Age- and sex-related differences in social competence and emotion labeling in pre-adolescence

Identification of facial expressions is important to navigate social interactions and associates with developmental outcomes. It is presumed that social competence, behavioral emotion labeling and neural emotional face processing are related, but this has rarely been studied. Here, we investigated these interrelations and their associations with age and sex, in the YOUth cohort (1055 children, 8–11 years old). Using a multistep linear modelling approach, we associated parent-reported social competence, basic emotion labeling skills based on pictures of facial expressions, and neural facial emotion processing during a passive-watching fMRI task with pictures of houses and emotional faces. Results showed better emotion labeling and higher social competence for girls compared to boys. Age was positively associated with emotion labeling skills and specific social competence subscales. These age- and sex-differences were not reflected in brain function. During fMRI, happy faces elicited more activity than neutral or fearful faces. However, we did not find evidence for the hypothesized links between social competence and behavioral emotion labeling, and with neural activity. To conclude, in pre-adolescents, social competence and emotion labeling varied with age and sex, while social competence, emotion labeling and neural processing of emotional faces were not associated with each other.