Children's emotionality and social status: A meta-analytic review

Over the last 15 years, the role of emotions in children's peer relations has received greader attention. The purpose of the meta-analytic review was to determine the magnitude of the relation between negative emotionality (NE) and positive emotionality (PE) and social status. Based on 54 independent samples, the overall effect size for the relation between children's NE and social status was in the moderate-to-small range, and this effect size was similar across all types of NE (i.e., general measures of NE, anger, fear and sadness). Based on 10 independent samples, the overall effect size for the relation between children's PE and social status was in the small range. We found that the assessment method for anger significantly moderated the relation between anger and social status, and the context in which PE was observed significantly moderated the relation between PE and social status. This article concludes with a set of recommendations for the next generation of research on children's emotional and social competence.