Emotional Competence in Children: A Unifying Framework and Novel Measure

Authors

Megan Hare, Florida International UniversityFollow

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Major/Program

Psychology

First Advisor's Name

Elisa Trucco

First Advisor's Committee Title

Co-Committee chair

Second Advisor's Name

Justin Parent

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Co-Committee chair

Third Advisor's Name

Stacy Frazier

Third Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Fourth Advisor's Name

Nicole Fava

Fourth Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Fifth Advisor's Name

Erica Musser

Fifth Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Keywords

emotion, measurement

Date of Defense

6-6-2022

Abstract

Emotional competence is a precursor to the development of healthy psychosocial functioning, with deficits in emotional competence triggering a cascade of negative outcomes throughout development. Despite the importance of each component of emotional competence, there are inconsistent definitions with negative downstream implications for assessment, risk identification, prevention/intervention, and monitoring treatment progress. Therefore, the first paper presented a unifying theoretical framework of emotional competence, which included four main components: emotion reasoning, emotion stability, emotion regulation, and empathy. This paper also reviewed commonly used assessments for each component of emotional competence to examine how questions from each assessment align with their descriptions and relate to definitions provided. The second paper developed a comprehensive parent-report measure of emotional competence grounded in the unifying framework. Through six empirically driven stages, a factor structure consisting of four overall components of emotional competence was established (i.e., Emotion Reasoning, Emotion Stability, Emotion Regulation Empathy), and subcomponents for Emotion Reasoning (Interpersonal and Intrapersonal) and Emotion Stability (Duration, Threshold, Intensity) were supported. The final measure demonstrated strong psychometric properties across indexes of reliability and validity. Lastly, the paper examined the unique concurrent validity of each scale and subscale across a range of mental health outcomes. Results suggest that each component and subcomponent of emotional competence holds distinct and important utility in screening and assessing children across disorders.

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Identifier

FIDC011110

Recommended Citation

Hare, Megan, "Emotional Competence in Children: A Unifying Framework and Novel Measure" (2022). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5340.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/5340