CONTEMPORANEOUS AND LONGITUDINAL PREDICTION OF CHILDRENS SYMPATHY FROM DISPOSITIONAL REGULATION AND EMOTIONALITY

The relation of 8- to 10-year-olds' teacher-reported dispositional sym pathy to regulation and emotionality was examined with a longitudinal sample. In general, sympathy was correlated with adults' reports of re gulation and low negative emotionality contemporaneously and, to some degree, 2 and 4 pears prior. General emotional intensity Interacted wi th some aspects of regulation in predicting sympathy; for example, att ention focusing predicted sympathy but only for children low in genera l emotional intensity. Ln general, the pattern of correlations changed little from age 6-8 to age 8-10 years, although parent-reported negat ive emotionality was more highly negatively related to sympathy at the older age. Dispositional sympathy was associated with verbal or physi ological markers of sympathy in a laboratory setting.