Journal of Scholastic Inquiry: Behavioral Science, Volume 4, Spring 2015 by Center for Scholastic Inquiry

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Journal of Scholastic Inquiry: Behavioral Sciences

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JOURNAL OF SCHOLASTIC INQUIRY: BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES Spring 2015, Volume 4, Issue 1 Managing Editor Dr. Tanya McCoss-Yerigan Editor-in-Chief Dr. Jamal Cooks General and APA Editor Jay Meiners Editorial Advisory Board Shirley Barnes, Alabama State University Joan Berry, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Brooke Burks, Auburn University at Montgomery Timothy Harrington, Chicago State University Michelle Beach, Southwest Minnesota State University Kenneth Goldberg, National University Linda Rae Markert, State University of New York at Oswego Lucinda Woodward, Indiana University Southeast

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Research Manuscripts

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Reporting Cyberbullying: An Examination of Victims Who Did Not Seek Formal Sanctions Stephanie Jirard, Shippensburg University Azim Danesh, Shippensburg University Kenneth France, Shippensburg University

Application of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to Reduce the Externalizing Behaviors of Preschoolers in Hong Kong Anny M. L. Fan, Hong Kong PHAB Association Irving Leung, Alliant International University

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Reporting Cyberbullying: An Examination of Victims Who Did Not Seek Formal Sanctions Stephanie Jirard Shippensburg University Azim Danesh Shippensburg University Kenneth France Shippensburg University Abstract A survey of individuals who were targets of cyber aggression messages reveals an overwhelming majority did not complain about the harassment to law enforcement, Internet service provider administrators, or cell phone companies. An examination of the lack of criminal prosecution tools for cyber aggression, and a brief review of punishment theory, indicates that by declining to seek formal sanctions against senders of cyber aggression messages, targets are denied retributive justice. Preliminary conclusions suggest shaming theory may substitute for formal sanctions. Keywords: cyber aggression, cyberbullying, punishment, retribution

Introduction

“Cyber aggression exists when a sender initiates cyber communication or cyber action intended to harm a target” (France, Danesh, & Jirard, 2013, p. 2143). A type of cyber aggression is cyberbullying. There is no one definition of cyberbullying, but a generally accepted description is “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices” (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009, p. 5). Cyberbullying is often in the news. On September 9, 2013, 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick killed herself by jumping from a tower at an unused concrete plant in her hometown of Lakeland, Florida. Comments related to Rebecca’s suicide appeared in Facebook postings by two female juveniles, and one girl admitted she had

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bullied Rebecca via the Internet and text messages. Some messages sent to Sedwick in a dispute over a boy were “nobody cares about u,” “I hate you,” and “you seriously deserve to die.” When one of the juveniles stated callously on social media that she could care less that Sedwick was dead, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd arrested the two juveniles on October 15, 2013, and charged them with felony cyberstalking, defined under Florida law as using electronic media to harass someone under the age of 16. By arresting the juveniles, Sheriff Judd was holding cyberbullies accountable for the consequences of their acts. Judd’s actions received positive media coverage. Justin W. Patchin, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, in an interview on October 28, 2013, about Sedwick’s death and Judd’s decision, said that cyber aggression targets do not believe offenders will be punished and bringing charges in the Sedwick case will inform police and prosecutors whether convictions are possible. Thirty-seven days after charges were filed, the prosecutor decided not to formally charge Sedwick’s “bullies” and the case was dismissed on November 22, 2013. While Sedwick’s case was initially thought to become a pathway to prosecuting cyber harassment, it is now known for the swiftness in which it ended. Despite arresting the two juveniles in the Sedwick case, Sheriff Judd said in October 2013: I think law enforcement doesn't need to be involved in bullying. We don't need to make criminals out of kids doing what I call early-stage bullying. That's not good. We should be the last ones that are called . . . What I would like to see is a civil process and we'll have to think through this together whereby a school system can say, 'I understand you're bullying and you've used this device. OK, we've got this anger management school, we've got this anti-bully school, and by the way, we get to hold your device until you've completed the school.’ (Riggs, 2013) Sheriff Judd is not alone in his reluctance to use the criminal justice system for typical child-like behavior. “If history is any indication, the use of the criminal justice system as punishment for bullying might not be beneficial to either victim or aggressor, especially because the youngest offenders fare poorly in our overburdened system” (Connell, 2013, p. 8a). Millions of youth enjoy unregulated access to the Internet and rely heavily on cyberspace as their primary channel of collective communication (Williams & Guerra, 2007). Not involving law

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enforcement in Internet bullying is common. Sedwick’s mother in an interview reported by the New York Daily News on September 12, 2013, said that she had tried to protect Rebecca by reporting the harassment to school officials and other parents, and by removing Rebecca from school. Sedwick’s mother chose not to notify the police or otherwise engage the justice system. This article uses data from an Internet-based survey described in the France et al. (2013) study of the motivation of those who sent cyber aggressive messages. The current study examines the targets of those cyber aggressive missives and their reported unwillingness to pursue formal sanctions by filing a complaint with an online administrator, a cell phone company, law enforcement, or by enlisting an attorney to stop the harassing acts. There is a lack of comprehensive and uniform methods of legal redress for targets. Focusing on targets and the actions they did or did not take in response to cyber aggression may help fashion helpful strategies to stop cyber aggression. A brief review of punishment theory indicates that while a victim’s feelings about a certain punishment is not determinative of how an offender is punished (Ciocchetti, 2009), formal recognition for a crime victim’s pain and suffering helps the victim heal, move on, and perhaps even forgive the offender (Strelan & Van Prooijen, 2013). In this study, only a few targets reported their victimization to an organization or person in power in order to sanction the sender, which is a missed opportunity for targets to realize justice. The literature on shame and punishment theory suggests that targets may not report their victimization to formal authorities if they believe they have no real avenue for justice.

Review of Literature

Research indicates that the young tend not to report their victimization as often as adults (Bosick, Rennison, Gover, & Dodge, 2012). Hinduja and Patchin’s (2009) research found that media and schools focus on education as the primary weapon in the fight against cyberbullying, with police involvement an option if physical threats are made. They also found boys are the senders of cyber aggressive messages more often than girls and may be more likely to threaten another boy physically online. Girls tend to engage in “social sabotage” such as gossiping and rumor spreading. Emotions experienced by many cyber targets include anger, frustration, sadness, embarrassment, and fear. Research studying the victimology of cyber aggression

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reveals certain online activities increase the chance of victimization, such as frequent use of social media, sharing personal information with on-line strangers, posting a number of personal photographs, and making multiple status updates (Marcum, Higgins, & Ricketts, 2010; Reyns, Henson, & Fisher, 2011; Ybarra, Mitchell, Wolak, & Finkelhor, 2006). Cyberbullying victims “overwhelmingly know (or at least think they know) who is harassing them” (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009, p. 58) and it is very common for victims to have also been cyber aggression perpetrators (France et al., 2013). Compared to students not involved in cyberbullying, those involved in it were more likely to report perpetration of violence toward peers (Ybarra, Diener-West, & Leaf, 2007). Punishment can be involved in society’s moral choice to control behavior through criminal law. It has been asserted that just deserts – getting what you deserve – is a necessary precondition for a collective sense that the victim has received justice (Kleck & Barnes, 2008). Punishment blames offenders and also provides an “opportunity to communicate their remorse to the public and to make public apologies” (Königs, 2013, p. 1031). “Punishment, in short, has a symbolic significance largely missing from other kinds of penalties” (Feinberg, 1970, p. 98). Punishment scholars Murphy and Hampton (1988) suggest committing crimes creates an imbalance in status. The offenders make a “false moral claim” (p. 125) that they are superior to the victim, and punishment restores equity. The offenders’ perception that they may receive harsh punishment does not necessarily act as a crime deterrent “because the fundamental link between actual punishment levels and perceptions of punishment levels appears to be weak to nonexistent” (Kleck & Barnes, 2008, p. 1031). The threat of punishment alone may influence behavior, not the extent or harshness of the perceived penalty. For juvenile deviance, informal sanctions may have a stronger deterrent effect than formal sanctions (Blackwell, 2000). Punishment theory posits a system of sanctions that encourages social conformity through reward and risk (Scheff, 1988). One sanction is shame. Shame and punishment have expressive power because society acknowledges a retributive justice claim for the victim and the community. Shame as punishment is often a catalyst for conforming behavior. For example, the senders of cyber aggressive messages in the France et al. (2013) study believed that if they had thought they were at risk for being punished they might have thought twice before sending the harmful communication. “A majority of both brief and

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extended senders agreed with the following two statements: If it had been a violation of rules or against the law, I would not have done it, and If there had been a news story about me doing it, I would have felt ashamed” (p. 2147). A baseline of external, normative factors may cause individuals to conform to lawful behavior when faced with feelings of shame. In the United States, shame cannot be prescribed as punishment purely to humiliate the offender. On appeal in a 2004 federal criminal case, the court upheld public shaming as punishment because exposing the defendant’s crime serves as catharsis for the victims which serves both to rehabilitate the defendant and protect the public (Brooks, 2008). Clear laws against cyberbullying behavior and collective shaming behavior may be sanctions that work against senders. Bullying is often a group activity within a peer setting and many of those who engage in cyberbullying do not necessarily feel remorse (Salmivalli, 2010; Slonje, Smith, & Frisén, 2012). Shaming offenders may work where traditional formal sanctions fail to stop cyber aggression. To illustrate the concept of retributive justice, Gill and Stenlund (2005) presented a case study of a teen schoolyard bully of a younger boy. To stop the victim’s torment, other school kids physically pinned the instigator to the ground and demanded he stop torturing the younger child, which he did. In response to his peers coming to his aid, the bullied child declared it was the greatest “day of his life.” The researchers concluded that the most damaging aspect of being bullied was the inability of those in positions of authority to fashion an appropriate remedy which then compounded the victim’s feelings of helplessness. Achieving justice was “the most important outcome” to the bullying case (p. 48). While physical restraint of a bully in cyber space is impossible, the researchers concluded, “the most successful individual interventions will be based more on providing justice than care. Justice being done is caring. Caring without justice will allow the trauma to smolder” (p. 59). Similarly, proactive education efforts about bullying, while necessary and effective, will not substitute for formal sanctions against bullies. To secure a criminal conviction a prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an offender had the guilty mind (mens rea), or intent to commit the specific crime and the actual criminal act (actus reus) resulted. To prosecute acts of cyber aggression, a prosecutor has to prove the sender acted with the purpose of causing the victim severe emotional distress and then prove the victim did, indeed, suffer severe emotional distress as a direct result of the

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communication. One hurdle to holding offenders of cyber aggression responsible under criminal law is the difficulty in proving the offenders’ criminal intent to specifically cause the target emotional harm. That hurdle is likely to remain, even though Internet postings may be anonymous and hurtful content can be communicated immediately to a vast audience (Fukuchi, 2011). Moreover, the U.S. Constitution guarantees free speech and protects the exchange of ideas in the public forum, whether a soap box in a public park or on the Internet (McHenry, 2011; Servance, 2003; Turbert, 2009). People have a right to speak, communicate, and express themselves even if the content of their speech is derogatory, offensive, and downright mean to others. The law does not prosecute for hurt feelings. The limits of free speech are not boundless, however. Categories of speech unprotected by the Constitution are obscenity, child pornography, and speech meant to intimidate or communicate a threat (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 2002). An additional prosecutorial hurdle is that most states do not specifically criminalize cyberbullying. Only Montana does not have a generic anti-bullying law. Out of the 49 states that have laws that address bullying, 22 states specifically mention “cyberbullying”, but only seven of those 22 states punish cyberbullying by criminal sanction (Hinduja & Patchin, 2015). Where the law is silent on cyberbullying, prosecutors must pursue charges under existing vague stalking or harassment statutes. For instance, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who had emigrated in 2009 from Ireland to South Hadley, Massachusetts, dated a boy twice who then stopped seeing Phoebe and encouraged his female friends to harass her. By text message and on Facebook, the high school students called Phoebe a “slut” and a “whore,” and suggested she deserved to die. Phoebe hanged herself on January 14, 2010, and although the six cyberbullies were initially charged with felony harassment, most pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and violating Phoebe’s civil rights (Eckholm, 2011). The last obstacle in using the law to hold cyber aggressors criminally responsible is that cyber aggression is an act committed predominantly by the young. The seminal First Amendment case for student speech is Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), where the High Court famously proclaimed students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate” (p. 506). The

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issue in Tinker was whether students could be disciplined by school officials for wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam Conflict. The Court held that school officials could legitimately suppress student speech only if it “materially or substantially disrupts the work and discipline of the school” (p. 513). The Court specifically restricted school authority to punish only student conduct that occurred on school property. For the students on their home computers sending cyber aggressive messages, lower court cases have held that if the Internet activity of a student located off campus “materially or substantially disrupts” the on-campus community, the student may be punished. For example, a student who posted an icon via instant messaging that showed a named math teacher being shot in the head, had his suspension from school upheld by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals because of the icon’s potential disruptive affect at school (Wisniewski v. Bd. of Ed. of the Weedsport Central Sch. Dist., 2007). Citing Wisniewski as authority to punish Internet activity that originates off school grounds, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld in 2011 a student’s five-day suspension for making a webpage dedicated exclusively to making fun of a fellow student because, even though made on and presumably confined to the student’s home computer, the webpage was substantially disruptive and also interfered with other students’ rights to be free from harassment (Kowalski v. Berkeley Cty. Schools, 2011). Authority to punish students is derived from a school’s clear and published anti-bullying policies.

Methods

The France et al. (2013) online survey was designed to capture three primary groups associated with episodes of cyber aggression: senders, targets, and observers. The study examined 72 brief versus 128 extended episodes of cyber aggression to determine the difference, if any, in the perpetrators’ motivations for sending cyber harassing messages. Twelve North American colleges and high schools received email invitations from the researchers to complete the survey. Informed consent was required and parental consent was required if the participant indicated he or she was a juvenile. Researchers received 699 responses; 544 identified themselves as a sender, an observer, or a target. Fifty-seven respondents identified themselves as

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a target of cyber aggressive behavior, which is the sample for this continuing examination of the data. Targets who received cyber aggressive messages were overwhelmingly female (70.2%) whose average age was 19.5; the youngest girl target was 12 and the oldest woman was 48years-old. Men victims were 29% of the target group, with an average age of 21.2, ranging from 17 to 48-years-old. The targets were overwhelmingly white, 91.2% with 7% identifying as African American and 1.8% identifying as “other.” Most targets knew who sent the cyber aggressive messages and had known at least one of them before the episodes began (81%), some never found out who was sending the messages (16%), and few (4%) discovered who the senders were, but had not known them before the aggression began. There was often more than one person involved in sending the messages, with 54% of the senders involving two to five people. The content of the messages conveyed, among other harmful communication, expressions of “anger or intense criticism to a person who had sent no such message him/herself” (88%); “hurtful messages or images that made fun of a person” (71%); or exclusion of “a person from participating in a group or activity in order to hurt that individual” (59%) (See Table 1). The most frequent method used to send cyber aggressive messages was cell phones and text, but they were also sent via email, instant messaging, social networking sites, blogs, and other web sites. The episodes lasted from 1 day (4%), to 2-7 days (27%), to 8-30 days (21%), to 1 to 2 months (25%), to lasting more than one year (23%). In answer to the question “How did you feel about” the cyber aggression, the majority of targets responded “very distressed” (59%); the next most common response was “somewhat distressed” (37%), and only 4% were “neither happy nor distressed.” Not one target was “happy” about receiving the messages (0%).

Results

Given that, cumulatively, 96% of the targets felt a level of distress about receiving the cyber aggressive messages, what, if anything did the targets do in response to the cyber harassment? As reflected in Table 3, respondents were asked “With regard to what you did in response to having it done to you,” answer options were: (1) I dismissed it as not worth my time;

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(2) I avoided future exposure to it; (3) I ignored it; (4) I communicated with a sender describing what I believed had happened, what I wanted to happen in the future, and actions I intended to take if the unpleasantness continued; (5) I communicated with a sender and made a funny comment about what had happened; (6) I wrote down what happened and when it happened; (7) I saved the evidence; (8) I filed a complaint with a law enforcement organization; (9) I filed a complaint with an Internet service provider; (10) I filed a complaint with the administrators of an online community; (11) I filed a complaint with the operators of a website; (12) I filed a complaint with a cell phone company; and (13) I contacted an attorney. Response options to the list of actions targets could have taken were, “I did this with excellent results”; “I did this with good results”; “I did this with mixed results”; “I did this with bad results”; and “I did not do this.” For responding to the sender in an assertive manner, 50% percent of targets “did not do this,” and half of the targets did communicate with the sender “describing what I believed had happened, what I wanted to happen in the future, and actions I intended to take if the unpleasantness continued.” For those targets who did communicate assertively with the sender, the primary outcome was achieved with “mixed results” (19%), while an equal measure achieved “good results” (11%) and “bad results” (11%). Nine percent of targets who were assertive did so with “terrible results.” Not one assertive target had “excellent results” (0%). An overwhelming majority of targets failed to seek formal sanction through the filing of a complaint. For the option of filing a complaint with an Internet service provider (ISP), 89% did not, and 11% did; for the option of filing a complaint with a website operator, 89% did not, and 11% did; for the option of filing a complaint with a cell phone company, 98% did not and 2% did. If the target did file a complaint with an ISP, website, or phone company, none did with “excellent results” (0%). Of the 2% that responded they filed a complaint with a cell phone company, they did so with “terrible results.” For filing a complaint with law enforcement, 78% did not; of those who did, 2% did so with “terrible results,” 4% did so with “bad results,” 7% did so with “mixed results,” 4% did so with “good results,” and 4% did so with “excellent results.” Eighty-nine percent of targets did not contact an attorney, and of those who did, 2% did so with “bad results,” 7% did so with “good results,” and 2% did so with “excellent results.” Of the targets who at some point upon

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receipt of the cyber aggressive messages took formal action in response to the cyber aggression, the only redress that achieved “excellent results” was for contacting law enforcement (4%) and contacting an attorney (2%).

Discussion

The majority of targets revealed they did virtually no reporting by way of filing a complaint for formal sanction about their cyber aggression victimization. Though 96% of the targets reported feeling somewhat or very “distressed” about their cyber victimization, those feelings of distress did not correlate or motivate targets to file a complaint or otherwise report the harassment. Theories of punishment, though, indicate that without seeking formal sanction or official recognition of the harm suffered, crime victims may remain in a position of constant devaluation in relation to the offender (Feinberg, 1970; Murphy & Hampton, 1988). By doing nothing, targets are foregoing an opportunity to restore the balance of power between themselves and the offenders. Despite the high-profile cases that intimate cyber aggression causes suicide such as in the cases of Rebecca Sedwick and Phoebe Prince, criminal prosecution for those acts typically does not occur (Sabella, Patchin, & Hinduja, 2013). The law’s limits may prevent targets from pursuing legal redress. Legal limits include vague or nonexistent statutes too ineffectual to prosecute cyber aggression, constitutional protection for free speech, or a school’s inability to punish off-site speech. Based on the findings, half of targets do assertively contact a sender directly in an effort to take matters into their own hands and solve the problem. This makes sense because at least 81% of the targets knew the senders before the episodes of cyber aggression began and research has demonstrated that many cyber targets have been senders of cyber aggression (France et al., 2013). The lack of success in getting the target to stop engaging in cyber aggression (only 4% of the messages lasted one day), may be attributed to the number of people involved in sending the messages, for only 20% of the messages had one sender. Bullying in general is often committed in a “pack” situation to establish a certain hierarchy in one’s peer group (Salmivalli, 2010). Especially for the young, willingness to conform to peer-approved behavior may reduce deviance. The senders in this study indicated

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that if there had been rules or laws against their behavior or if their actions had been made public, they would have felt “ashamed.” Such feelings indicate group shaming behavior of offenders may be the bridge between a target victim reporting cyber aggression to law enforcement and doing nothing. The lack of clear and cohesive choices for formal redress for the offenders’ behavior contributes to a bullying victim’s feelings of helplessness. Studies advocate education over prosecution as the primary device for cyberbullying intervention. For those who have actually suffered cyber aggression, however, education provides no immediate remedy for the harm already caused. While a sense of justice is most important for bullying targets (Gill & Stenlund, 2005), and direct physical confrontation is impossible in cyberspace, perhaps shaming within the cyberspace community is a viable alternative to restore the target victim. Punishment theory stresses the importance of retributive justice for victims to feel whole, move on, and even possibly forgive their transgressors. But the study also suggests that the online community is an inhospitable environment with regard to policing itself. Of the targets here that did not file complaints within the cyber community, 98% did not do so with a cell phone company, 89% did not with website operators, 91% did not with online administrators, and 89% did not with an Internet service provider. Notably, 2% of those senders who at least filed a complaint with a cell phone company did so with “terrible results.” The only two adjudicative bodies targets contacted that resulted in “excellent results” were filing a complaint with law enforcement (4%) or contacting an attorney (2%). Our study found that 96% of the respondents reported they felt either “very” or “somewhat” distressed by the cyberbullying episodes, but 78% did not attempt to report their victimization to law enforcement. Out of the remaining respondents who reported feeling distressed, only 8% that did contact law enforcement reported that they did so with “excellent” or “good” results. But when law enforcement officials do not file charges even those targets who contemplate official redress may hesitate on the belief that taking official action will yield no significant results. Those seeking civil redress by contacting an attorney typically have to do so at an additional cost to themselves. Civil causes of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, or harassment against the senders of cyber aggressive messages, means for targets the personal and financial toll may remain high. Perhaps shaming senders of cyber aggressive messages

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within the cyber community itself is a less costly option that is potentially available and effective.

Conclusion

Despite the limitations of the small sample size of cyber aggression targets who chose not to file formal complaints with an authority figure (cyber or phone company, law enforcement, attorney), the results illuminate hurdles preventing targets from seeking official redress. Based on this preliminary examination of cyber target responses, further research should explore the exact reasons behind a cyberbullying target’s choice not to seek formal sanctions and whether reporting choices are dependent upon the sender’s status as the target’s friend, associate, or intimate partner. The current study also supports further examination of the efficacy of shaming cyber aggressors into good behavior.

Author Biographies

Stephanie Jirard is a former trial attorney and is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Shippensburg University. Her publications include the book Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and the Constitution (2009), and book chapters on race and justice. Azim Danesh is a Professor of Management Information Systems at Shippensburg University. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer and Information Sciences from Temple University. In addition, he has over 18 years experience in the information industry as a software designer, database analyst, and consultant. Kenneth France is a clinical psychologist and is a Professor of Psychology at Shippensburg University. His books include Crisis Intervention (6th Edition, 2014) and (with Kim Weikel) Helping Skills for Human Service Workers (3rd Edition, 2014).

References

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002).

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Blackwell, B. S. (2000). Perceived sanctions, threats, gender, and crime: A test and elaboration of power control theory. Criminology, 38(2), 439-488. Bosick, S., Rennison, C. M., Gover, A., & Dodge, M. (2012). Reporting violence to the police: Predictors through the life course. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40(6), 441-451. Brooks, T. (2008). Nussbaum on shame punishment. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25(4), 322334, citing U.S. v. Gementera, 379 F.3d 596 (2004). Ciocchetti, C. (2009). Emotions, retribution, and punishment. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 26(2), 160-173. Connell, N. (2013, October 24). Criminal charges don’t deter bullies: Adolescent minds can lack capacity for self-regulation. USA Today, p. 08a. Eckholm, E. (2011, May 6). Three ex-students get probation in bullying linked to a suicide. The New York Times, A19. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/us/06bully.html Feinberg, J. (1970). Doing and Deserving. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. France, K., Danesh, A., & Jirard, S. (2013). Informing aggression-prevention efforts by comparing perpetrators of brief vs. extended cyber aggression. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 2143-2149. Fukuchi, A. (2011). A balance of convenience: The use of burden-shifting devices in criminal cyberbullying law. Boston College Law Review, 52, 289-330. Gill, P. E., & Stenlund, M. A. (2005). Dealing with a schoolyard bully: A case study. Journal of School Violence, 4(4), 47-62. Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2009). Bullying beyond the schoolyard: Preventing and responding to cyberbullying. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2015, January). A brief review of state cyberbullying laws and policies. Cyberbullying Research Center, http://www.cyberbullying.us/Bullying_and_Cyberbullying_Laws.pdf (last accessed Feburary 19, 2015). Kleck, G., & Barnes, J. C. (2008). Deterrence and macro-level perceptions of punishment risks: Is there a “collective wisdom”? Crime & Delinquency, 59(7), 1006-1035.

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Königs, P. (2013). The expressivist account of punishment, retribution, and the emotions. Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, 16, 1029-1047. Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools, 652 F.3d 565 (4th Cir. 2011). Marcum, C. D., Higgins, G. E., & Ricketts, M. L. (2010). Potential factors of online victimization of youth: An examination of adolescent online behaviors utilizing routine activity theory. Deviant Behavior, 31(5), 381-410. McHenry, A. (2011). Combating cyberbullying within the metes and bounds of existing Supreme Court precedent. Case Western Reserve Law Review, 62, 231-262. Murphy, J. G., & Hampton, J. (1988). Forgiveness and Mercy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University. Reyns, B., Henson, B., & Fisher, B. S. (2011). Applying cyberlifestyle-routine activities theory to cyberstalking victimization. Criminal Justice & Behavior, 38(11), 1149-1169. Riggs, M. (2013, October 25). Criminalizing cyber bullying could ruin more lives than it'll save. The Atlantic Cities, retrieved from http://m.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/10/criminalizing-cyber-bullying-couldruin-more-lives-itll-save/7363/ Sabella, R. A., Patchin, J. W., & Hinduja, S. (2013). Cyberbullying myths and realities. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 2703-2711. Salmivalli, C. (2010). Bullying and the peer group: A review. Aggression & Violent Behavior, 15(2), 112-120. Scheff, T. J. (1988). Shame and conformity: The deterrence-emotion system. American Sociological Review, 53, 395-406. Servance, R. L. (2003). Cyberbullying, cyber-harassment, and the conflict between schools and the First Amendment. Wisconsin Law Review, 1213-1244. Slonje, R., Smith, P. K., & Frisén, A. (2012). Processes of cyberbulling, and feelings of remorse by bullies: A pilot study. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9(2), 244-259. Strelan, P., & Van Prooijen, J. W. (2013). Retribution and forgiveness: The healing effects of punishing for just deserts. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 544-553. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).

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Turbert, K. (2009). Faceless bullies: Legislative and judicial responses to cyberbullying. Seton Hall Legislative Journal, 33, 651-692. Williams, K. R., & Guerra, N. G. (2007). Prevalence and predictors of Internet bullying. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41, S14-S20. Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District, 494 F.3d 34 (2d Cir. 2007). Ybarra, M. L., Diener-West, M., & Leaf, P. J. (2007). Examining the overlap in Internet harassment and school bullying: Implications for school intervention. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41, 42-50. Ybarra, M. L., Mitchell, K. J., Wolak J., & Finkelhor, D. (2006). Examining characteristics and associated distress related to Internet harassment: Findings from the second youth Internet safety survey. Pediatrics, 118(4), 1169-1177.

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Table 1 Cyberspace events during the episode

Percentage

Messages expressing anger or intense criticism to a person who had sent no such message him/herself. - Yes

88%

Asking others to send messages expressing anger or intense criticism to a person who had sent no such message him/herself. - Yes

28%

Hurtful messages or images that made fun of a person. - Yes

71%

Pretending to be another person in order to create difficulty for that individual. Yes

18%

Sharing a person’s image or intimate information about a person in order to embarrass that individual. - Yes

49%

Excluding a person from participating in a group or activity in order to hurt that individual.

59%

Supplying others with identifying information on a person in order to create difficulty for that individual. - Yes

20%

Threatening to do any of the previous things in order to encourage a person to act in a certain way. - Yes

28%

Tricking a person into doing something that had negative consequences for that individual. - Yes

20%

Threatening a person with physical harm. - Yes

36%

Table 2 Persons involved in episode One

20%

2 to 5

54%

6 to 10

12%

More than 10

Unknown

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Table 3 Subject response to episode I did this with excellent results

I did this with good results

I did this with mixed results

I did this with bad results

I did this with terrible results

I did not do this

I dismissed it as not worth my time.

10%

16%

14%

53%

I avoided future exposure to it.

23%

40%

10%

17%

I ignored it.

17%

19%

33%

I communicated with a sender, describing what I believed had happened, what I wanted to happen in the future, and actions I intended to take if the unpleasantness continued. -

11%

19%

11%

50%

I communicated with a sender and made a funny comment about what had happened.

89%

I wrote down what happened and when it happened.

13%

64%

I saved the evidence.

11%

15%

54%

I filed a complaint with a law enforcement organization.

78%

I filed a complaint with an Internet service provider.

89%

I filed a complaint with the administrators of an online community.

91%

I filed a complaint with the operators of a website.

89%

I filed a complaint with a cell phone company.

98%

I contacted an attorney

89%

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Application of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to Reduce the Externalizing Behaviors of Preschoolers in Hong Kong Anny M. L. Fan Hong Kong PHAB Association Irving Leung Alliant International University Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) treatment group for preschoolers with externalizing problems in Hong Kong. Thirty-two children between the ages 5 and 6 years participated in this study. After the treatment, reduction of externalizing problems was indicated from both teachers’ ratings and parents’ ratings. All the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ) ratings ranked by teachers showed expected improvement in all three subscales: soothability, impulsivity and inhibitory control. Similar views were reported by parents, except a minor worsening of inhibitory control. Because of the nonequivalent control group, a two-tailed t-test for related samples was conducted for each of the pre/post–treatment measures to assess any changes in the mean rank of scores in Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), Teacher Report Form (TRF), and Child Behavior Questionnaire after the treatment was administrated in pre-and post-interventions by teachers and parents of the children respectively.

Keywords : Externalizing problem, dialectical behavior therapy, preschooler, Hong Kong

Introduction

Mental health researchers and practitioners have long noted the association between emotional regulation and child behavior problems. Eisenberg et al. (2001), for example, noted that children with behavioral problems manifested different combinations of self-regulation

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deficits. The typical young child is unlikely to be able to describe upsetting emotions due to a lack of adequate vocabulary to express such feelings or being overwhelmed with disturbing affect (Digiuseppe, 1989; Luk, Leung, Bacon-Shone, & Chung, 1991). Jianghong, Halina, and Leung (2011) noted that there is a lack of cross-cultural research on externalizing behaviors in preschoolers. Children with behavioral symptoms tend to attract the attention of teachers, parents, or peers because of the negative impact the child’s behavior has on family, peers (Wong, & Lau, 1992), and social interactions. Thus, studying emotional regulation among preschoolers in Hong Kong is essential to understand the etiology, prevention, and treatment of child behavior problems. This research endeavor targeted preschool children in Hong Kong who were Chinese, attending Nursery 4 class, were between ages 5 and 6 years, and with externalizing problem behaviors. A treatment program adapting the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was developed and implemented in nursery schools for them. This study also intended to explore the cross-cultural validity of application of DBT in an Asian population and its effectiveness in reducing problem behaviors of Chinese preschools in Hong Kong. Before implementation of this study, this newly developed treatment program had been evaluated and amended according to the feedback by a panel of experts as well as receiving IRB approval from Alliant International University.

Literature Review

Emotion Regulation

The definition of emotion regulation must be established. Although, “there is no consensus on a definition of emotion regulation” (Eisenberg, Hofer, & Vaughan, 2007, p. 288), the most commonly used definitions are “the extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and temporal features, to achieve one's goals” (Thompson, 1994, pp. 27-28), and “the processes and the characteristics involved in coping with heightened levels of positive and negative emotions including joy, pleasure, distress, anger, fear, and other emotions” (Kopp, 1989, p. 343). The

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extrinsic aspect includes the management by others, particularly in early childhood, and the support from others. Thompson and Calkins (1996) also pointed out that the child’s own emotional state may be inconsistent with that of their caregiver’s appraisals. Thus, emotional regulation entails understanding of one’s own feeling and managing expression of emotions to accomplish one’s goal, such as to maintain good relationships or obtain support. Apart from the above, Thompson and Calkins (1996) mentioned that emotional regulation can be achieved through the effort to manage its temporal and intensive characteristic, such as to diminish the intensity of an experienced emotion, slow its speed of onset or recovery, limit its persistence over time, reduce emotional range, or influence other qualitative characteristics of emotional states. Individual differences in patterns of emotional regulation become characteristic of personality and when emotional regulation interferes with functioning, this emotional regulation pattern is referred to as emotional dysregulation (Cole & Michel, 1994). Emotional regulation follows a developmental path toward the decreasing influence of parents and caretakers on children’s emotional regulation and the increasing self-control (Salisch, 2008). Early on, infants must have external support for regulating their emotions. The reflex responses to approach pleasure and to avoid aversion stimuli illustrate the primitive emotion self-regulation in infancy (Kopp, 1989; Salisch, 2008; Thompson & Goodman, 2010). They require a long period of care and protection by caregivers for early emotional regulation (Mikulincer, Shaver, & Pereg, 2003). Later, the internalization process of self-regulation makes co-regulation from parents less necessary (Mikulincer et al., 2003) as the child develops the sensory, loco-motor abilities, language, and cognitive abilities. Children as young as age three are capable of understanding the events and situations that produce emotional reactions in others and around 5 years old are able to explain hypothetical characters' emotions resembling those of adults (Fabes, Eisenberg, McCormick, & Wilson, 1988; Salisch, 2008). Emotional regulation is a complex phenomenon involving complex philological, cognitive, and expressive features (Thompson, & Calkins, 1996). However, it is a cognitive process that implicates perceptual discrimination of an event, memory of experiences in similar situations, and the evaluation of current self-needs and goal states. Such associative learning occurs with respect to distress experienced previously and the remembered modifiers of distress (Kopp, 1989). By performing inhibitory control, it demonstrates the executive ability to inhibit

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undesirable behavior, to manage negative emotion, to reduce frustration as well as to increase persistence (Dennis, 2006). True self-control emerges at between 3 to 5 years of age in children, at which time they demonstrate the ability to comply with the requests of caregivers and to show control in the absence of adult monitoring (Rothbart, Ellis, & Posner, 2011).

Attachment Theory

Developed by Bowlby this orientation is a useful framework for understanding affect regulation (Mikulincer et al., 2003). From Bowlby’s point of view, “proximity seeking is an inborn affect-regulation device (primary attachment strategy) designed to protect an individual from physical and psychological threats and to alleviate distress” (as cited in Mikulincer et al., 2003, p. 78). Mikulincer et al., (2003) stressed the development of the secure-based strategy to alleviate distress and to bolster personal adjustment through constructive, flexible, and realityattuned mechanisms. Secure people can develop optimistic beliefs about distress management, a sense of trust in others’ goodwill, and a sense of self-efficacy in dealing with threats. They believe distress is manageable and external obstacles can be overcome. On the other hand, insecure people faced with signs of attachment-figure unavailability or even rejection, may be preoccupied with confronting the distress-eliciting situation. They may develop hyperactivating strategies that foster anxious, hypervigilant attention to relationship partners and rapid detection of possible signs of disapproval, which is actually a self-amplifying cycle of distress (Mikulincer et al., 2003). Orpinas and Horne (2006) mentioned that parents who are helpful, responsive, and caring foster the development of a secure attachment with their children. Thus, how the caregiver attends to the child and the early family environment establish the foundation for the child’s future relationships. However, attachment theory alone does not go far enough when dealing with the maladaptive behaviors and thus DBT is implemented to help address maladaptive behaviors (Linehan, 1993a). One of the primary foci in DBT is to teach individuals to regulate negative emotional states (Ben-Porath, 2010). Compared to other cognitive behavioral therapy, DBT strongly emphasizes the role of the emotion system in behavioral dysfunction (Lynch, Chapman, Rosenthal, Kuo, & Linehan, 2006). It has been widely applied to other clinical

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problems and populations (Miller & Rathus, 2000) including children (Callahan, 2008; Macy, 2005) and moderate to high acceptability on the pilot project adapting DBT skills training for children has been reported (Pereplhikova et al., 2011). To conclude the literature review, the following hypotheses were tested after the children completed the treatment program. 1. The level of overall childhood externalizing problems would be reduced. 2. Children’s rate of recovery from peak distress, excitement, or general arousal would improve. 3. Children would show improvement in impulsivity and inhibitory control.

Research Design

Due to recruitment limitations, a nonequivalent groups design was employed. The matching was based on the demographic information of the children (age, gender, children’s place of birth, length of time living in Hong Kong, and any notable special needs) and the focus of the analysis was on the change of children’s externalizing behavior scores as rated by the CBCL (Evans & Rooney, 2011). As such, collection of pre and post treatment data of the matched control group was done at the same time as the treatment group. This minimized differential changes due to developmental or maturational factors. (Heppner, Kivlighan, Wampold, 2008). Equal numbers of children were recruited from the same class of the school in respect to the numbers of children in the experimental group. Quantitative data for both the experimental and matched control groups were collected through a questionnaire administrated in pre-and post-intervention by teachers and parents of the children. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for data analysis.

Measures

Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Teacher Report Form (TRF). These two instruments were developed by Achenbach in 1991, the CBCL is for parents or caregivers and

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the Teacher Report Form (TRF) is for teachers. There are different scales for different age groups, such as young children aged 1½ - 5 years, and 6-18 years. In Hong Kong, these measures were translated by Leung, P. L. et al. (2006) for local Chinese. The five commonly used scales (i.e., the Total Competence, Total Problems, Internalizing, Externalizing, and Attention Problems scales) of the CBCL (6-18 years) and TRF (6-18 years) were validated by Leung et al. and reported good to excellent intra-class correlation (median .83, range .66 to .87). The CBCL and TRF Externalizing scales yield large AUC (.90). The Chinese versions were obtained from the official local distributor authorized by the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment and only the items measuring the Externalizing Behaviors were used. Two items of the CBCL (6-18) were dropped because it was considered not applicable to preschoolers (pertaining to “alcohol, drugs” and “think about sex”). Thus, the resulting measure was composed of 31 items. For the CBCL (1½ - 5), it was composed of 24 items. One item of TRF (6-18) was also dropped because it was considered not applicable to preschoolers (pertaining to “alcohol, drugs”). Thus the resulting measure was composed of 33 items. For (C-TRF) (1½ - 5), it composed of 34 items.

The Children's Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ). The CBQ was designed to measure temperament in children aged 3 to 7 years by Rothbart (1981). The CBQ is a caregiver report measure that assesses the following 15 dimensions of temperament: Activity Level, Anger/Frustration, Approach, Attentional Focusing, Discomfort, Falling Reactivity & Soothability, Fear, High Intensity Pleasure, Impulsivity, Inhibitory Control, Low Intensity Pleasure, Perceptual Sensitivity, Sadness, Shyness, Smiling and Laughter. Because the aim of this project was to help children to develop appropriate skills in distress tolerance and emotional regulation, it was expected that they would learn better impulse and inhibitory control. Thus the three subsets of Falling Reactivity and Soothability, Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control were used in this study. Falling Reactivity and Soothability refers to the rate of recovery from peak distress, excitement, or general arousal. A higher score reflects faster rates of recovery from peak distress, excitement, or general arousal. Impulsivity is the speed of response initiation. A higher score reflects faster rates of response initiation. Inhibitory Control entails the capacity to plan and to suppress inappropriate approach responses under instructions or in novel or uncertain

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situations. A higher score reflects greater capacity to plan and to suppress inappropriate approach responses under instructions or in novel or uncertain situations. Each sub-set contains 13 questions respectively. The Chinese translated versions were obtained for this project and the same set of 39 items was adopted in this study for pre-and post-intervention by teachers and parents of the children respectively.

Screening

Considering that no local norm for CBCL/1.5-5 and C-TRF had been established in Hong Kong, reference to a relevant study conducted in mainland China was recommended. Jianghong et al. (2011) reported that significant higher scores on Externalizing Problem CBCL/1.5-5 and CTRF were found in a U. S. sample than in the Chinese population. They explained that this finding may be due to Chinese socialization practices that stress self-control, emotional restraint, submissiveness, and dependency on others’ opinions, whereas Western culture encourages individualistic strivings. Thus, the cutoff T score for C-TRF was recommended at 55 %, but the cut off T score for TRF was remained at 60 % as suggested by Leung, P. L. et al. (2006). This method sorted out children considered to be at some risk and in need of extra help. The exclusion criteria for this study were children with developmental disabilities, communication disorders, or autism.

Treatment Group

Four nursery schools consented to participate in this treatment study and all children were recruited primarily through these collaborative schools. All children screened with externalizing problems by TRF or C-TRF were invited to join the treatment group. In view of the limited number of participants, almost all eligible students, except two, were accepted for this treatment study. Eleven children demonstrated externalizing problems in school C and D, respectively. Due to the limited group size, a maximum of 10 children per group and children that could not be mixed with a different nursery school, the two children with the lowest T score of 55 on the C-TRF from school C and D respectively were then placed in the control group. The remaining

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30 children without externalizing problems, as per C-TRF or TRF, joined the control group. Consequently, there were 32 children in the experimental group and control group, respectively. All of the children were local Chinese and spoke fluent Cantonese.

Treatment Program

A new set of treatment protocols based on Linehanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (1993a) skills training manual for treating borderline personality disorder modules was developed with modifications for ageappropriateness. It was divided into four modules: mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness. Each module was composed of four sessions except interpersonal effectiveness because some interpersonal skills were taught in other modules as hypothetical situations and story-telling activities to illustrate the emotional reactions. The last session was a conclusion and summary. The treatment program was activity-based, which included stories, creative arts, games and illustrated exercises. Target children received 16 sessions of group treatment distributed over 8 -10 weeks conducted by the principal investigator. Each session lasted for one hour and two sessions were provided each week.

Treatment Protocol

The treatment protocol was formulated based on suggestions offered in Greco and Hayes (2008); Linehan (1993a, 1993b, 2003); McKay, Wood, and Brantley (2007); Miller, Rathu, and Linehan (2007); Perepletchikova et al., (2011); and Stallard (2002). Because mindfulness skills are the central and core ability (Miller et al., 2007), mindfulness was taught in a separate module as well as scheduled during the last 5 minutes at the end of each session allowing the children to practice it together. The mindfulness activity at the end of each session always included deep breathing while the mindfulness training combined sensate focusing, visualization, and guided imagery. As a whole, the skills training group was a combined treatment program and the learning objectives for each module are listed below.

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Mindfulness. This module involved learning to observe, to describe, and to participate while noticing or attending to events, experiencing emotions, and noting behavioral responses, then describing these events in words. Sample activities of this module were: (a) deep breathing exercise: place hand on the abdomen, inhale slowly through the nose, or (b) ice cube exercise / texture exercise, when the child holds an ice cube in one hand, letting it melt, and observing the experience which is aimed at teaching the body to feel sensation and to experience relevant thoughts.

Emotion regulation. The module is aimed at helping clients regulate painful affective states. It involves identifying and labeling emotions, reducing emotional vulnerability, increasing positive emotional events, and changing the behavioral-expressive component of an emotion. Sample activities included (a) types of expressions to teach body language (facial change, breathing rate, heart rate, sweating, etc.), words (I hate you, I am sad, I am sorry), tone of voice, and behaviors (kissing, hitting, holding fist tightly, etc.), directed at helping the children to recognize, to describe, and to name emotions; or (b) associating feelings with thoughts (anger, guilt, disappointment, regret, hurt, worry, happiness, fun, fear, joy, love, peace). Both positive and negatives emotions were taught in the study to improve the children’s emotion regulation.

Interpersonal effectiveness. This session involved strategies for asking what one wants or needs, saying no, coping with conflict and maintaining relationships. There were two kinds of interpersonal goals: ‘‘getting what you want’’ and ‘‘getting along with other people’’. These lessons also taught problem-solving strategies to increase the children’s capacity to resolve conflicts. Sample activities included (a) softening communication skills to teach proper requests to ask for things, making requests, and initiate communication; (b) the group leader presented a hypothetical conflict that acted out the negative feelings to teach problem-solving ability.

Distress tolerance. This module taught positive strategies instead of engaging in maladaptive problem-solving behavior that made the situation worse. Tolerance to distress was taught with particular emphasis on developing inhibitory control to stop children from experiencing extreme moods such as over-excitement or anger. Specific skills included distract,

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self-soothe, improve the moment, and consider the pros and cons of tolerating the distress (i.e., coping) versus not tolerating the distress (i.e., to acting impulsively or maladaptively). Sample activities of this module were (a) stopping the anger volcano, drawing a picture on a balloon and making a hole with a pin to release the negative emotion, or (b) creating an “emotional isolation box,” to save drawings or records for one’s negative emotions.

Special concerns for treatment of young children

Reinforcement. To help the children pay attention to the session and to engage in the activities, small gifts such as candy or biscuits and stickers were used to reinforce positive behavior directly during each of the sessions. Each participant could also earn additional tokens for good behavior such as being attentive, listening to other’s sharing, raising hands when they wanted to share, or sitting properly. Redemption of tokens in exchange for small gifts provided increased incentive to practice their newly learned skills.

Vocabulary development. Because expressive language made a unique contribution to emotion regulation (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010), the leader intentionally presented and explained words throughout each session and wove these words into the multiple events and activities for children to enhance vocabulary development. She also provided children with the opportunities to respond to questions and actively engage in conversations to influence how children heard, understood, and used these words. These strategies ultimately shaped the children’s internalization of vocabulary to facilitate communication (Wasik, 2010). The following vocabulary was presented in the group trainings, List of vocabulary for emotions (1) positive emotions - calm, satisfaction, relaxed, happy, excited, surprised; (2) negative emotions - unhappy, annoyed, disgust, disappointment, angry, sad, hurt, anxious, afraid, worry, guilt, regret. List of vocabulary for thoughts (1) predict- suggest, expect, think; (2) compare and contrast similar, like, dislike, different; (3) explain - cause, effect, result, because, if…then ; (4) perspectives taking - point of view, but, on the one hand, on the contrary ; (5) problem-solving -

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find out, explain, answer, resolve ; (6) motives – want, intention, reason ; (7) evaluate - think, judge. Results

Participants

Consistent with the previous findings in the local context (Luk et al., 1991; Tsang & Leung, 2007), the participants who reported externalizing behaviors were primarily boys: experimental group (84%) and control group (56%). The children’s age of this study was approximately 5 years based on the data collected at pretest. The mean ages were (M = 5.16 years, SD =.37). Five children in the experimental group were diagnosed with speech delay, developmental delay, or Asperger’s disorder when they were approximately 2-3 years old.

Data Analyses

At baseline, there was a significant difference in the scores of externalizing problems because of non-equivalent control group design. Therefore a two-tailed t-test for related samples was conducted for each of the pre/post–treatment measures to assess whether or not participants’ level of externalizing behaviors were reduced over the course of treatment. The measure completed by teachers in the experimental group showed a very statistically significant change (t = 4.25, d f = 31, two-tailed p < .001) in the direction of reduced externalizing behaviors (pre-test M = 30.19, SD = 15.44; post-test M = 23.06, SD = 14.40). Further, there was a reduced of level of externalizing behaviors from 16.19 to 14.91 as reported by the parents’ rating. However, the rating by teachers for the control group indicated a worsening of the externalizing problem (pretest M = 3.97, SD = 5.45; post-test M = 5.06, SD = 9.12; see Table 1). The measure as completed by teachers for the experimental group (pre-test M = 3.26, SD = .69; post-test M = 3.42, SD =.73) showed improvement in soothability (.16) , and there was very minor improvement (.01) indicated from the parents’ rating (pre-test M = 4.52, SD = .77; post-test M = 4.53, SD = .73). Interestingly, soothability for the control group was rated by teachers as significantly improved (pre-test M = 4.07, SD = .91; post-test M = 4.39, SD = .93),

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but parents reported a decline (pre-test M = 4.86, SD = .77; post-test M = 4.64, SD = .80; see Table 2). The experimental group indicated significant change in reduction of impulsivity as rated by teachers (pre-test M = 5.10, SD = .92; post-test M = 4.84, SD = .80) and slight improvement as rated by parents (pre-test M = 4.63, SD = .76; post-test M = 4.54, SD = .50). Minor improvement in the level of impulsivity for the control group was reported by parents (pre-test M = 4.25, SD = .72; post-test M = 4.22, SD = .55) and teachers (pre-test M = 4.15, SD = .76; posttest M = 4.04, SD = .65), respectively (see Table 3). The ratings by teachers for the experimental group showed significant improvement in inhibitory control (pre-test M = 3.36, SD = .65 post-test M = 3.70, SD = .72), whereas parents’ rating indicated a minor worsening (pre-test M = 4.39, SD = .67; post-test M = 4.34, SD = .74). The ratings of inhibitory control for the control group by teachers indicated minor improvement (pre-test M = 5.15, SD = .89; post-test M = 5.20, SD = .91), but parents rated it as significantly worsen (pre-test M = 5.05, SD = .78; post-test M = 4.79, SD = .61; see Table 4). It was expected that there would be discrepancies between ratings by parents and teachers mentioned above because of the negative or low correlations between their scores. Only the post-test score of externalizing behaviors for the experimental group r(30) =.39, p = .028 and pretest score of inhibitory control for the control group r(30) =.40, p =.025 showed a significant correlation (see Table 5). Discussion

The results of this study suggested that participation in the DBT group had a greater effect on reducing the externalizing problems for children at their schools than at their homes. Such a difference was largely related to the treatment design because this study mainly provided direct treatment to the children. The recruitment of class teachers as co-leaders to assist the group process enabled teachers to observe the intervention strategies directly from the principal investigator. The qualitative feedback from teachers further evidenced their learning and attempts to apply some intervention strategies in the classroom settings. Thus, children’s appropriate behaviors may have been reinforced in schools.

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It is worth discussing the increased externalizing problems for the control group as reported by teachers. At baseline, the parents’ rating on externalizing problems for the control group (10.31) indicated a borderline range of problem, and the problem seemed to escalate from the home setting to the school setting (Patterson, 2002) as evidenced from the change in the teachers’ ratings (increased by 1.09). Consistent findings indicated that parents were the children’s role models, and children transferred the strategies they had learned from their parents to the school context (Chan, 2010). The interactions with teachers and peers may further escalate children’s levels of aggression and classroom disruption (Thomas, Bierman, Thompson, & Powers, 2008), and the untreated behavioral problems become more enduring (Loeber, 1991). Interesting, there was different perception about the change of soothability. Many possible reasons for the unsatisfactory parental perception exist. The caregiving quality is an important factor to predict children’s behaviors, and a more responsive and stimulating parenting environment is associated with fewer behavior problems (Campbell, 2002). The pathological caregivers with mental health problems placed their children at risk of having behavior problems (Pattern, 2002). Moreover, the prevailing parenting style in Hong Kong is psychological control parenting: hostile parenting and irritable or ineffective discipline predict growth of home conduct problems (Chan, 2010). The perceived worsening of the children’s behavioral problems may be due to the vicious cycle between ineffective parenting (Leung, Leung, Chan, Tso, & Au, 2004) and the attribution effect to the problem of the child (Snyder, Cramer, Afrank, & Patterson, 2005). “The more authoritarian the mothers, the more likely their children were to adopt negative coping strategies” (Chan, 2010, p. 1262). Parents who attribute the cause of the problem to the traits of the child are less likely to alter the discipline practices because they tend to think that the problem is “in the child” (Snyder et al, 2005, p. 31). In this study, there were significant improvements in reduced impulsivity and increased inhibitory control in the experimental group as reported by teachers. This study aimed at teaching mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Mindfulness teaching involved learning to observe, to describe, and to participate, that is, to notice or attend to events, emotions, and behavioral responses, which might benefit the attentional control. For distress tolerance, the intervention taught the strategies to reduce maladaptive problem-solving behavior that made the situation worse. This entailed a great deal

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of cognitive training to stop or to suppress inappropriate responses. For emotion regulation, the intervention taught regulation of negative affective states and changing the behavioral expression. For interpersonal effectiveness, “getting what they want’’ and ‘‘getting along with other people” appropriately was taught. Thus, such positive changes in the experiment group may reflect the potential effectiveness of the DBT group training. Moreover, attentional control, inhibitory control, and self-regulation are difficult to separate (Blankson et al., 2013) so the combined approach to integrate different modules in an intensive training group may have beneficial effects for all these mentioned abilities. As a whole, the behavioral manifestations of children may vary across contexts. Teachers and parents may have very different ideas, expectations, and interpersonal dynamics related to the child’s behavior (Nordlund, 1999). The discrepancies between teachers’ and parents’ perceived frequency, severity, and observability of the behavioral problems not only indicate the possibility of over-reporting or under-reporting, but also their different levels of acceptance of the problem (Kolko, & Kazdin, 1993) and environmental factors (Campbell, 2002).

Implications of Findings

Preliminary feasibility of DBT skill training for externalizing problems. The relationship between externalizing behaviors and emotional dysregulation in young children is well documented in the Western studies (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2001; Williford, Calkins, & Keane, 2007). In Hong Kong, Chan (2010) reported the negative impact of children’s negative emotionality. It not only impeded children’s attention to other people and their environment, but also affected their ability to exercise reflective planning and problem solving. DBT stresses emotional regulation; this study has shown initial feasibility of applying DBT skill training for preschoolers with externalizing problems producing promising results. Because unmet needs and wants aroused anger and frustration in children, children acted out (Eisenberg et al., 2001). The emphasis on distress tolerance and emotion regulation in the DBT skill-training group appeared effective to help children develop inhibitory control, which could reduce frustration (Dennis, 2006) and facilitate children to calm down, self-soothe, and

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learn adaptive ways to regulate negative emotions. Children with high negative emotionality tend to be self-centered (Chan, 2010). Therefore, interpersonal effectiveness is one of the main concerns in DBT skills training. It teaches problem solving, coping with conflict, and maintaining relationships that seems to match the needs of the children. Both the quantitative and qualitative data gathered from teachers and parents support the potential treatment effectiveness of this treatment. Teachers expressed their appreciation to teach emotion regulation because it was lacking in the formal teaching curriculum. In Hong Kong, most schools find it is very challenging to deal with discipline issues, especially for behavioral management, and teachers expressed deep concerns about how to support students with behavioral problems (Hue, 2011). Childhood behavior problems represent an important topic in developmental psychopathology (Jianghong et al., 2011). Therefore, this study may help in the understanding of the prevention and treatment of child behavior problems, particularly to provide support to the preschool teachers. Furthermore, this study is significant in several ways. It shed light on the cross-cultural application of DBT treatment in the local context. Parents in Hong Kong generally pay most attention to their children’s academic work and focus less on their children’s emotions and mental health (Siu, 2007). Findings from this study will add to the body of knowledge concerning the effectiveness of addressing emotion regulation to handle behavioral problem among young children and contribute to preventive as well as treatment directions.

Early identification and early intervention. School is considered by Chinese parents as a place for learning and a place to equip children with knowledge, and the traditional Chinese value that “preschool training gives their child a competitive edge for later schooling 望子成龍” (Wu, 1997 p. 14). Problem behaviors such as hostile-aggressive behavior, hyperactivity and distractibility among 5-6 years old children have predictive effects on the variables related to school adjustment (Yoleri, 2013). Early intervention at the preschool age helps school adjustment and prevents possible detrimental outcomes in children’s social, emotional, and behavioral functioning (Breitenstein, Hull, & Gross, 2009). Children’s disruptive behaviors may have a negative impact on the teacher-child interaction patterns and teaching patterns (Wood, Repetti, & Roesch, 2004). This DBT training

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could be made available to schools where teachers are experiencing difficulty with children’s behavioral problems and may serve as a treatment program target for early intervention to prevent the problems from getting worse. The findings of the present study have positive implications for school personnel. There is association of children’s externalizing behaviors with teaching style. Frontline teachers may need extra support if a high proportion of children exhibit behavioral problems. Apart from the DBT skill-training group for children, teachers’ consultations could offer them more active intervention support. Without doubt, the encouraging results of this study build on the parental acceptance of a school-based training program. It opened up a collaborative opportunity to provide professional treatment to families in need of a safe and familiar setting that may reduce stigmatization.

Limitations of the Study

The study is not without limitations. First, it was a quasi-experiment using an intact group of children already formed prior to this study, thus pretreatment differences between children may have existed (Heppner et al., 2008) such as their families’ composition, family members’ years of residence in Hong Kong and the socio-economic status of their families. Second, this study was solely dependent on teachers’ and parents’ subjective ratings. Different teachers may differ in their tolerance of problematic behaviors and those students’ parents that have high level of school involvement may have a positive impact on teachers’ ratings (McCormick, Cappella, O’Connor, & McClowry, 2013). Limitation of the generalizability of the ratings by different people should not be over-looked because of inconsistencies between teachers’ ratings of externalizing behaviors on particular children are not infrequent (Bergeron et al., 2008). Like other research for preschoolers, teachers were the major source of data, but in this study they were not blind to the project and the sample size of this study was relatively small (e.g., Kim, Doh, Hong, & Choi, 2011; Leung, C. H., 2011). Raters’ biases are always hard to eliminate; therefore, the results of this study must be interpreted with caution. Moreover, the generalization of skills to different contexts was a difficulty, and the lack of parental training was a major weakness of this study, impeding generalization of skills.

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Linehan (1993b) has considered dysfunctional behaviors as primarily resulting from the emotional vulnerability and deficits in the ability to regulate emotions, which results from the transaction between the biological anomalies and an invalidating environment. The transactions between children and their environments (family and school) have an effect on explicit behaviors. Last, this study did not include different variables such as the relationship of children with teachers and parents, the disciplinary style of teachers, as well family contextual factors, such as divorce, parental depression, neighborhood, and socioeconomic status. All these have been shown to play an important role in determining interactional process (Pattern, 2002) and may have an influential effect on the effectiveness of the skill-training group. Similarly, this study did not include analysis of covariance, such as the therapist effects, age, sex, or home school, which might have effect on the experiment outcome.

Directions for Future Research

With the outcome of this study, the data seems to suggest that staff would benefit from training in the use of DBT to handle behavioral or emotional problems of children. Through the collaborative work with the nursery schools, it stimulates the teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reflection on their own attitudes and belief as well as to enhance their understanding and skills in handling behavioral issues related to emotional regulation in the classroom. Intensive coaching for parents is important to produce and to sustain improvement in treatment of behavioral problems (Tsang & Leung, 2007). Thus, it is highly recommended to modify the treatment design and to solicit parental cooperation in the future, such as offering parental workshop. This project could provide a supplementary treatment program for school. It not only helps in early intervention but also creates a platform for teachers to encourage inquiry and discussion to improve their practice. Because of systems collaboration with schools, the positively influenced parental competence with children positively predicted the level of functioning in children and negatively predicted problem severity in children (Lee et al., 2013). A collaborative project with school and parents is thus suggested. In the future, random assignment of participants, involvement of more contextual variables regarding the school and

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family, as well as the use of multiple measurements such as the introduction of objective behavior measures by observers are highly recommended. Author Biographies Anny Fan is a clinical psychologist of Hong Kong PHAB Association and a registered social worker. She has extensive working experiences with childhood disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit and hyperactive disorder, behavioral disorder and anxiety disorder. Her work allows her to counsel families on the impact of special needs children on families throughout Hong Kong. Irving Leung is a core faculty member for the Hufstedler School of Education. He teaches in the Teacher Preparation and School Psychology Departments. His research interests are in teacher pedagogy, special education, and education administration development.

References

Ben-Porath, D. D. (2010). Dialectical behavior therapy applied to parent skills training: Adjunctive treatment for parents with difficulties in affect regulation. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 17, 458-465. doi:101016/jcbpra200907005 Blankson, A., O' Brien, M., Leerkes, E. M., Marcovitch, S., Calkins, S. D., & Weaver, J. (2013). Developmental dynamics of emotion and cognition processes in preschoolers Child Development, 84, 346-360. doi:101111/j.1467-8624201201841x Bergeron, R., Floyd, R. G., McCormack, A. C., & Farmer, W. L. (2008). The generalizability of externalizing behavior composites and subscale scores across time, rater, and instrument. School Psychology Review, 37, 91-108. Retrieved from www.ebscohost.com on 16 June 2014. Breitenstein, S., Hill, C., & Gross, D. (2009). Understanding disruptive behavior problems in preschool children. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 24, 3-12. doi:101016/jpedn200710007 Campbell, S. B. (2002) Behavior problems in preschool children: Clinical and developmental issues, (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guildford. Callahan, C. (2008) Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Children & Adolescents, WI: CMI/Premier Education Solutions.

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Chan, S. M. (2010). Aggressive behavior in early elementary school children: Relations to authoritarian parenting, children's negative emotionality and coping strategies. Early Child Development and Care, 180, 1253-1269. doi: 101080/03004430902981447 Cole, P. M., Armstrong, L., & Pemberton, C. K. (2010) The role of language in the development of emotion regulation. In S. D. Calkins & M. Bell (Eds.), Child development at the intersection of emotion and cognition (pp. 59-77). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:101037/12059-00 Cole, P. M., & Michel, M. K. (1994). The development of emotion regulation and dysregulation: A clinical perspective. Monographs of the society for research in Child Development, 59, 73-100 doi:101111/1540-5834ep9502132765 Dennis, T. (2006). Emotional self-regulation in preschoolers: The interplay of child approach reactivity, parenting, and control capacities. Developmental Psychology, 42, 84-97. doi:101037/0012-164942184 Digiuseppe, R. (1989). Cognitive therapy with children. In A. Freeman,, K. M. Simon.., L. E. Beutler, & H. Arkowitz. (Eds.). Comprehensive handbook of cognitive therapy. (pp. 513533). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., Spinrad, T. L., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S. A., Reiser, M, & ... Guthrie, I. K. (2001). The relations of regulation and emotionality to children's externalizing and internalizing problem behavior. Child Development, 72, 1112. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00337 Eisenberg, N., Hofer, C., & Vaughan, J. (2007). Effortful control and its socioemotional consequences. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation. (pp. 287-306). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Evans, A. N., & Rooney, B. J. (2011). Methods in psychological research (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Fabes, R. A., Eisenberg, N., McCormick, S. E., & Wilson, M. S. (1988). Preschoolers’ attributions of the situational determinants of others' naturally occurring emotions. Developmental Psychology, 24, 376-385. doi:101037/0012-1649243376 Greco, L., & Hayes S. C., (2008) Acceptance and mindfulness treatment for children and adolescents: A practitioner’s guide [Kindle version]. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

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Heppner, P. P., Kivlighan, D. M., & Wampold, B. E. (2008). Research design in counseling (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole. Hue, M. (2011). Developing resiliency in students with behavioural problems in Hong Kong secondary schools: Teachers’ narratives from a school guidance perspective. Pastoral Care in Education, 2, 261-272. doi:101080/026439442011626067 Jianghong, L., Halina, C., & Leung, P. L. (2011). The application of the preschool child behavior checklist and the caregiver-teacher report form to mainland Chinese children: Syndrome structure, gender differences, country effects, and inter-informant agreement. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 251-264. doi:101007/s10802-010-9452-8 Kim, M., Doh, H., Hong, J., & Choi, M. (2011). Social skills training and parent education programs for aggressive preschoolers and their parents in South Korea. Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 838-845. doi:101016/jchildyouth201012001 Kolko, D. J., & Kazdin, A. E. (1993). Emotional/behavioral problems in clinic and nonclinic children: Correspondence among child, parent and teacher reports. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines, 34, 991-1006. doi:101111/14697610ep11424227 Kopp, C. B., (1989). Regulation of distress and negative emotions: A developmental view. Developmental Psychology, 25, 343-354. doi:101037/0012-1649253343 Lee, M. Y., Teater, B., Greene, G. J., Fraser, J., Solovey, A. D., Grove, D. & Hsu, K. S. (2013). Systems collaboration with schools and treatment of severely emotionally disturbed children or adolescents. Children & Schools, 35, 155-168. doi:101093/cs/cdt013 Leung, C. H., (2011). An experimental study of Eduplay and social competence among preschool students in Hong Kong. Early Child Development and Care, 181, 535-548. doi: 101080/03004431003611487 Leung, P. L., Kwong, S. L., Tang, C. P. , Ho, T. P. , Hung, S. F., Lee, C. C., & ... Liu, W. S. (2006). Test-retest reliability and criterion validity of the Chinese version of CBCL, TRF, and YSR. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 970-973. doi:101111/j14697610200501570x Leung, S., Leung, C., Chan, R., Tso, K., & Au, F., (2004). A community survey parenting practice of parents with four-year-old children. The Research Team Family Health

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Service Department of Health. Hong Kong Department of Health The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Retrieved from http://www.fhs.gov/hk Linehan, M. M. (1993a). Skills training manual for treating borderline personality disorder. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Linehan, M. M. (1993b). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Linehan, M. M. (2003). Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for borderline personality disorder. Retrieved from http://www.dbtselfhelp. com/html/linehan_dbt.html Loeber, R. (1991). Antisocial behavior: More enduring than changeable? Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 30, 393-397. doi:101097/00004583-199105000-00007 Luk, S., Leung, P.W., Bacon-Shone, J., & Chung, S. (1991). Behaviour disorder in pre-school children in Hong Kong: A two-stage epidemiological study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 213-221. doi:101192/bjp.1582213 Lynch, T. R., Chapman, A. L., Rosenthal, M., Kuo, J. R., & Linehan, M. M. (2006). Mechanisms of change in dialectical behavior therapy: Theoretical and empirical observations. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62, 459-480. doi:101002/jclp.20243 Macy, B. (2005). Dialectical behavior therapy for treatment of children with psychopathy: Treatment guidelines for clinicians. Dissertation Abstracts International, 66. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com on 1 May 2013. McCormick, M., Cappella, E., O’Connor, E. E., & McClowry, S. G. (2013). Parent involvement, emotional support, and behavior problems: An ecological approach. The Elementary School Journal, 114, 277-300. doi:101086/673200 McKay, M. W., Wood, J., & Brantley, J. (2007). The dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook: Practical DBT exercise for learning mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation & distress tolerance [Kindle version]. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Mikulincer, M., Shaver, P. R., & Pereg, D. (2003). Attachment theory and affect regulation: The dynamics, development, and cognitive consequences of attachment-related strategies. Motivation & Emotion, 27, 77-102. doi:0146-7239/03/0600-0077/0

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Miller, A. L., & Rathus, J. H. (2000). Dialectical behavior therapy: Adaptations and new applications. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 7, 420-424. Retrieved from www.ebscohost.com on 6 May 2013. Miller, A. L., Rathus, J. H., & Linehan, M. M. (2007). Dialectical Behavioral Therapy with Suicidal Adolescents. New York, NY:Guilford Press. Nordlund, C. (1999). An examination of behavior ratings and rater differences of ADHD subjects on the Leiter-R rating scales. Dissertation Abstracts International, 59, pp. 5161. Orpinas, P., & Horne, A. M. (2006). Bullying prevention: Creating a positive school climate and developing social competence (pp. 55-76). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Patterson, G. R. (2002). The early development of coercive family process. In J. B. Reid, G. R. Patterson, & J. Snyder (Eds.), Antisocial behavior in children and adolescents: A developmental analysis and model for intervention (pp. 25-44). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Perepletchikova, F., Axelrod, S. R., Kaufman, J., Rounsaville, B. J., Douglas-Palumberi, H., & Miller, A. L. (2011). Adapting dialectical behaviour therapy for children: Towards a new research agenda for paediatric suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious behaviours. Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 16, 116-121. doi:101111/j1475-3588201000583x Rothbart, M. K., Ellis, L. K., & Posner, M. I. (2011). Temperament and self-regulation. In K. D. Vohs, & R. F. Baumeister. ( Eds. ), Handbook of self-regulation: research, theory, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 441-460). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Salisch, M. V. (2008). Themes in the development of emotion regulation in childhood and adolescence and a transactional model. In M. Vandekerckhove, , C. V. Scheve, S. Ismer, S. Jung,, & S. Kronast (Eds.), Regulating emotions, culture, social necessity, and biological inheritance (pp. 146-167) Malden, MA: Blackwell. Stallard, P. (2002). Think good, feel good: A cognitive behaviour therapy workbook for children and young people. London, UK: Wiley. Siu, A. Y. (2007). Using FRIENDS to combat internalizing problems among primary school children in Hong Kong. Journal of Cognitive & Behavioral Psychotherapies, 7(1), 11-26.

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Retrieved from http://jebp.psychotherapy.ro/vol7no1/using-friends-to-combatinternalizing-problems-among-primary-school-children-in-hong-kong/ Snyder, J., Cramer, A., Afrank, J., & Patterson, G. R. (2005). The contributions of ineffective discipline and parental hostile attributions of child misbehavior to the development of conduct problems at home and school. Developmental Psychology, 41, 30-41. doi:101037/0012-164941130 Thomas, D. E., Bierman, K. L., Thompson, C., & Powers, C. J. (2008). Double jeopardy: Child and school characteristics that predict aggressive-disruptive behavior in first grade. School Psychology Review, 37, 516-532. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399525/ Thompson, R. A. (1994). Emotion regulation: A theme in search of definition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59, 25-52. doi: 101111/15405834ep9502132762. Thompson, R. A., & Calkins, S. D. (1996). The double-edged sword: Emotional regulation for children at risk. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 163-182. doi:101017/S0954579400007021 Thompson, R. A., & Goodman, M. (2010). Development of emotion regulation more than meets the eye. In A. M. Kring, & D. M. Sloan, (Eds.), Emotion regulation and psychopathology: A transdiagnostic approach to etiology and treatment (pp. 38-58). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Tsang, S., & Leung, C. (2007). The outcome and process evaluation of the parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) in treating families with children with behaviour problems in Hong Kong. Retrieved from http://pcit.tungwahcsd.org/file/pcit_report_2007.pdf Wasik, B. A. (2010). What teachers can do to promote preschoolers' vocabulary development: Strategies from an effective language and literacy professional development coaching model. Reading Teacher, 63, 621-633. doi:101598/RT6381 Williford, A., Calkins, S., & Keane, S. (2007). Predicting change in parenting stress across early childhood: child and maternal factors. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 35, 251263. doi 101007/s10802-006-9082-3

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Wood, J. J., Repetti, R. L., &. Roesch, S. C. (2004). Divorce and children’s adjustment problems at home and school: The role of depressive/withdrawn parenting. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 35, 121-142. doi: 10.1007/s10578-004-1881-6 Wong, C., & Lau, J. (1992). Psychiatric morbidity in a Chinese primary school in Hong Kong. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 459-466. doi: 10.3109/00048679209072071 Wu, D. Y. H. (1997). Parental control: Psychocultural interpretations of Chinese patterns of socialization In S. Lau, (Ed.) Growing up the Chinese way: Chinese child and adolescent development (pp. 1-28) Hong Kong HK: The Chinese University Press. Yoleri, S. (2013).The effects behavior problems in preschool children have on their school adjustment. Education, 134(2), 218-226. Retrieved from http://essential.metapress.com/content/n5m341571607680r/ Table 1 Mean, Standard Derivation and t-test Result of Externalizing Behaviors Teacher’s Rating Pre-test Variables Experimental Group Control Group

30.19

15.44

23.06

14.40

5.45 5.06 Parent’s Rating

9.12

4.25 -.63

31 31

.001** .54

3.97

Pre-test Variables

Post-test

Experimental Group

16.19

9.76

14.91

9.28

.78

.44

Control Group

10.31

8.50

7.69

7.18

1.55

.13

**p < .001, two-tailed.

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Table 2 Mean, Standard Derivation and t-test Result of Falling Reactivity & Soothability Teacher’s Rating Pre-test

Post-test

Variables

Experimental Group

3.26

.69

3.42

.73

-1.92

.06

Control Group

4.07

.93

-2.71

.01*

.91 4.39 Parent’s Rating

Pre-test

Post-test

Variables

Experimental Group

4.52

.77

4.53

.73

-.07

.95

Control Group

4.86

.77

4.64

.80

1.32

.20

*p < .05, two-tailed.

Table 3 Mean, Standard Derivation and t-test Result of Impulsivity Teacher’s Rating Pre-test

Post-test

Variables

Experimental Group

5.10

.92

4.84

.80

3.01

.005**

Control Group

4.15

.76

4.04

.65

1.01

.32

Parent’s Rating Pre-test

Post-test

Variables

Experimental Group

4.63

.76

4.54

.50

.85

.40

Control Group

4.25

.72

4.22

.55

.23

.82

**p < .01, two-tailed.

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Table 4 Mean, Standard Derivation and t-test Result of Inhibitory Control Teacher’s Rating Pre-test

Post-test

Variables

Experimental Group

3.36

.65

3.70

.72

-2.94

.006**

Control Group

5.15

.89

5.20

.91

-.44

.67

Parent’s Ratings Pre-test

Post-test

Variables

Experimental Group

4.39

.67

4.34

.74

.38

.70

.78

4.79

.61

2.15

.04*

Control Group

5.05 **p < .01; *p < .05, two-tailed.

Table 5 Correlation of Teachers’ Ratings with Parents’ Ratings Pre-test Variables Experimental Group

Post-test

EXT

IMP

EXT

IMP

.03

.21

.02

.14

.39*

.30

-.03

.26

Control Group .13 .40* .18 .18 -.23 .17 -.01 .18 Note. EXT = externalizing problem; IN = inhibitory control; SO = soothability ; IMP = impulsivity. *p < .05.

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Appendix A Illustrated exercise designed to teach children to appreciate the feelings of others

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Appendix B Illustrated exercise to teach “intention and feeling”

What happened?

When you think somebody is intentionally trying to hurt, you will feel angry.

When you think it is an accident, you feel better.

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Journal of Scholastic Inquiry: Behavioral Sciences

Volume 4, Page 55

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Volume 4, Page 56

Journal of Scholastic Inquiry: Behavioral Sciences

Application of Dialectic al Behavior Therapy (DBT) to Reduce the Externalizing Behaviors of Preschoolers in Hong Kong Anny M. L. Fan, Hong Kong PHAB Association Irving Leung, Alliant International University

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