Social sensitivity and social, school, and psychological adjustment among children across contexts

This study examined relations of social sensitivity to social, school, and psychological adjustment in rural Chinese, urban Chinese, and Canadian children. Participants were 4th to 6th grade students (M_age = 11 years) in China (n = 593 and 443 for the rural and urban samples) and Canada (n = 325). A self-report measure of social sensitivity was developed for the study. In addition to data on social sensitivity, information on adjustment was obtained from multiple sources. The analyses revealed that social sensitivity was associated with positive adjustment in rural Chinese children but with adjustment problems in Canadian children. The relations were largely mixed and nonsignificant in urban Chinese children. These results indicate the role of context in defining the functional meaning of children's social sensitivity.