Considerable evidence has indicated the importance of adaptive emotional functioning for social competence (Eisenberg, 2001; Halberstadt, Denham, & Dunsmore, 2001; McDowell, O'Neil, & Parke, 2000; McDowell & Parke, 2000; Saarni, 1999). Social competence is intimately intertwined with emotional competence (Halberstadt et al., 2001), with emotional expressivity comprising a core component of children's emotional competence (e.g., Denham et al., 2003). Associations between emotional expressivity and social functioning are well documented in the literature (Sallquist et al., 2009). For example, frequent expressions of negative emotions among preschool children are associated with maladjusted peer relationships (e.g., Halberstadt, Denham, & Dunsmore, 2001). Frequent or intense emotional experiences may tax young children's abilities to cope with or manage the expressions of their emotions in a socially appropriate fashion (Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). Consequently, coping difficulties could be accompanied by poor peer relations or deficits in social functioning (Rubin, Coplan, Fox, & Calkins, 1995). This may explain why peer nominations of anger displays (i.e., gets angry most and argues most) were inversely associated with peer-rated popularity among boys in an early childhood sample (Murphy & Eisenberg, 1997).

As early as the preschool years, children's emotion management decisions reflect increasing attention to the importance of the social context (Saarni, 1999). By first grade, children are able to accurately differentiate among facial expressions of negative emotions, and as already discussed, children expect their expression of discrete emotions to result in distinctive social responses (Saarni, 1999). Interestingly, first-grade children more frequently report that they express negative emotions, such as sadness and anger, compared to older children (Fuchs & Thelen, 1988; Zeman & Garber, 1996). Emotion management decisions thus probably include expectations about whether peers will be accepting or understanding of emotional displays, but there are also likely to be age-related changes in children's reported likelihood of expressing emotions (Zeman & Garber, 1996; Zeman & Shipman, 1998). These studies highlight the need to investigate whether and at what age children perceive peer relationships as providing a unique social context in which emotions are experienced and expressed. As younger children may be more likely than older children to express their negative emotions without modification, the association between emotional expressivity and social functioning may vary with age.

Although gender differences in emotional expressivity and its links to social functioning have been found, these differences have typically been observed in the later elementary school years. For example, gender-differentiated links between emotional expressiveness and social acceptance were found in an observational study of 8- and 10-year-olds (Young & Zeman, 2003). Girls who were more adept at substituting negative displays with positive affective expressions (i.e., emotional substitution) were better accepted by other girls, whereas boys who were more skilled in masking or hiding their negative displays (i.e., neutralization) were better accepted overall. A study of fourth-grade children reported that observer-rated expressions of anger and sadness were inversely associated with boys', but not girls', social competence as rated by teachers (Jones et al., 2002). Thus, gender likely represents a salient guide for emotional expressivity whose influence may increase with age and development.

Ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) are also important to consider. In contrast to the emphasis on gender, few studies have investigated how emotional expressivity may interact with ethnicity and/or SES to influence children's social functioning. Among African American preschoolers from low-income families, emotional flexibility was a key component of social competence (Mendez, Fantuzzo, & Cicchetti, 2002). Across low- and middle-income African American families, preschoolers' emotional competence (i.e., emotion knowledge and regulation) was positively correlated with peer acceptance in (Smith, 2001). Consistent with studies of White and middle-income samples of school-aged children, these findings suggest that self-regulation of one's emotional expressivity is associated with social competence (McDowell & Parke, 2000). However, as studies of emotional development have not focused on ethnic minority children (Barbarin, 1993a, b), additional research is necessary to better understand the relationship between emotional expressivity and psychosocial functioning in African American children.

Children's peer groups constitute an important source of socialization in addition to the role of parents (Harris, 1995; Maccoby, 2002). As children mature, peer relationships become increasingly important (Berndt, 2004; Ladd, 2005). Basic social and emotional skills are learned through interactions between young children and older adults (e.g., parents, teachers); however, it is through peer relationships that these learned behaviors are practiced, validated, and reinforced (Hartup, 1996; Rose-Krasnor & Dunham, 2009). Although peer groups have long been theorized to establish norms and values that in turn shape appraisals (Ladd, 2005), much remains to be investigated about how children's emotion management is perceived by the larger peer group and whether it is associated with social competence and psychological functioning.

Several methods have been used to assess children's emotional experiences, expressivity, and management (Zeman, Klimes-Dougan, Cassano, & Adrian, 2007). Understandably, typical sources include parents and teachers (Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000; Shields & Cicchetti, 1997) and children's self-reports (Blumberg & Izard, 1985; Walden, Harris, & Catron, 2003; Zeman, Shipman, & Penza-Clyve, 2001). Parents offer an important perspective, as they have opportunities to observe their child's emotional behaviors across many situations. Likewise, teachers are in a natural position to observe children's emotional expressivity during peer interactions in structured (e.g., classroom) and unstructured settings (e.g., playground). Self-report measures are useful because children hold privileged access to their inner experiences, thoughts, and feelings which would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to assess. However, when considering potential important outcomes and correlates of children's emotional expressivity, parents, teachers, and self perceptions may not adequately or comprehensively reflect how children's emotions are associated with their psychosocial adjustment. According to life course/social field theory, peers comprise a group of “natural raters who define the [social] task demands and then judge the adequacy with which the demands are met within particular ecological contexts” (Kellam & Van Horn, 1997, p. 181). This theory suggests that peers' definitions and judgments of children's emotionality would influence their social adaptational competence. Therefore, peers may represent a significant and under-used source of necessary information about children's emotional expressivity.

Given the importance of natural raters, peer nominations represent a rich and valued source of information about children's social relations (Terry, 2000). Previous authors have advocated for the use of peer ratings for a few reasons. First, peer ratings have long been used as ecologically valid indicators of social adjustment. The unique nature of peer interactions and relationships may give peers a natural advantage for rating children's social behavior. Second, as sociometric methods include ratings by all participating children, they also have the advantage of using multiple raters to evaluate a behavior. Despite the theoretical importance of peer-based measures, the sociometric method has tended to focus on evaluations of aggressive behavior and social status (Terry, 2000).

Few studies have employed peer nominations in the assessment of children's emotional behavior. The Peer Nomination Inventory of Depression (PNID), which assesses children's perceptions of their peers' depressive symptoms, is probably the most extensively investigated nomination measure of emotion-related items (Blechman, McEnroe, Carella, & Audette, 1986; Layne & Berry, 1983; Lefkowitz & Tesiny, 1980, 1985; Saylor, Finch, Baskin, Furey, & Kelley, 1984). Peer nominations of depressive symptoms were associated with self-reported depressive symptoms and peer nominations of anger expressivity (Saylor et al., 1984), as well as academic achievement and peer-rated social competence (Blechman et al., 1986). More recently, peer nominations of discrete emotions (i.e., happiness, sadness, and anger expressions) were examined in first- and second-grade children (Schultz, Izard, & Bear, 2004; Trentacosta, Izard, Mostow, & Fine, 2006). Peer nominations of sadness and anger expressions were positively correlated (Schultz et al., 2004; Trentacosta et al., 2006). In addition, peer nominations were positively correlated with teacher nominations of happiness, sadness, and anger, providing evidence of convergent validity (Schultz et al., 2004). Both sadness and anger nominations predicted higher levels of aggressive behavior (Schultz et al., 2004) and were associated with lower levels of attentional competence (Trentacosta et al., 2006).

In summary, previous research suggests that peers represent a unique and important source in assessments of children's emotions. Moreover, this small body of studies has provided evidence of construct and convergent validity for peer nominations of emotional displays. Peer and teacher ratings of children's emotional expressivity demonstrate agreement, and peer nominations of emotion are associated with teacher-rated attention and aggression (Schultz et al., 2004; Trentacosta et al., 2006). In addition, peer-based measures have documented links between peer and self ratings of depressive symptoms (e.g., Saylor et al., 1984). However, much of the literature on emotional expressivity has used White samples, reflective of developmental research more generally (Barbarin, 1993a, b). Although these studies demonstrate that peer nominations are associated with a range of outcomes using multiple informants, several gaps remain that we address in the current study.

The present study aimed to address gaps in the extant literature by examining salient psychological, social, and behavioral correlates associated with peer nominations of expressivity of negative emotions. We expanded on prior studies by including parent- and self-reports, in addition to teacher ratings, of psychosocial functioning. We also investigated three salient domains of psychosocial functioning: internalizing symptoms (self, parent), externalizing behavior (parent, teacher), and social competence (parent, teacher). Whereas the samples of previous studies included predominantly White youth from rural areas, we examined this issue among a sample composed largely of ethnic minority children from an urban inner-city community. Thus, we examined peer nominations of emotional expressivity in a relatively understudied population of urban, African American children.

This study provides support for the importance of investigating peer nominations of children's emotional expressivity. Moreover, the pattern of findings indicates that both the composite measure and discrete negative emotion items were associated with concurrent indices of social and psychological functioning. Peers' and teachers' ratings were significantly associated, suggesting that peer nominations of emotional expressivity relate in general and specific ways to social functioning as rated by teachers. In contrast, peer perceptions of children's expression of negative emotions were not associated with children's self-report (internalizing symptoms) or parent-report (internalizing, externalizing, or social competence). Overall, our results highlight the significance of the social setting with regard to the ratings of the children's emotional expressivity.

Consistent with our hypotheses, we found gender differences for some measures but not for others. As expected, boys were rated by both parents and teachers as exhibiting more externalizing behaviors than girls. The absence of gender differences in peer-nominated emotional expressivity is consistent with previous studies that do not find gender differences in peer nominations of sadness and fear displays (Schultz et al., 2004). Contrary to our predictions, however, there were no gender differences in parent- and teacher-rated social competence.

Our hypothesis that peer nominations of emotional expressivity would be associated with teacher-reported psychosocial functioning was supported. Emotion nominations were correlated with increased teacher-rated externalizing behaviors, whereas emotion nominations were associated with decreased teacher-rated social competence. These associations were further clarified by examining the discrete emotion items. Within teacher ratings, externalizing behavior problems were associated with peer nominations of crying and appearing afraid, and social competence was inversely correlated with appearing sad and afraid. These findings suggest that children's perceptions of their peers' expressions of negative emotions may increase their risk of being evaluated as socially maladjusted by teachers. On the other hand, because children were reporting on their peers' emotional expressions in general, it is also possible that the nominations include peer observations of teacher-child interactions. Our results dovetail with previous studies that demonstrate the link between peer nominations of depressive symptoms and teacher-rated externalizing behavior (Shoemaker, Erickson, & Finch, 1986), and are somewhat consistent with previous studies showing that peer nominations of anger predict higher levels of teacher-rated aggression (Schultz et al., 2004). As other studies have demonstrated significant correlations between anger and sadness nominations (Schultz et al., 2004; Shoemaker et al., 1986; Trentacosta et al., 2006), these results provide encouraging support for our hypotheses. Given the paucity of research using discrete emotions, it is clear that further investigations of peer nominations are needed to substantiate our findings.

Contrary to our expectations, emotion nominations were not correlated with or significantly predictive of self- or parent-rated internalizing symptoms. However, a similar lack of association was found in a previous investigation of associations between peer-rated anger displays and depressive symptoms with self- and teacher-rated internalizing symptoms (Shoemaker et al., 1986). In addition, a meta-analysis of cross-informant agreement by Achenbach and colleagues (Achenbach, McConaughy, & Howell, 1987) suggested that concordance for internalizing symptoms is lower than externalizing behaviors, as was demonstrated by our results. The similar patterns observed in our study between peer nominations of emotional expressivity with teacher (but not parent) ratings of externalizing behavior and social competence may reflect the effects of the school setting. This setting effect may explain why parent-reported psychosocial functioning was not associated with the peer perceptions of emotional expressions.

In contrast to teacher ratings, parent-reported psychosocial functioning was not associated with peer nominations of emotional expressivity. However, it is important to note that parent ratings were significantly associated with teacher ratings. Specifically, teacher- and parent-ratings of externalizing behavior exhibited concordance. In addition, teacher-rated social competence was inversely correlated with parent-rated internalizing symptoms and externalizing behavior. However, parents and teachers did not demonstrate agreement in their ratings of children's social competence. Previous studies have illustrated how informant concordance is influenced by setting (e.g., home vs. school) as well as type of behavior being evaluated (e.g., internalizing vs. externalizing). Externalizing behaviors often show higher rates of inter-informant agreement compared to other behaviors (Achenbach et al., 1987). Thus, it is plausible that the significant associations between peer nominations of emotional expressivity and teacher ratings of externalizing behavior and social competence were due, at least in part, to effects of the shared school setting. Classmates and teachers are in a better position than most parents to observe children's emotional, behavioral, and social functioning, particularly as reflected in peer interactions on a regular basis. Thus, when children are facing developmental challenges specific to the school setting, peers and teachers may provide the most accurate assessment of children's functioning. We interpret our findings as providing potential evidence of the importance of social contexts, but an alternate explanation for the observed lack of correspondence between peer ratings of emotional expressivity and parent- or self-reported clinical symptomatology is that these measures reflect different constructs (e.g., daily emotional experience versus psychological symptoms). Indeed, children's self-reported internalizing symptoms were not related to any parent or teacher ratings, despite exhibiting good internal consistency. The current study was not designed to investigate cross-informant agreement on children's expression of negative emotions, so we were limited in the range of testable hypotheses. Our findings do, however, suggest that peers are capable of reporting on children's emotional expressivity, and those reports converge with teachers' ratings of behavior. Since parents and siblings constitute the natural raters within the family (Kellam & Van Horn, 1997), future studies will need to generate designs that allow us to investigate peer ratings of children's emotional expressivity in the home setting to address the limitations of the current study.

A unique strength of the current study was the analysis of peer nominations of emotional expressivity in two ways. We examined an aggregate that comprised all four negative emotion items, and analyzed the items separately, in order to evaluate potential differences in their associations with psychosocial functioning. We chose to use these particular emotion items because they were the items available in this valuable dataset. While previous research has focused on anger, our study addressed a salient gap in the literature by examining other negative emotions, including sadness and fear. Moreover, a few studies have documented the importance of other negative emotional states, including sadness (e.g., Perry-Parrish & Zeman, in press). The current study documented the importance of these other negative emotional states. In sum, the results provided support for our decision to analyze both the individual emotion items and the composite measure.

In the case of teacher-reported externalizing symptoms, the regression analyses indicated that the emotion items of crying and appearing afraid were important predictors, whereas displaying sadness and worry were not. By comparison, nominations of fear and sadness displays were significant predictors of decreases in teacher-reported social competence. Despite the utility for predicting teacher-rated variables, the discrete emotion approach did not alter the findings for parent-rated measures. Specifically, peer nominations of emotional expressivity were unrelated to parent-rated internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and social competence. As teachers and peers likely rated children based on their behavior in the school setting, these findings may reflect the importance of setting and/or social context in shaping children's emotional expressivity. Future studies could consider how to explore this idea in other social contexts involving peer interactions (e.g., after-school programs, extracurricular activities).

Given that little research has focused on African American children's emotional development (Barbarin, 1993), our study adds to the extant literature by examining peer nominations of emotional expressivity among a predominately African American sample. Moreover, because our sample also included White youth and demonstrated some diversity with respect to SES, we explored the effects of these variables but did not generate specific hypotheses. The results indicated that African American children received fewer peer nominations of displaying sadness and appearing afraid than White youth, and children who were eligible for free/reduced lunch received more nominations for displaying sadness than their classmates. However, the magnitude of these differences was small. Likewise, significant ethnicity and SES findings emerged for internalizing symptoms and externalizing behavior, but these effects were also small.

More central to our study, peer nominations of negative emotions significantly contributed to the prediction of teacher-rated social competence, beyond the effects of SES. In the case of teacher-reported social competence, neither ethnicity nor SES was significant, whereas peer-nominated emotional expressivity was an important predictor. It should be noted that this study was not designed to evaluate ethnicity differences, as reflected in our predominantly African American sample. However, our sample was more balanced with respect to SES (i.e., free/reduced lunch), and the few significant findings related to SES were relatively small. Although our study does not allow for strong conclusions to be drawn about ethnicity differences in emotional processes, the results do suggest that emotion variables are important predictors of psychosocial functioning among African American youth in the school setting. Specifically, peer nominations of expressing negative emotions were significantly associated with teacher ratings of externalizing behaviors and social competence. This pattern dovetails with other studies with predominantly White children (e.g., Schultz et al., 2004), and thus our findings suggest that frequent expressions of negative emotions represent a potential psychosocial liability in the school environment. Additional studies are clearly needed to identify whether ethnicity, SES, or other social factors may alter or influence the relationship between emotional expressivity patterns and psychosocial adjustment.