The roles of emotion understanding and peer play on Turkish preschoolers' social problem-solving

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2026.01.012

Social problem solving (SPS) refers to children's ability to generate effective solutions to challenging interpersonal situations. Although play offers preschoolers opportunities to develop problem-solving skills, the impact of peer play on SPS remains underexplored compared to intrapersonal correlates such as child’s age or emotional processes. The goal of this study was twofold: (1) to examine well-established correlates of SPS (i.e., age, gender, social competence, emotional responses) in a sample of Turkish preschoolers, and (2) to explore how socially complex peer play contributes to SPS. Participants were 276 Turkish preschoolers, their mothers, and teachers. Preschoolers were individually assessed for emotion understanding and SPS, including their emotional and behavioral response choices to peer conflict scenarios, while teachers provided information about children's social competence through questionnaires. Replicating previous studies, preschoolers' prosocial response choices were positively related to teacher-ratings of social competence. Older preschoolers and girls endorsed more prosocial response choices than their younger counterparts and boys. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted on a random subsample of children ( N = 111) who had peer play observations at preschool. Results revealed that emotion understanding and socially complex peer play each contributed independently to preschoolers’ prosocial response choices. Lower levels of emotion understanding predicted aggressive response choices, while spending less time in socially complex peer play predicted passive response choices. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, along with recommendations for future research.