Mothers' and Fathers' Emotion Socialization and Children's Emotion Regulation: A Within‐Family Model

In the current study, we examined whether mothers' and fathers' reactions to young children's positive and negative emotions were associated with children's negativity and emotion regulation. We utilized a within‐family design with 70 families (mother, father, and two siblings between the ages of 2 and 5 years). Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires about their emotion socialization as well as children's negativity and emotion regulation. Results indicated that mothers' and fathers' unsupportive reactions to children's positive emotions were associated with children's negativity. Fathers' unsupportive reactions to children's emotional displays were differentially associated with older and younger siblings' emotion regulation. Fathers' unsupportive responses to children's positive and negative emotions also contributed jointly to children's emotion regulation. The results suggest that exploring the within‐family correlates of children's emotion regulation and negativity is useful for understanding children's emotional development.     

European‐American and African‐American Mothers' Emotion Socialization Practices Relate Differently to Their Children's Academic and Social‐emotional Competence

The current study examines whether the relation between mothers' responses to their children's negative emotions and teachers' reports of children's academic performance and social‐emotional competence are similar or different for European‐American and African‐American families. Two hundred mothers (137 European‐American, 63 African‐American) reported on their responses to their five‐year‐old children's negative emotions and 150 kindergarten teachers reported on these children's current academic standing and skillfulness with peers. Problem‐focused responses to children's negative emotions, which have traditionally been considered a supportive response, were positively associated with children's school competence for European‐American children, but expressive encouragement, another response considered supportive, was negatively associated with children's competence for African‐American children. The findings highlight the need to examine parental socialization practices from a culturally specific lens.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization in Maltreating and Non-maltreating Families: Implications for Children's Emotion Regulation

This study investigated the socialization of children's emotion regulation in physically maltreating and non‐maltreating mother–child dyads (N = 80 dyads). Mother–child dyads participated in the parent–child emotion interaction task ( Shipman & Zeman, 1999 ) in which they talked about emotionally‐arousing situations. The PCEIT was coded for maternal validation and invalidation in response to children's emotion. Mothers were also interviewed about their approach to emotion socialization using the meta‐emotion interview‐parent version ( Katz & Gottman, 1999 ). The meta‐emotion interview‐parent version was coded for maternal emotion coaching. Mothers also completed measures that assessed their child abuse potential and abuse‐related behaviors as well as children's emotion regulation. Findings indicated that maltreated children demonstrated fewer adaptive emotion regulation skills and more emotion dysregulation than non‐maltreated children. In addition, maltreating mothers engaged in less validation and emotion coaching and more invalidation in response to children's emotion than non‐maltreating mothers. Finally, maternal emotion socialization behaviors mediated the relation between maltreatment status and children's adaptive emotion regulation skills.     

Mothers' and Children's Positive Emotion: Relations and Trajectories across Four Years

The goals of this study were to examine the relations between and trajectories of mothers' and children's social positive expressivity (PE). Mothers' and children's PE were observed annually for four years beginning when children were approximately 18 months old (N = 247; 110 girls). Based on correlations, there was evidence of rank‐order stability in children's and mothers' PE. Based on growth curve analyses, mothers' and children's PE followed curvilinear trajectories; thus, mean‐level instability was found. Children's PE during a free‐play interaction with their mothers increased then decreased slightly whereas mothers' affect during the same task decreased then stabilized. Children's PE during a joy‐inducing situation (i.e., bubbles) with an experimenter slightly decreased and then increased. In panel models, there was no evidence of prediction over time across children's and mothers' PE when taking stability into account. These unique trajectories and relations provide insight into the developmental pattern of young children's and their mothers' PE elicited within social contexts.     

Mothers' Self-Reported Control of Their Preschool Children's Emotional Expressiveness: A Longitudinal Study of Associations with Infant–Mother Attachment and Children's Emotion Regulation

In the present longitudinal study we examined the associations between mothers’ self‐reported control of their preschoolers’ emotional expressiveness and two other key facets of early socioemotional development: the quality of the infant–mother attachment and children's emotion regulation. Seventy‐six white preschool‐aged children (46 boys and 30 girls) and their mothers participated. Principal assessments included the Parent Attitude Toward Child Expressiveness Scale (PACES; Saarni, 1985 ), the infant Strange Situation, and ‘Beat the Bell,’ a measure designed for this study to elicit children's emotional expression, sharing, and suppression in the presence of their mothers. Mothers’ control of their children's expressiveness was associated with both attachment and children's emotion regulation in theoretically predicted ways. First, mothers of children who had been classified insecure‐avoidant in the Strange Situation reported greater control of their children's negative expressiveness than other mothers, and mothers of children who had been classified insecure‐ambivalent reported less control of their children's negative expressiveness than other mothers. Second, mothers who reported greater control of their children's expressiveness had children who were less likely to express and share their feelings and more likely to suppress their anger in the ‘Beat the Bell’ emotion regulation assessment. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of maternal emotion socialization in children's early socioemotional development.     

Toddlers' Social‐emotional Competence in the Contexts of Maternal Emotion Socialization and Contingent Responsiveness in a Low‐income Sample

Early social‐emotional development occurs in the context of parenting, particularly via processes such as maternal emotion socialization and parent–child interactions. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that maternal contingent responsiveness partially mediated the relationship between maternal emotion socialization of toddlers (N = 119, ages 12–36 months) and toddlers' social‐emotional competence. Effect size was strongest for the direct path between maternal emotion socialization and toddler social–emotional competence. Toddler age and maternal demographic risk status (covariates) predicted toddler competence. Study results extend the previous literature on early competencies by focusing on toddlers rather than preschool‐aged children and by employing a contextual model in which both low‐income mothers' emotion socialization and their contingent responsiveness predicted toddlers' competencies.     

Preschoolers' Emotion Regulation Strategy Understanding: Relations with Emotion Socialization and Child Self-regulation

Preschool-age children's ability to verbally generate strategies for regulating anger and sadness, and to recognize purported effective strategies for these emotions, were examined in relation to child factors (child age, temperament, and language ability) and maternal emotion socialization (supportiveness and structuring in response to child distress). The relation between strategy understanding and actual self-regulation was also examined. In a sample of 116 boys and girls, 4-year-olds recognized and generated strategies for anger more than 3-year-olds but 3- and 4-year-olds recognized and generated strategies similarly for sadness. Age effects for strategy generation were explained by expressive language skill. Maternal support in response to child distress was related to strategy recognition and generation but in different ways. Maternal structuring was related only to strategy generation for anger. Child strategy understanding of anger and sadness predicted different child behaviors when children had to deal with frustration alone. The findings suggest that emotion regulation strategy understanding can be assessed in young children and that such understanding has implications for self-regulatory behavior.     

Emotion Socialization in the Context of Risk and Psychopathology: Mother and Father Socialization of Anger and Sadness in Adolescents with Depressive Disorder

This study examined parental emotion socialization processes associated with adolescent unipolar depressive disorder. Adolescent participants (N = 107; 42 boys) were selected either to meet criteria for current unipolar depressive disorder or to be psychologically healthy as defined by no lifetime history of psychopathology or mental health treatment and low levels of current depressive symptomatology. A multi‐source/method measurement strategy was used to assess mothers’ and fathers’ responses to adolescent sad and angry emotion. Each parent and adolescent completed questionnaire measures of parental emotion socialization behavior, and participated in meta‐emotion interviews and parent‐adolescent interactions. As hypothesized, parents of adolescents with depressive disorder engaged in fewer supportive responses and more unsupportive responses overall relative to parents of non‐depressed adolescents. Between group differences were more pronounced for families of boys, and for fathers relative to mothers. The findings indicate that parent emotion socialization is associated with adolescent depression and highlight the importance of including fathers in studies of emotion socialization, especially as it relates to depression.     

Exploring the Bidirectionality of Emotion Understanding and Classroom Behavior with Spanish‐ and English‐speaking Preschoolers Attending Head Start

The present study investigated time‐dependent relationships between emotion understanding and the behavioral adjustment of preschoolers over a single school year using a latent variable structural equation modeling framework. Teacher reports of child behavior (hyperactivity, emotion symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems, and prosocial behavior) and performance assessments of emotion understanding were obtained twice at a 6‐month interval for a sample of 281 preschoolers (159 boys and 122 girls, with mean age = 52.40 months) from English‐ (N = 158) and Spanish‐speaking (N = 123) backgrounds. Emotion understanding and behavior were stable over time, and cross‐sectional associations between them were in expected directions. Cross‐lagged paths revealed that the behavior variables significantly associated with emotion understanding across time were hyperactivity, emotion symptoms, and peer problems, and that behavior variables were generally better predictors of emotion understanding than vice versa. Differences across gender and language groups suggest a stronger and more complex bidirectional relationship between emotion understanding and behavior for girls and for Spanish‐speaking children compared wth boys and English‐speaking children. Results are discussed with respect to the value of exploring cross‐lagged relationships and the potential importance of gender and culture as determinants of those relationships.     

Socialization in the Context of Risk and Psychopathology: Maternal Emotion Socialization in Children of Incarcerated Mothers

Children of incarcerated mothers are at increased risk for psychological, social, and emotional maladaptation. This research investigates whether perceived maternal socialization of sadness and anger may moderate these outcomes in a sample of 154 children (53.9 percent boys, 61.7 percent Black, M age = 9.38, range: 6–12), their 118 mothers (64.1 percent Black), and 118 caregivers (74.8 percent female, 61.9 percent grandparents, 63.2 percent Black). Using mother, caregiver, and child report, seven maternal socialization strategies were assessed in their interaction with incarceration‐specific risk experiences predicting children's adjustment. For sadness socialization, the results indicated that among children reporting maternal emotion‐focused responses, incarceration‐specific risk predicted increases in psychological problems, depressive symptoms, increased emotional lability, and poorer emotion regulation. For children who perceived a problem‐focused response, incarceration‐specific risk did not predict outcomes. There were no significant interactions with incarceration‐specific risk and perceived maternal anger socialization strategies. These results indicate a critical need to examine how socialization processes may operate differently for children raised in atypical socializing contexts.     

Emotion Socialization by Mothers and Fathers: Coherence among Behaviors and Associations with Parent Attitudes and Children's Social Competence

This study examined inter‐relations among different types of parental emotion socialization behaviors in 88 mothers and 76 fathers (co‐residing with participating mothers) of eight‐year‐old children. Parents completed questionnaires assessing emotion socialization behaviors, emotion‐related attitudes, and their children's social functioning. An observed parent–child emotion discourse task and a child social problem‐solving interview were also performed. Parent gender differences and concordance within couples in emotion socialization behaviors were identified for some but not all behaviors. Fathers' reactions to child emotion, family expressiveness, and fathers' emotion coaching during discussion cohered, and a model was supported in which the commonality among these behaviors was predicted by fathers' emotion‐coaching attitudes, and was associated with children's social competence. A cohesive structure for the emotion socialization construct was less clear for mothers, although attitudes predicted all three types of emotion socialization behavior (reactions, expressiveness, and coaching). Implications for developmental theory and for parent‐focused interventions are discussed.     

Social Development Quartet: Emotion Socialization in the Context of Psychopathology and Risk

An introduction is provided to this Social Development Quartet in which the articles focus on parent emotion socialization in the context of psychopathology and risk. In two articles, the samples of children and/or adolescents have a psychiatric diagnosis [oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or depressive disorder]. The other two articles feature samples in which children and families have experienced serious risks [exposure to inter‐parental violence (IPV) or maternal incarceration]. The articles in this Social Development Quartet extend our knowledge of the impact of parental emotion socialization practices to contexts in which children and parents experience higher than normative risks. The work reported in these articles builds upon research on emotion socialization in normative contexts, illustrating the buffering effects of supportive parenting as well as its limits.     

Adolescent Emotion Socialization: A Longitudinal Study of Friends' Responses to Negative Emotions

Although peer influences are thought to be critically important to adolescent development, there is a paucity of research investigating the emotion socialization practices that take place between adolescents. This longitudinal study evaluated close friends' responses to negative emotion using a newly developed assessment tool of peer emotion socialization, you and your friends. Adolescent participants (N = 205) exhibiting a range of internalizing and externalizing problems between 11 and 17 years of age were assessed and re‐evaluated two years later. Participants were asked to rate the frequency with which their friends responded to them by encouraging, distracting, matching, ignoring, overtly victimizing, and/or relationally victimizing their emotions. The results indicated high levels of internal consistency and moderate levels of long‐term stability. Close friends most often responded supportively to the participants' emotional displays, but these responses differed by gender. Also, friends' emotion socialization responses were concurrently and predictively associated with participant problem status. This study contributes to a better understanding of the processes by which adolescents' emotions are socialized by their friends and has important implications for future prevention and intervention efforts.     

Parental Emotion Socialization in Adolescence: Differences in Sex, Age and Problem Status

There is a paucity of research on how mothers and fathers socialize emotion in their adolescent sons and daughters. This study was based on 220 adolescents (range 11‐ to 16‐years‐old) who exhibit a range of emotional and behavioral problems and their parents. Parental responses to their children's displays of sadness, anger and fear were assessed. Mothers were found to be more engaged in their children's emotional lives than were fathers. With a few important exceptions (e.g., boys were punished for expressions of anger more than girls), adolescent girls and boys were socialized in much the same way. Parents of older adolescents were generally less supportive and more punitive toward emotional displays. Systematic links between adolescent problem status and parent approaches to emotion socialization were found. These findings on how parents socialize emotions in their adolescents have important implications for theory as well as practice.     

Mothers' Regulation Strategies in Response to Toddlers' Affect: Links to Later Emotion Self-Regulation

Recently, there has been a great deal of research on the socialization of children's emotions and self‐regulation. In the present study, the specific strategies that mothers use to help their young children regulate their emotional responses were examined using a longitudinal design. Forty‐three mother–toddler pairs were observed when toddlers were both 18 and 30 months of age, and mothers’ attempts to regulate their toddlers’ emotions during several emotion‐eliciting tasks were transcribed from videotape. When the children were 5 years old, their responses to a disappointment task were observed. Results indicated a relation between mothers’ regulation strategies in toddlerhood and children's facial and behavioral responses to the disappointment task measured at 5 years of age. Specifically, mothers’ use of regulation strategies at 30 months, but not at 18 months, was positively related to children's appropriate emotional displays in response to disappointment. Moreover, the specific types of strategies that mothers used had differential associations to children's responses to disappointment. Findings are discussed in terms of the potentially important role of mothers’ behaviors in the development of children's emotion self‐regulation.     

Moderators of the Relation between Shyness and Behavior with Peers: Cortisol Dysregulation and Maternal Emotion Socialization

This study investigated the relations among shyness, physiological dysregulation, and maternal emotion socialization in predicting children's social behavior with peers during the kindergarten year (N = 66; 29 girls). For shy children, interactions with peers represent potential stressors that can elicit negative emotion and physiological reactions. Behavior during these contexts can be viewed as adaptive (e.g., playing alone) or maladaptive (e.g., watching other children play without joining in) attempts to regulate the ensuing distress. Whether shy children employ adaptive or maladaptive regulatory behaviors was expected to depend on two aspects of emotion regulatory skill: (1) children's physiological regulation, and (2) maternal emotion socialization. Findings supported the hypotheses. Specifically, shy children with poorer cortisol regulation or have mothers who endorsed a higher level of non‐supportive emotion reactions engaged in more maladaptive play behaviors whereas shy children with better cortisol regulation or a high level of supportive maternal emotion reactions engaged in more adaptive play behaviors.     

Parasympathetic Regulation and Parental Socialization of Emotion: Biopsychosocial Processes of Adjustment in Preschoolers

Variations in parents' emotion socialization have been linked to children's social competence (SC) and behavior problems, but parental influences do not act independently of children's characteristics. A biopsychosocial model was tested, in which children's parasympathetic regulation of cardiac function and paternal and maternal socialization of negative emotions were examined as joint predictors of young children's SC and behavior problems at daycare and preschool. Mothers and fathers responded differently to children's emotions, and cardiac vagal tone moderated the relations between parents' emotion socialization and children's behavior in early childcare settings. Both maternal and paternal emotion socialization strategies were more strongly associated with preschool adjustment for children with relatively less parasympathetic self‐regulatory capacities than for more self‐regulated children. Paternal reactions to children's anger, and maternal responses to children's sadness and fear, were particularly closely tied to variations in SC and internalizing and externalizing problems.     

Tuning in to Teens: Improving Parent Emotion Socialization to Reduce Youth Internalizing Difficulties

Research in child development suggests that parents' emotional competence and emotion socialization practices are related to children's emotional functioning, including child internalizing difficulties. This research has not yet been translated into intervention or prevention programs targeting parents of older children and adolescents. The current study examined the efficacy of the Tuning in to Teens parenting program in improving emotion socialization practices in parents of preadolescents and reducing youth internalizing difficulties. Schools were randomized into intervention and control conditions. Data were collected from 225 parents and 224 youth during the young person's final year of elementary school (sixth grade) and again 10 months later in their first year of secondary school (seventh grade). Multilevel analyses showed significant improvements in parental emotion socialization and reductions in youth internalizing difficulties for the intervention condition. This study provides support for the efficacy of the TINT parenting program with a community sample.     

Emotion Socialization as a Framework for Understanding the Development of Disorganized Attachment

Recent years have seen the emergence of accounts of the origins of the Disorganized attachment relationship in early mother–infant interaction, each building on the pioneering work of Main and Hesse—dysfunctional emotional processes figure prominently in all these accounts. This paper applies a framework based on two complementary theories of emotion socialization, Gianino and Tronick's (1992 ) Mutual Regulation Model and Gergely and Watson's (1996 ) Social Biofeedback Theory, to suggest an emotion‐based mechanism consistent with recently proposed models of the development of Disorganized attachment. The framework is used to generate hypothetical accounts of the role of dysfunctional emotional processes and maladaptive emotion socialization in early mother–infant interaction in the development of Disorganized attachment along two distinct pathways, one associated with actual abuse of the infant and the other associated with maternal unresolved trauma.     

Mothers' Cognitions about Children's Self‐control: Implications for Mothers' Responses to Children's Helplessness

This research examined the role of mothers' cognitions about children's self‐control in their responses to children's helplessness. Mothers and their four‐year‐old children (N = 109) were asked to work on a difficult task in the laboratory. Mothers' hostility and warmth as well as children's helpless (vs. mastery) behavior were coded every minute. Mothers also completed a set of questionnaires assessing their cognitions about children's self‐control. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated variability among mothers in their minute‐to‐minute hostility, but not warmth, in response to children's helplessness. Mothers' cognitions contributed to this variability: The more mothers placed importance on, worried about, and believed they could influence their children's self‐control, the more hostility they demonstrated following their children's helplessness.