since you were such a good helper for us today, we are going to give you 25
stickers.” They were given the option of choosing from one of four different types of stickers: stereo-
typically female, stereotypically male, and gender-neutral options that included themes attractive to
children in that age range at that time (e.g., recent children’s film characters). Once children chose
which stickers they wanted, they were given an envelope filled with the stickers. The experimenter
opened the envelope, showed the stickers to the child, and then handed the child the stickers and said,
‘‘There are some children who cannot come here and help us and earn stickers like you can. For those
children, we have this box, and if you want you can give some of your stickers to those children who
can’t come, but you don’t have to. Now I am going to leave the room, and while I am gone I want you to
decide if you want to give any of your stickers away to the children who can’t come or not. If you want
to give your stickers to the children, put them in this box while I am gone. It is your decision if you
want to give any stickers to them or not. I will be back in a few minutes.” The box that the experi-
menter referred to was a clear plastic box with a slot cut in the lid. Inside the box, 10 assorted stickers
were visible, indicating that other stickers had been donated.
After explaining the task, the experimenter left the room and timed 3 min with a stopwatch. At the
end of the 3 min, the experimenter knocked on the door, and reentered the room, saying to the child,
‘‘Are you ready to move on?” If the child was ready (this was the case for 100% of participants), the
experimenter said, ‘‘Okay, I am going to take your envelope back, and I will give these to you at the
end of the visit.” The experimenter then moved on to the next task in the larger study. Before the
end of the visit, at a time when the experimenter was alone, the experimenter counted the number
of stickers in the envelope, subtracted this number from 25, and recorded the number of stickers
donated. The experimenter then replaced the number of stickers donated into the envelope so that
all participants received 25 stickers at the end of the laboratory visit.

Measures

Attachment
Via experimenter interview, children completed the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment–
Revised (IPPA-R; Gullone & Robinson, 2005) subscales for communication, alienation, and trust in
the child–mother and child–father relationships. The IPPA-R has been validated for children as young
as 8 years (Moreira et al., 2017) and has been successfully used across the range of middle childhood
(Farmer et al., 2013; Keller & El-Sheikh, 2011; Lau et al., 2012). The communication subscale includes
9 items assessing IWMs of the mother or father as a safe person to share thoughts and feelings with, a
person desiring to communicate with the child, and a person who communicates in a productive way
that solves problems (e.g., ‘‘My mother helps me to understand myself better”). Internal consistency
was.54 for mothers; however, it improved to.71 after removing the 2 reverse-scored items. Internal
consistency for fathers also improved (from.80 to.85) when these items were removed. Therefore, this
adjusted version of the scale was used in analyses. The alienation subscale includes 6 items assessing
IWMs of the parent as rejecting, shaming, unsupportive, and hostile (e.g., ‘‘I don’t get much attention
from my mother”). The internal consistency was.60 for mothers and.72 for fathers. Removing items
did not improve reliability; therefore, the alienation subscale was used only for fathers. The trust sub-
scale includes 10 items assessing IWMs of the parent as respectful, accepting, supportive, understand-
ing, and dependable (e.g., ‘‘My mother respects my feelings”). All items were rated on a 3-point scale
5
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

with regard to how much they applied to the mother or father: no (0), sometimes (1), or yes (2). Inter-
nal consistency was.71 for mothers and.84 for fathers. Resulting reliabilities are consistent with other
studies. To further establish validity with the slightly younger sample, correlations with parenting
measures included in the larger study were estimated (mother and father self-report on the Par-
ent–Child Conflict Tactics Scales measures of Psychological Aggression and Physical Assault of chil-
dren; Straus et al., 1998). Consistent with expectations, greater child IWMs of good communication
and high trust in parents were related to lower parent psychological aggression and physical assault;
greater child IWMs of alienation from parents was related to higher parent psychological aggression
and physical assault.

Emotion regulation
Mothers and fathers completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; Shields & Cicchetti, 1997)
subscales for emotion regulation and lability. The emotion regulation subscale includes 8 items and
assesses children’s abilities to understand and control their emotions (e.g., ‘‘Can say when s/he is feel-
ing sad, angry or mad, fearful or afraid”). The lability subscale includes 15 items and assesses chil-
dren’s emotional reactivity, intensity of negative emotions, and emotional dysregulation (e.g., ‘‘Is
prone to angry outbursts”). Internal consistency coefficients were good (both as =.74) for emotion reg-
ulation and lability.

Prosocial behavior
The number of stickers donated during the donation task described in the ‘‘Procedures” section,
with a possible range of 0 to 25, was recorded and used as a measure of prosocial behavior.

Covariates
The following variables were included as covariates in models of child prosocial behavior: (a) child
sex coded as 1 for female and 0 for male, (b) family income, (c) relationship to parent coded as 1 for
biological and 0 for nonbiological, (d) child age in years, (e) parental problem drinking measured by
self-report on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT; Saunders et al., 1993), and (f) par-
ental depressive symptoms measured by self-report with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depres-
sion Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977). The AUDIT is a 10-item measure assessing alcohol consumption,
drinking behaviors, and alcohol-related problems (Saunders et al., 1993). This measure was included
as a covariate given the recruitment of heavy drinking parents as part of the larger study. The CES-D is
a 20-item measure assessing the frequency of certain depressive symptoms (e.g., ‘‘I thought my life
had been a failure,” ‘‘I felt depressed”) on a scale from 1 (rarely) to 4 (most or all of the time). Scores
are added across items, with four reverse-coded items (Radloff, 1977). This measure was included
as a covariate given previous research highlighting associations with child prosocial behavior (Brett
et al., 2020).

Data analysis

All analyses were conducted in SPSS Version 26 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) or Analysis of
Moment Structures (Amos; Arbuckle, 2014). Preliminary analyses examined the need for covariates.
Potential covariates that were associated with sticker donation were retained for primary analyses.
Next, the amount of missing data on all included variables was evaluated; the amount ranged from
0% to 8%. Because the amount of missingness was low, single imputation using the expectation max-
imization method was used. To check for outliers, an initial model was fit and the Mahalanobis dis-
tance was obtained. Four cases had a Mahalanobis distance with a p value less than.001 and were
dropped from the analysis data set. Primary analyses were multi-group structural equation models
in which emotion regulation and emotional lability served as dual intervening variables in the rela-
tions of mother and father attachment with child sticker donation. Two groups of relatively equal
sample size were fit to the data; the sample was divided into younger (6–8 years) and older (9–
12 years) children. Mother attachment and father attachment were modeled as latent variables in
which the subscales of the IPPA-R were indicators (mother and father reports of trust, mother and
father reports of communication, and father reports of alienation). Emotion regulation and emotional
6
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

lability were also modeled as latent variables, each indicated by the appropriate mother and father
reports. The dependent variable was number of stickers donated. Thus, four indirect effects were
tested in a single model.
Model testing proceeded by first establishing the appropriate factor structures for the key con-
structs with confirmatory factor analyses, evaluating fit of the overall measurement model, transition-
ing into the hypothesized structural model, and then making minor respecifications to improve model
fit. Parameter estimates were interpreted only for the model that fit the data well. For the final model,
bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals of the indirect effects based on 5000 bootstrap samples were
obtained. The term indirect effect is used here and in Results to be consistent with how results from
these analyses are described; it is important to note that the data are cross-sectional, and therefore
these terms should not be taken as inferences of causality and are not used in the discussion.

Results

Preliminary analyses

Means, standard deviations, and correlations among study variables are presented in Table 1.
Examination of associations between potential covariates and sticker donation indicates that only
child age was related to sticker donation. Thus, remaining covariates were not included in models.
Because age varies within group (younger vs older), age was included as a covariate in the multi-
group models. Associations between age and other study variables were freely estimated rather than
being constrained to equivalence across groups.

Confirmatory factor analysis for emotion regulation variables

An initial single-factor multi-group model was fit in which there was a single latent variable indi-
cated by mother and father report of emotion regulation and mother and father report of lability. To
determine measurement invariance across age groups and maintain model identification, coefficients
were constrained across groups. This model was a poor fit to the data, v2(7) = 42.13, p <.001, compar-
ative fit index (CFI) =.761, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) =.161 (90% confidence
interval [CI] =.116,.210). Next, a two-factor model was fit in which an emotion regulation variable
was indicated by mother and father report of emotion regulation and a lability latent variable was
indicated by mother and father report of lability. The two factors were correlated. This model was also
a poor fit to the data, v2(5) = 36.83, p <.001, CFI =.783, RMSEA =.182 (90% CI =.129,.239), although it
was a significant improvement over the single-factor model, Dv2(1) = 5.30, p =.021. An alternative
model in which mother report (indicated by mother report of emotion regulation and lability) and
father report (indicated by father report of emotion regulation and lability) was next fit to the data.
This model was a poor fit to the data, v2(5) = 20.30, p =.001, CFI =.892, RMSEA =.128 (90%
CI =.074,.187) but was also a significant improvement over the single-factor model, Dv2(1) = 20.83,
p <.001. Because the reporter factors were still not a good fit to the data and do not have the same
conceptual interpretation as the subscale factors, an additional model was fit in which the two-
factor model with emotion regulation and emotional lability allowed the correlation between the
error terms of the mother reports (also adding the correlation between father reports results in an
unidentified model). This model was an excellent fit to the data, v2(4) = 4.78, p =.311, CFI =.995,
RMSEA =.032 (90% CI =.000,.117) and was a significant improvement over the original two-factor
model, Dv2(1) = 15.52, p <.001. Both non-fixed factor loadings were significant, B = 2.20, p =.021 for
father lability and B = 3.15, p <.001 for father emotion regulation. These factor loadings were not sig-
nificantly different between the older and younger age groups, supporting weak factorial invariance.
Therefore, this measurement model was retained. Additional tests of factorial invariance indicated
that the model met full criteria for both strong factorial invariance, Dv2(4) = 5.53, p =.24, and strict
factorial invariance, Dv2(4) = 4.57, p =.33.
7
 S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al.
Table 1
Means, standard deviations, and correlations among variables.

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. Child age –
2. Child malea .09 –
3. Family income .15* .13 –
4. Mother bio. rel.a .05 .04 .14 –
5. Father bio. rel.a .01 .03 .19* .44*** –
6. Mother problem drinking .09 .03 .09 .01 .03 –
7. Father problem drinking .06 .15* .11 .01 .02 .23** –
8. Mother depression .01 .05 .02 .05 .01 .08 .04 –
9. Father depression .03 .10 .02 .06 .02 .08 .14 .01 –
10. Mother trust .14 .05 .13 .07 .09 .01 .07 .06 .11 –
11. Mother communication .06 .01 .09 .01 .04 .04 .14 .02 .03 .63*** –
12. Father trust .12 .02 .21** .07 .09 .15* .09 .04 .06 .60*** .46*** –
13. Father communication .07 .03 .22** .10 .13 .07 .07 .06 .01 .56*** .57*** .76***
14. Father alienation .15* .02 .14 .11 .09 .01 .01 .06 .01 .30*** .20** .55***
15. Regulation–MR .14 .01 .13 .05 .10 .05 .03 .01 .02 .12 .12 .09
16. Lability–MR .15* .02 .17* .03 .04 .11 .08 .13 .08 .21** .09 .24***
17. Regulation– FR .03 .01 .14 .01 .01 .08 .05 .12 .06 .09 .07 .24***
.21** .31***
8

18. Lability–FR .11 .02 .19* .05 .06 .04 .12 .06 .04 .11
19. Prosocial behavior .45*** .11 .08 .05 .06 .02 .03 .02 .01 .13 .09 .20**

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

M 8.76 0.50 7.13 0.93 0.89 2.72 3.89 8.63 7.72 17.86 11.53 17.75
SD 1.91 – 2.95 – – 2.82 4.21 7.90 6.00 2.55 2.54 3.16
Variable 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
13. Father communication –
14. Father alienation .56*** –
15. Regulation–MR .14 .15* –
16. Lability–MR .24*** .28*** .40*** –
17. Regulation–FR .19** .17* .28*** .21** –
18. Lability–FR .27*** .36*** .14 .51*** .43*** –
19. Prosocial behavior .15* .26*** .05 .22** .05 .19** –
M 13.59 2.72 26.69 26.53 24.86 28.75 9.25
SD 3.87 2.64 3.22 3.22 3.50 5.33 8.69

Note. bio. rel., biological relation to child; MR, mother report; FR, father report.
a
Variable is dichotomous, with a score of 1 indicating belonging to group corresponding to variable name.
*
p <.05.
**
p <.01.
***
p <.001.
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Confirmatory factor analysis for parental attachment

A similar procedure was followed for the five observed measures of parent attachment (mother–
child trust and communication and father–child trust, communication, and alienation). The single-
factor model fit the data poorly, v2(14) = 74.59, p =.001, CFI =.873, RMSEA =.150 (90%
CI =.117,.184). Next, a two-factor model with the latent variables mother–child attachment and
father–child attachment was fit. This model was a poor fit to the data, v2(12) = 46.04, p <.001,
CFI =.928, RMSEA =.121 (90% CI =.085,.159), but was a significant improvement over the single-
factor model, Dv2(2) = 28.55, p <.001. A factor model in which mother trust and father trust were indi-
cators of a latent variable, mother communication and father communication were a second latent
variable, and father alienation was a separate observed variable, with correlations among the two
latent variables and father alienation estimated, was then fit. This model was also a poor fit to the data,
v2(11) = 63.94, p <.001, CFI =.989, RMSEA =.158 (90% CI =.122,.196), but was a significant improvement
over the single-factor model, Dv2(3) = 10.65, p =.014. Following a similar procedure as for emotion
regulation and lability, we next allowed the same scale (trust or communication) to correlate across
mother and father attachment latent variables. This model was still a poor fit to the data,
v2(10) = 28.93, p =.001, CFI =.960, RMSEA =.099 (90% CI =.058,.142), but was a significant improvement
over the original two-factor model, Dv2(2) = 17.11, p <.001. Therefore, age group constraints were
released systematically. Results indicated that releasing the constraints for group equivalence for
the father alienation factor loading and the correlation between mother communication and father
communication resulted in a model that approximately fit the data, v2(8) = 17.74, p =.023,
CFI =.980, RMSEA =.079 (90% CI =.028,.130), and was a significant improvement over the adjusted
two-factor model, Dv2(2) = 11.19, p =.004. All non-fixed factor loadings were significant for both older
and younger children, B = 1.202, p <.001 for mother trust, B = 0.81, p <.001 for father trust, B = 0.59,
p <.001 for father alienation in the older group, and B = 0.35, p <.001 for father alienation in the
younger group. Thus, factor loadings were invariant across the age groups, with the exception that
father alienation may be a better indicator of father attachment in the older age group (although it
is still a significant indicator in the younger age group). Additional tests of factor invariance found that
the model met criteria for strong factorial invariance, Dv2(5) = 5.98, p =.31, but not for strict factorial
invariance, Dv2(5) = 11.99, p =.04.

Results for full model

A multi-group measurement model was fit that included mother attachment and father attach-
ment (as defined by the confirmatory factor analysis above), child emotion regulation and child emo-
tional lability (as defined by the confirmatory factor analysis above), and child sticker donation.
Correlations among variables were not constrained to be equal across the age groups. This model
was an excellent fit to the data, v2(49) = 58.52, p =.17, CFI =.985, RMSEA =.032 (90% CI =.000,.059).
The structural model was then fit to the data; mother attachment and father attachment had direct
effects on child emotion regulation and emotional lability (as defined by the measurement model
above) and child sticker donation. Child emotion regulation and emotion lability were also predictors
of child sticker donation, making them possible intervening variables in the association between par-
ent attachment and child sticker donation. This model also included child age as a covariate for all
endogenous variables because it was possible for age to vary within the age groups. These covariate
effects were not constrained to be equal across groups, although all other structural coefficients were
constrained. The model was an excellent fit to the data, v2(67) = 77.92, p =.17, CFI =.984, RMSEA =.029
(90% CI =.000,.054). See Fig. 1 for model results. Because the model v2 was not significant, releasing
any constraints in the structural paths cannot significantly improve model fit. Thus, no evidence for
age as a moderator of associations was observed for the structural paths. Age was not a significant pre-
dictor of any endogenous variable in the younger age group but was a significant predictor of sticker
donation among the older group, B = 1.60, p =.039.
Mother attachment was unrelated to emotion regulation and emotional lability. However, father
attachment was associated with higher emotion regulation, B = 0.21, p =.034, and lower emotional
lability, B = 0.53, p =.001. In turn, emotional lability was related to fewer stickers donated,
9
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Fig. 1. Child emotion regulation and emotion lability as intervening variables of relations between parent attachment and child
prosocial behavior. Only significant associations are depicted, and coefficients are unstandardized. aIndicates parameter
estimates for the group of older children. bIndicates parameter estimates for the group of younger children. fIndicates a fixed
parameter. *p <.05; **p <.01; ***p <.001.

B= 0.51, p =.024. There was no significant relation between emotion regulation and child sticker
donation. No direct associations between mother attachment or father attachment and child sticker
donation were observed. Therefore, results indicated one possible indirect association: father attach-
ment to emotional lability to child sticker donation. Bootstrapping results for this indirect effect pro-
duced a 95% CI of ab = 0.02, 0.72, and a p value of.025. Thus, the indirect effect of father attachment on
child sticker donation through emotional lability was significant.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore the intervening role of emotion regulation in the associ-
ation between attachment and prosocial behavior in middle childhood. Although no direct associa-
tions were found between attachment and prosocial behavior, we observed a significant indirect
association between father–child attachment and prosocial behavior via child emotional lability.
Father–child attachment was also related to poorer emotion regulation, but emotion regulation was
not associated with child prosocial behavior after controlling for emotion lability. Mother–child
attachment was not related to study variables after controlling for father–child attachment. Effects
were not found for child sex, child age, socioeconomic status, and mother and father problem drinking.
Furthermore, observed associations were consistent across younger and older children. These results
suggest that children with insecure attachment to fathers have greater emotion dysregulation, which
may reduce their prosocial behavior.
Findings are consistent with hypotheses that secure IWMs (models of the attachment figure as
trustworthy and someone who the child can communicate with) would promote emotion regulation,
and in turn emotion regulation would promote prosocial behavior. However, emotional lability and
not emotion regulation served as an intervening variable. The distinction between emotional lability
and emotion regulation, as made by the ERC (Shields & Cicchetti, 1997), is an important one for under-
standing the construct of emotion regulation (Cole et al., 2004). The emotion regulation subscale of the
ERC captures competency with regulating emotions (e.g., can describe feelings, delay gratification, and
modulate excitement). In contrast, the emotional lability subscale assesses emotional dysregulation
(e.g., temper tantrums, wide mood swings, reacts negatively to neutral or friendly overtures).
10
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Emotional lability also reflects negative affectivity (Dunsmore et al., 2013). Therefore, it is not unex-
pected that the emotion regulation and emotional lability subscales have differential associations with
other variables.
Associations between attachment IWMs and child emotion regulation measures were fairly consis-
tent with hypotheses. Secure IWMs about the father–child relationship were related to both better
emotion regulation and lower emotional lability (or emotion dysregulation). IWMs about the
mother–child relationship were not related to either child emotion regulation or emotional lability
after controlling for IWMs about the father–child relationship. However, in bivariate associations,
trust in the mother–child relationship was related to lower emotional lability but was unrelated to
emotion regulation. Similar associations between attachment IWMs and emotion regulation have
been reported for adolescents (Gresham & Gullone, 2012). IWMs of trust, communication, and low
alienation involve models of attachment relationships in which children will not be punished for feel-
ing and expressing emotions, and parents provide assistance and training in healthy emotion regula-
tion practices, leading to their greater emotion regulation and reduced emotion dysregulation
(Cassidy, 1994; Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 2008).
There were differential associations between emotion regulation and emotional lability (or emo-
tion dysregulation) and prosocial behavior. Emotional lability was associated with less sticker dona-
tion, but emotion regulation was not associated with sticker donation. The association between
emotional lability and sticker donation is consistent with hypotheses. It was predicted that high levels
of emotional lability would be associated with less sticker donation because negative emotional reac-
tivity and emotion dysregulation are expected to interfere with key processes underlying prosocial
behavior such as perspective taking and behavioral approach (Eisenberg et al., 1990; Fabes et al.,
1994). In the sticker donation task, children are given a tangible reward of their choice but then are
told of the misfortune of others who are unable to obtain this reward and finally are given the oppor-
tunity to provide assistance to these unfortunate others by relinquishing some or all of their own
reward. Engaging in prosocial behavior in this context is supported by children taking the perspective
of the children who cannot earn the stickers and feeling empathy for them. Such abilities emerge in
early childhood; children aged 18 to 24 months can infer that a person needs assistance after belong-
ings have been taken or destroyed even when that person displays no emotion, and this assistance is
more likely to be provided when children express more concern for the person (Vaish et al., 2009).
However, upon hearing of the misfortune of others, emotionally dysregulated children may expe-
rience distress, perhaps including recollections of times when they did not receive a reward or con-
cerns that their stickers may be taken from them. This negative emotional reactivity may focus
their concerns on themselves rather than on the needs or concerns of others, reducing their prosocial
behavior. Indeed, emotional distress is inversely related to prosocial behavior in prior research. For
example, second- and fifth-grade boys’ facial expressions of distress are negatively related to prosocial
behavior, defined as donating some of their $5 participation reward and helping gather homework
materials for hospitalized children (Eisenberg et al., 1990). More recently, negative reactivity in 4-
and 8-year-old children was shown to be negatively associated with their prosocial behavior, likely
due to decreased ability to regulate sadness (Song et al., 2018). Therefore, it is likely that the difficul-
ties in emotion regulation are serving as intervening processes rather than the lack of emotion regu-
lation strengths.
Another important finding was that only father attachment relationships were indirectly associ-
ated with child prosocial behavior. The majority of research on parent influence on prosocial develop-
ment has focused only on mothers (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2019). This is consistent with an emphasis on
mothers in developmental psychology research more generally, which has persisted for decades
despite continued calls for more research on fathers (Phares, 1992; Phares et al., 2005). Over the past
few decades, fathers have held increasingly prominent roles in the daily lives of their children
(Cabrera, 2020). Several studies have highlighted associations between father involvement and chil-
dren’s developmental, psychological, and behavioral outcomes (Baker, 2017; Slaughter & Nagoshi,
2020). Our findings support these lines of research by underscoring the relation between secure
child–father attachments, lower emotional lability, and higher prosocial behavior. Such findings point
to the critical importance of the inclusion of fathers in child development research.

11
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Findings should be interpreted in light of study limitations. First, the study used a cross-sectional
design, which prevents making causal inferences regarding the relations among attachment, emotion
regulation, and prosocial behavior. The association between attachment and emotion regulation may
in fact be bidirectional, such that children who exhibit better emotion regulation have increasingly
better relationships with parents and more secure attachments (Zvara et al., 2018). Second, study par-
ticipants were primarily from White, middle-class, and two-parent households. Findings might not
generalize to populations that are diverse in race, socioeconomic status, and family structures. Third,
although the use of a donation task for assessing prosocial behavior is a strength of this study, future
research should replicate the study using alternative prosocial tasks to more fully capture the range of
prosocial behaviors in different settings. Fourth, it may be valuable to evaluate attachment styles and
emotion regulation abilities through observational methods, rather than questionnaires, to gain a
more comprehensive picture of both constructs (Waters et al., 2010). The questionnaire measure of
attachment used in the current study is primarily designed for children aged 8 or 9 years and older;
the current sample included some 6- and 7-year-old children. This may have accounted for why there
was low reliability for the alienation subscale for mothers. Finally, it should be noted that research has
demonstrated that telling children that another child has donated 6 stickers compared with telling
children that another child has donated 1 sticker results in significantly more sticker donation
(Samek et al., 2020). As part of our procedures, 10 stickers were placed in a donation box in order
to observe whether any children would ‘‘steal” them from the other children (this did not occur in
any case). Therefore, we likely observed greater sticker donation than if we had not placed stickers
in the box. However, because all children saw the 10 stickers already in the box, it is expected that
this effect affected donation behavior equally across the sample.
Despite these limitations, the current study contributes to the understanding of the intervening
role of emotion regulation in the association between attachment and prosocial behavior in middle
childhood. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relations among attachment, emo-
tion regulation, and prosocial behavior in this developmental period. Strengths of the study include
the use of a behavioral measure of prosocial behavior rather than a questionnaire and the inclusion
of fathers. Findings suggest that emotion dysregulation and negative affectivity, in particular, may
be critical mechanisms in the association between child attachment and prosociality in middle child-
hood. Thus, fostering warm, sensitive, and supportive parenting of children may be greatly impactful
for reducing child dysregulation and, consequently, promoting prosocial behavior.

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded to the last author
(R21 HD062833). There are currently three published studies using this data set. However, there are
no overlapping variables between the current study and two of the published studies with one excep-
tion: One of these studies did include child attachment with fathers but did not examine child emotion
regulation or prosocial behavior.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. (1993). Some considerations regarding theory and assessment relevant to attachments beyond infancy. In D.
Cicchetti, E. M. Cummings, & M. T. Greenberg (Eds.), https://books.google.com/books?id=WzHIfiCXE8EC&output=bibtex
Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 463–488.) University of Chicago Press.
Arbuckle, J. L. (2014). Amos (Version 23.0) [computer program]. IBM Corp..
Baker, C. E. (2017). Father–son relationships in ethnically diverse families: Links to boys’ cognitive and social emotional
development in preschool. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(8), 2335–2345. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0743-
3.
Beier, J. S., Gross, J. T., Brett, B. E., Stern, J. A., Martin, D. R., & Cassidy, J. (2019). Helping, sharing, and comforting in young
children: Links to individual differences in attachment. Child Development, 90(2), 273–289. https://doi.org/10.1111/
cdev.13100.

12
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Bi, S., Haak, E. A., Gilbert, L. R., El-Sheikh, M., & Keller, P. S. (2018). Father attachment, father emotion expression, and children’s
attachment to fathers: The role of marital conflict. Journal of Family Psychology, 32(4), 456–465. https://doi.org/
10.1037/fam0000395.
Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Separation, anxiety and anger (Vol. 2). Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent–child attachment and healthy human development. Basic Books.
Brett, B. E., Stern, J. A., Gross, J. T., & Cassidy, J. (2020). Maternal depressive symptoms and preschoolers’ helping, sharing, and
comforting: The moderating role of child attachment. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. Advance online
publication.. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2020.1738235.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental
Psychology, 22(6), 723–742. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.22.6.723.
Brumariu, L. E. (2015). Parent–child attachment and emotion regulation. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development,
2015(148), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20098.
Cabrera, N. J. (2020). Father involvement, father–child relationship, and attachment in the early years. Attachment & Human
Development, 22(1), 134–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2019.1589070.
Cano, T., Perales, F., & Baxter, J. (2019). A matter of time: Father involvement and child cognitive outcomes. Journal of Marriage
and Family, 81(1), 164–184. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/gjfq8.
Cassidy, J. (1994). Emotion regulation: Influences of attachment relationships. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development, 59(2–3), 228–249. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.15405834.1994.tb01287.x.
Cole, P. M., Martin, S. E., & Dennis, T. A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Methodological challenges and
directions for child development research. Child Development, 75(2), 317–333. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
8624.2004.00673.x.
Crugnola, C. R., Tambelli, R., Spinelli, M., Gazzotti, S., Caprin, C., & Albizzati, A. (2011). Attachment patterns and emotion
regulation strategies in the second year. Infant Behavior and Development, 34(1), 136–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
infbeh.2010.11.002.
Deneault, A. A., & Hammond, S. I. (2021). Connecting the moral core: Examining moral baby research through an attachment
theory perspective. Social Cognition, 39(1), 4–18. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2021.39.1.4.
Di Folco, S., Messina, S., Zavattini, G. C., & Psouni, E. (2017). Attachment to mother and father at transition to middle childhood.
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(3), 721–733. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0602-7.
Dunfield, K. A. (2014). A construct divided: Prosocial behavior as helping, sharing, and comforting subtypes. Frontiers in
Psychology, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00958. Article 958.
Dunsmore, J. C., Booker, J. A., & Ollendick, T. H. (2013). Parental emotion coaching and child emotion regulation as protective
factors for children with oppositional defiant disorder. Social Development, 22(3), 444–466. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
9507.2011.00652.x.
Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R., Miller, P. A., Shell, R., Shea, C., & May-Plumlee, T. (1990). Preschoolers’ vicarious emotional responding
and their situational and dispositional prosocial behavior. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36(4), 507–529. https://doi.org/10.2307/
23087312.
Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., & Murphy, B. C. (1996). Parents’ reactions to children’s negative emotions: Relations to children’s
social competence and comforting behavior. Child development, 67(5), 2227–2247.
Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., Taylor, Z. E., & Liew, J. (2019). Relations of inhibition and emotion-related parenting to young
children’s prosocial and vicariously induced distress behavior. Child Development, 90(3), 846–858. https://doi.org/10.1111/
cdev.12934.
Elsey, T., Keller, P. S., & El-Sheikh, M. (2019). The role of couple sleep concordance in subjective sleep quality: Attachment as a
moderator of associations. Journal of Sleep Research, 28(5), e12825–e12836. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12825.
Fabes, R., Eisenberg, N., Karbon, M., Troyer, D., & Switzer, G. (1994). The relations of children’s emotion regulation to their
vicarious emotional responses and comforting behaviors. Child Development, 65(6), 1678–1693. https://doi.org/10.2307/
1131287.
Farmer, E., Selwyn, J., & Meakings, S. (2013). ‘‘Other children say you’re not normal because you don’t live with your parents”:
Children’s views of living with informal kinship careers—Social networks, stigma and attachment to careers. Child & Family
Social Work, 18(1), 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12030.
Ferreira, T., Cadima, J., Matias, M., Vieira, J. M., Leal, T., & Matos, P. M. (2016). Preschool children’s prosocial behavior: The role of
mother–child, father–child and teacher–child relationships. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25(6), 1829–1839. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0369-x.
Forsythe, R., Horowitz, J. L., Savin, N. E., & Sefton, M. (1994). Fairness in simple bargaining experiments. Games and Economic
Behavior, 6(3), 347–369. https://doi.org/10.1006/game.1994.1021.
Geraci, A., & Franchin, L. (2021). Is defensive behavior a subtype of prosocial behaviors? Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.
org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.678370. Article 678370.
Goffin, K. C., Boldt, L. J., & Kochanska, G. (2018). A secure base from which to cooperate: Security, child and parent willing stance,
and adaptive and maladaptive outcomes in two longitudinal studies. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 46(5), 1061–1075.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-017-0352-z.
Granot, D., & Mayseless, O. (2001). Attachment security and adjustment to school in middle childhood. International Journal of
Behavioral Development, 25(6), 530–541. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650250042000366.
Gresham, D., & Gullone, E. (2012). Emotion regulation strategy use in children and adolescents: The explanatory roles of
personality and attachment. Personality and Individual Differences, 52(5), 616–621. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.paid.2011.12.016.
Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships,
and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348.
Gross, J. T., Stern, J. A., Brett, B. E., & Cassidy, J. (2017). The multifaceted nature of prosocial behavior in children: Links with
attachment theory and research. Social Development, 26(4), 661–678. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12242.
Gullone, E., & Robinson, K. (2005). The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment-Revised (IPPA-R) for children: A psychometric
investigation. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 12(1), 67–79. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.433.

13
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Hastings, P. D., Miller, J. G., Kahle, S., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (2014). The neurobiological bases of empathic concern for others. In M.
Killen & J. G. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (pp. 411–434). Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/
9780203581957.ch19.
Keller, P., & El-Sheikh, M. (2011). Children’s emotional security and sleep: Longitudinal relations and directions of effects.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(1), 64–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02263.x.
Keller, P. S., Widiger, T. A., & El-Sheikh, M. (2022). Parental problem drinking and maladaptive personality features in children:
The role of marital conflict. Child Psychiatry & Human Development. Advance online publication.. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10578-022-01340-9.
Kerns, K. A., Abraham, M. M., Schlegelmilch, A., & Morgan, T. A. (2007). Mother–child attachment in later middle childhood:
Assessment approaches and associations with mood and emotion regulation. Attachment & Human Development, 9(1),
33–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616730601151441.
Kerns, K. A., Aspelmeier, J. E., Gentzler, A. L., & Grabill, C. M. (2001). Parent–child attachment and monitoring in middle
childhood. Journal of Family Psychology, 15(1), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.15.1.69.
Kerns, K. A., & Brumariu, L. E. (2016). Attachment in middle childhood. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment
(3rd ed., pp. 349–365). Guilford.
Kerns, K. A., & Richardson, R. A. (Eds.). (2005). Attachment in middle childhood. Guilford.
Kochanska, G., Aksan, N., & Carlson, J. J. (2005). Temperament, relationships, and young children’s receptive cooperation with
their parents. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 648–660. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.648.
Koehn, A. J., & Kerns, K. A. (2016). The supervision partnership as a phase of attachment. Journal of Early Adolescence, 36(7),
961–988. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431615590231.
Kroll, M. E., Carson, C., Redshaw, M., & Quigley, M. A. (2016). Early father involvement and subsequent child behaviour at ages 3,
5 and 7 years: Prospective analysis of the UK Millennium Cohort Study. PLoS One, 11(9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0162339. Article e162339.
Lau, S. R., Beilby, J. M., Byrnes, M. L., & Hennessey, N. W. (2012). Parenting styles and attachment in school-aged children who
stutter. Journal of Communication Disorders, 45(2), 98–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2011.12.002.
Lockwood, P. L., Seara-Cardoso, A., & Viding, E. (2014). Emotion regulation moderates the association between empathy and
prosocial behavior. PLoS One, 9(5). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0096555. Article e96555.
Lyons-Ruth, K., & Jacobvitz, D. (2008). Attachment disorganization: Genetic factors, parenting contexts, and developmental
transformation from infancy to adulthood. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment (2nd ed., pp. 666–697).
Guilford.
Moore, C. (2009). Fairness in children’s resource allocation depends on the recipient. Psychological Science, 20(8), 944–948.
Moreira, H., Fonseca, A., & Canavarro, M. C. (2017). Assessing attachment to parents and peers in middle childhood:
Psychometric studies of the Portuguese version of the People In My Life Questionnaire. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26
(5), 1318–1333. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0654-3.
Panfile, T., & Laible, D. (2012). Attachment security and child’s empathy: The mediating role of emotion regulation. Merrill-
Palmer Quarterly, 58(1), 1–21 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23098060.
Paulus, M., Becker, E., Scheub, A., & König, L. (2016). Preschool children’s attachment security is associated with their sharing
with others. Attachment & Human Development, 18(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2015.1100208.
Paulus, M., & Moore, C. (2017). Preschoolers’ generosity increases with understanding of the affective benefits of sharing.
Developmental Science, 20(3), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12417.
Phares, V. (1992). Where’s Poppa? The relative lack of attention to the role of fathers in child and adolescent psychopathology.
American Psychologist, 47(5), 656–664. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066x.47.5.656.
Phares, V., Fields, S., Kamboukos, D., & Lopez, E. (2005). Still looking for Poppa. American Psychologist, 60(7), 735–736. https://
doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.7.735.
Posid, T., Fazio, A., & Cordes, S. (2015). Being sticker rich: Numerical context influences children’s sharing behavior. PLoS One, 10
(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0138928. Article e138928.
Prencipe, A., & Zelazo, P. D. (2005). Development of affective decision making for self and other: Evidence for the integration of
first- and third-person perspectives. Psychological Science, 16(7), 501–505. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01564.
x.
Primary Mental Health Project, Inc. (1995, September). Screening and evaluation measures and forms: Guidelines. Rochester,
NY: Author.
Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D Scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological
Measurement, 1(3), 385–401. https://doi.org/10.1177/014662167700100306.
Rholes, W. S., & Simpson, J. A. (2004). Attachment theory: Basic concepts and contemporary questions. In W. S. Rholes & J. A.
Simpson (Eds.), Adult attachment: Theory, research, and clinical implications (pp. 3–14). Guilford.
Rickel, A. U., & Biasatti, L. L. (1982). Modification of the Block Child Rearing Practices Report. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38(1),
129–134. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(198201)38:1<129::AID-JCLP2270380120>3.0.CO;2-3.
Samek, A., Cowell, J. M., Cappelen, A. W., Cheng, Y., Contreras-Ibáñez, C., Gomez-Sicard, N., ... Decety, J. (2020). The development
of social comparisons and sharing behavior across 12 countries. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 192. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104778. Article 104778.
Saunders, J. B., Aasland, O. G., Babor, T. F., De la Fuente, J. R., & Grant, M. (1993). Development of the Alcohol Use Disorders
Identification Test (AUDIT): WHO collaborative project on early detection of persons with harmful alcohol consumption-II.
Addiction, 88(6), 791–804. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1993.tb02093.x.
Seibert, A. C., & Kerns, K. A. (2009). Attachment figures in middle childhood. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 33
(4), 347–355. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025409103872.
Shaver, P. R., & Mikulincer, M. (2007). Adult attachment strategies and the regulation of emotion. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of
emotion regulation (pp. 446–465). Guilford.
Shaver, P. R., Mikulincer, M., & Chun, D. S. (2008). Adult attachment theory, emotion regulation, and prosocial behavior. In M.
Vandekerckhove, C. V. Scheve, S. Ismer, S. Jung, & S. Kronast (Eds.), Regulating emotions (pp. 121–145). Blackwell. https://doi.
org/10.1002/9781444301786.ch5.

14
S. Elhusseini, K. Rawn, M. El-Sheikh et al. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 225 (2023) 105534

Shields, A., & Cicchetti, D. (1997). Emotion regulation among school-age children: The development and validation of a new
criterion Q-sort scale. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 906–916. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.33.6.906.
Slaughter, J., & Nagoshi, C. T. (2020). Testing a contextual model of effects of father involvement on child behaviors. Child and
Adolescent Social Work Journal, 37(5), 547–556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00649-5.
Song, J. H., Colasante, T., & Malti, T. (2018). Helping yourself helps others: Linking children’s emotion regulation to prosocial
behavior through sympathy and trust. Emotion, 18(4), 518–527. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000332.
Sticker, R. M., Christner, N., Pletti, C., & Paulus, M. (2021). The moral self-concept in preschool children: Its dimensions and
relation to prosocial behaviors. Cognitive Development, 58, 101033.
Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Finkelhor, D., Moore, D. W., & Runyan, D. (1998). Identification of child maltreatment with the Parent-
Child Conflict Tactics Scales: Development and psychometric data for a national sample of American parents. Child Abuse &
Neglect, 22(4), 249–270. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0145-2134(97)00174-9.
Thompson, C., Barresi, J., & Moore, C. (1997). The development of future-oriented prudence and altruism in preschoolers.
Cognitive Development, 12(2), 199–212.
Tomasello, M. (2018). The normative turn in early moral development. Human Development, 61(4–5), 248–263. https://doi.org/
10.1159/000492802.
Tur-Porcar, A., Doménech, A., & Mestre, V. (2018). Family linkages and social inclusion: Predictors of prosocial behavior in
childhood. Anales de Psicologia, 34(2), 340–348. https://doi.org/10.6018/analesps.34.2.308151.
Vaish, A., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Sympathy through affective perspective taking and its relation to prosocial
behavior in toddlers. Developmental Psychology, 45(2), 534–543. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014322.
Waters, S. F., Virmani, E. A., Thompson, R. A., Meyer, S., Raikes, H. A., & Jochem, R. (2010). Emotion regulation and attachment:
Unpacking two constructs and their association. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 32(1), 37–47. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s10862-009-9163-z.
Williams, A., O’Driscoll, K., & Moore, C. (2014). The influence of empathic concern on prosocial behavior in children. Frontiers in
Psychology, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00425. Article 425.
Yoon, S., Bellamy, J. L., Kim, W., & Yoon, D. (2018). Father involvement and behavior problems among preadolescents at risk of
maltreatment. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(2), 494–504. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0890-6.
Zvara, B. J., Sheppard, K. W., & Cox, M. (2018). Bidirectional effects between parenting sensitivity and child behavior: A cross-
lagged analysis across middle childhood and adolescence. Journal of Family Psychology, 32(4), 484–495. https://doi.org/
10.1037/fam0000372.

15