Social competence: Cardiovascular activity and humor as mediating mechanisms.

The present study examined the impact of parent and child pain responsiveness, parent and child health, parent and child pain experience, and parenting style on the main outcome variable of social competence of preschool aged children. The conceptual model depicted direct effects of the first seven variables on the main outcome variable, child social competence, as well as indirect effects on child social competence via parenting style. Participants were recruited from 66 preschools operating in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. A diverse sample of 242 parents, 220 mothers and 22 fathers, of preschool-aged children completed questionnaires measuring parent and child pain responsiveness, parent and child pain experience, parent and child health, parenting style and child social competence. In addition, the recruited child's preschool teacher completed a questionnaire rating the social competence of the child. Teacher rating questionnaires were completed for 184 children. The analytic process employed a preliminary series of correlational analyses to determine variables to include in model evaluations using parent and teacher rated child social competence as the principal outcome variables. The main analyses involved testing and refinement of the proposed model in a series of structural equation modeling (SEM). Because child social competence was measured using data from both parents and teachers, the modeling exercise was performed separately on each of the parent and teacher outcomes. Three variables from the originally hypothesized model, specifically child pain responsiveness, parent pain experience, and child health were not significantly correlated with the outcome variables. The tested model included parent pain experience, child pain experience, parent health, parenting style and child social competence for each of the parent and teacher models. In the parent model increased child social competence was predicted by decreased child pain experience, increased positive parenting style, and decrea