Does executive function affect children's peer relationships more than emotion understanding? A Longitudinal study based on latent growth model

Many researchers argue that emotion understanding and executive function can help people establish and maintain positive peer relationships, but the existing empirical evidence supporting this assertion in preschool children remains inconclusive. This study aimed to investigate the impact of emotion understanding and executive function on children's peer relationships (specifically, acceptance and rejection) by utilizing a conditional latent growth model. Longitudinal data were collected in three time points within two years from a sample of 120 kindergarten children (Mage = 46.63 months, with 70 boys) in China. Our findings revealed a significant linear increase in both emotion understanding and executive function over time. The conditional latent growth model further showed that the initial level of emotion understanding and executive function positively predicted later peer acceptance, while the initial level of executive function negatively predicted peer rejection, even after accounting for covariates such as age, gender, family socioeconomic status, and vocabulary. Furthermore, children with faster growth rate of executive function were less likely to experience peer rejection. Intriguingly, the development of emotion understanding did not yield a discernible impact on peer relationships. Overall, these findings suggest that executive function plays a more crucial role than emotion understanding in facilitating positive peer relationships among Chinese preschool children, thereby highlighting the significance of executive function's developmental trends in social interactions.