The relations of regulation and negative emotionality to Indonesian children's social functioning

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of individual differ ences in regulation and negative emotionality to 127 third-grade Indonesian children's social skills/low externalizing problem behavior, sociometric s tatus, and shyness. Parents and multiple teachers provided information on c hildren's regulation, negative emotionality, and social functioning; peer s ociometric information on liking and social behavior was obtained; and chil dren reported on their self-regulation. In general, children's low socially appropriate behavior/high problem behavior and rejected peer status were r elated to low dispositional regulation and high negative emotionality (inte nse emotions and anger), and regulation and negative emotionality (especial ly teacher rated) sometimes accounted for unique (additive) variance in chi ldren's social functioning. Adult-reported shyness was related to low peer nominations of disliked/fights (although shy children were not especially l iked), low adult-reported regulation, and (to a lesser degree) low teacher- rated negative emotionality. Findings are compared with work on regulation, negative emotionality, social competence, and shyness in other countries.