Attachment Security and Preschoolers’ Social Competence: Children’s Emotion Understanding and Emotion Regulation as Chain Mediators

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Child Development and Care (NLSCDC) database in Taiwan, this study examined the relationships between mother-child attachment security and child emotion understanding, emotion regulation, and social competence. Through structured interviews with mothers, three waves of data were collected when children were 36, 48, and 60 months old, respectively. Valid data from a total of 1303 mothers were obtained (48.2% with girls, 51.8% with boys). A random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) was first tested to investigate the potential bidirectional relationship between emotion understanding and emotion regulation. We further explored the chain mediating effect of child emotion understanding and child emotion regulation on the relationship between mother-child attachment security and children’s social competence. The results revealed that mother-child attachment security was positively related to child social competence via the sequential mediating effects of children’s emotion understanding and regulation. The findings shed light on the pathways through which mother-child attachment security relates to children’s social competence. They also help enrich existing research on attachment theory and emotional competence by providing empirical evidence in a Chinese cultural context.