Patterns of Attachment and Maternal Discourse Effects on Children's Emotion Understanding From 3 to 5 Years of Age

Two studies examined the influence of maternal discourse style and security of attachment, and their interaction, on preschoolers’ emotion understanding. The first, with 3‐year‐olds, unexpectedly found no significant prediction of emotion understanding from attachment and discourse, and the interaction of the predictors yielded theoretically unpredicted associations with emotion understanding. Consequently, measures of attachment and emotion understanding were obtained again on these children at age 5 in a second study. At this age, consistent with expectations, secure attachment predicted higher emotion understanding, especially in the context of maternal use of elaborative discourse from the earlier assessment. The findings suggest that during the period of significant representational advance between ages 3 and 5, the influence of maternal discourse and attachment security are developmentally transformed as children's conceptions of psychological states rapidly change. By age 5, however, maternal elaborative discourse in the context of attachment security fosters deeper emotion understanding in preschoolers.     

Does It Matter if Preschool Children and Mothers Discuss Positive vs. Negative Events During Reminiscing? Links with Mother‐reported Attachment,Family Emotional Climate,and Socioemotional Development

The purpose of the study was to examine the differential relations between mother–child reminiscing about a positive emotional event vs. a negative emotional event and attachment security, family climate, and young children's socioemotional development. Fifty preschool children (M age = 50.69 months, SD = 4.64) and their mothers completed two reminiscing conversations at the laboratory, which were coded for emotion‐laden discourse, affect, and elaboration, and children completed measures of emotional understanding and representations of relationships. At their homes, mothers completed the attachment Q‐sort and the self‐report family inventory. Both attachment security and family climate were related to the quality of mother–child affect and maternal elaboration during both positive and negative reminiscing conversations. Attachment security and family climate, however, were principally related to discussion of emotion during the negative event discussions. In addition, it was mother–child reminiscing about the negative emotional event that was associated with high levels of children's socioemotional development.     

Maternal and Child Anxiety: Do Attachment Beliefs or Children's Perceptions of Maternal Control Mediate Their Association?

This study tested a model of the association between maternal and child anxiety that views mother and child attachment beliefs and children's perceptions of maternal control as mediators of the association. The study was conducted with mothers and their children aged 6 to 17 (N = 88). Maternal anxiety was significantly associated with child anxiety and maternal anxious attachment beliefs, whereas child anxiety was associated with maternal anxious attachment beliefs, child insecure attachment beliefs, and children's perceptions of maternal control. Maternal anxious attachment beliefs mediated the association between maternal and child anxiety; however, child attachment beliefs and children's perceptions of maternal control did not. The influence of age and gender is also addressed. The findings are discussed in terms of elucidating the role of attachment beliefs and children's perceptions of maternal control on the association between maternal and child anxiety.     

Young Children's Psychological Selves: Convergence with Maternal Reports of Child Personality

The present research examined five‐year‐old children's psychological self‐concepts. Non‐linear factor analysis was used to model the latent structure of the children's self‐view questionnaire (CSVQ; Eder, 1990 ), a measure of children's self‐concepts. The coherence and reliability of the emerging factor structure indicated that young children are capable of meaningfully reporting about their own emotions and personalities. Moreover, these self‐reports from five‐year‐olds converged with maternal perceptions of child personality. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the study of emergent personality, continuity/discontinuity in personality assessment across the lifespan, and self‐concept formation in early childhood.     

The Role of Child Emotionality in Child Behavior and Maternal Instruction on Planning Tasks

This study explored the relation of children's emotional functioning to children's behavior during individual planning and mother's and children's behaviors during joint planning. Participants were 118 mothers and their second‐grade children. Mothers rated children on their emotional intensity and children rated themselves on their use of emotion regulation strategies. Children and mother–child dyads were videotaped during planning tasks and independent observers rated their behavior. Child emotional intensity was directly related to children being less engaged in the task and to an emphasis in maternal instruction on regulatory behaviors. Some types of emotion regulation strategies modified these relations. Findings suggest that child emotionality may play an important role in the early school years in children's opportunities to learn during social‐cognitive activity.     

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.     

Marital Satisfaction and Maternal Emotional Expressiveness: Links with Children's Sibling Relationships

Associations between marital quality, maternal emotional expressiveness and children's sibling relationships were examined in a sample of 64 seven-year-olds and their mothers. Mothers reported on the quality of their marital relationships, and children rated the quality of their sibling relationships. Mothers and children provided data on maternal emotional expressiveness. Results indicated that marital dissatisfaction was associated with hostile and rivalrous sibling relationships and with maternal negative emotional expressiveness. Mothers' negative emotional expressiveness was correlated with hostile and rivalrous sibling relationships, and maternal positive emotional expressiveness was associated with affectionate sibling relationships. Maternal emotional expressiveness mediated the links between the marital relationship and sibling hostility and rivalry.     

Siblings as Confidants: Emotional Understanding, Relationship Warmth, and Sibling Self-Disclosure

Associations among (a) self-disclosures between early adolescent siblings, (b) emotional understanding, and (c) relationship warmth were investigated. Grade 5–6 children (M age = 11.5 years) were interviewed concerning the incidence of disclosures to closest-in-age siblings (20 = older, 20 = younger), feelings regarding disclosing (or not), and sibling relationship quality. Warmth was measured with the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985) and emotional understanding was assessed with the Hypothetical Relationships Picture Task (adapted from Schneider, 1989, & Aquan-Assee, 1992). Hierarchical multiple regressions indicated self-disclosure was positively associated with feeling good about sharing and negatively associated with reports of not trusting or not receiving emotional support from their sibling. Sibling relationship warmth was a key characteristic associated with both emotional understanding and self-disclosure; female target children demonstrated greater emotional understanding. Warmth, but not emotional understanding, was associated with self-disclosure. Findings are discussed in light of the importance of links between affective relationships and children's social-emotional understanding.     

Maternal Religiosity,Family Resources and Stressors,and Parent–Child Attachment Security in Northern Ireland

This study explores the associations between mothers' religiosity, and families' and children's functioning in a stratified random sample of 695 Catholic and Protestant mother–child dyads in socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a region which has experienced centuries of sectarian conflict between Protestant Unionists and Catholics Nationalists. Findings based on mother and child surveys indicated that even in this context of historical political violence associated with religious affiliation, mothers' religiosity played a consistently positive role, including associations with multiple indicators of better family functioning (i.e., more cohesion and behavioral control and less conflict, psychological distress, and adjustment problems) and greater parent–child attachment security. Mothers' religiosity also moderated the association between parent–child attachment security and family resources and family stressors, enhancing positive effects of cohesion and mother behavioral control on mother–child attachment security, and providing protection against risks associated with mothers' psychological distress. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for understanding the role of religiosity in serving as a protective or risk factor for children and families.     

Effortful Control Mediates Relations Between Children's Attachment Security and their Regard for Rules of Conduct

Although attachment security has been associated with children's rule‐compatible conduct, the mechanism through which attachment influences early regard for rules is not well established. We hypothesized that effortful control would mediate the link between security and indicators of children's emerging regard for rules (discomfort following rule violations, internalization of parents’ and experimenter's rules, few externalizing behaviors). In a longitudinal study, the Attachment Q‐Set was completed by parents, effortful control was observed, and Regard for Rules was observed and rated by parents. The proposed model fit the data well: Children's security to mothers predicted their effortful control, which in turn had a direct link to a greater Regard for Rules. Children's security with fathers did not predict effortful control. The mother‐child relationship appears particularly important for positive developmental cascades of self‐regulation and socialization.     

The Role of Child Emotional Responsiveness and Maternal Negative Emotion Expression in Children's Coping Strategy Use

This study examined the additive and interactive effects of children's trait vicarious emotional responsiveness and maternal negative emotion expression on children's use of coping strategies. Ninety‐five children (mean age = 5.87 years) and their mothers and teachers participated in the study. The mothers reported on their own negative emotion expression and the children's empathic concern and personal distress tendencies. The mothers and teachers reported on the children's use of avoidant, support‐seeking, and aggressive‐venting coping strategies. Empathic concern was positively associated with the children's use of support seeking and negatively associated with the children's use of aggressive venting, whereas personal distress showed the opposite pattern of associations. Maternal negative emotion expression moderated some associations between the children's emotional responsiveness and coping. These findings support the hypothesis that children's tendencies to experience empathic concern or personal distress indicate functionally distinct styles of emotional arousal that may have broader consequences for socially competent behavior in response to normative stressors.     

Language Matching Among Mother‐child Dyads: Associations with Child Attachment and Emotion Reactivity

Links between mother‐infant affective matching and attachment security are well‐documented, but research on other types of behavioral matching and attachment security are lacking, as are studies that examine these constructs later in children's development. We examine language style matching (LSM) between mothers and their school‐aged children (N = 68), using interviews with each dyad member. As predicted, regressions revealed that higher mother‐child relational LSM was associated with greater child attachment security (operationalized as high security, low dismissal), and that higher LSM predicted smaller increases in children's electrodermal response to a relational probe 1.5 years later. Further, mother‐child relational LSM was a mediator in the indirect path between children's attachment security and children's reactivity. We discuss the potential utility of LSM as a measure of relationship quality and future studies that could refine our understanding of parent‐child language matching.     

Reminiscing Style During Conversations About Emotion‐laden Events and Effects of Attachment Security Among Italian Mother–Child Dyads

Previous research has established that mothers' and children's elaborative/evaluative styles during conversations about emotion‐laden events are associated with a range of social‐cognitive accomplishments, and this has prompted researchers to identify factors that predict stylistic differences in conversation styles. The study explored whether patterns and variations in reminiscing styles reported in other cultures would be observed in an Italian sample (N = 40 dyads). Attachment security, assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview for mothers and the Q‐Sort for children, were tested as possible sources of variation in conversation style. The two reminiscing styles identified through a clustering procedure were consistent with those displayed by dyads from other cultural groups; moreover, these were significantly related to both mothers' and children's attachment security. These results extend knowledge on reminiscing conversations during early childhood to a different cultural context and contribute to an understanding of how individual differences in attachment affect partners' participation in such conversations.     

Attachment and Coping Strategies in Middle Childhood Children whose Mothers Have a Mental Health Problem: Implications for Social Work Practice

Mental health has implications for the quality of relationshipswithin a family, particularly between parents and children,but also between other family and non-family members. Previousresearch has investigated parental reports of attachment infamilies with mental health problems, but relationship representationsas experienced by these children, especially in middle childhood,have not been so frequently investigated. An understanding ofchildren’s representations of attachment relationshipsand the different coping strategies that may result is importantfor social work practice when offering support, not only tothe children, but also other family members. Methods of investigatingattachment, such as the Separation Anxiety Test, have been usedto understand the relationship issues, fears and coping strategiesof other vulnerable children, and this study was designed specificallyto investigate relationship issues in middle childhood childrenwhose mothers had previously been hospitalized with mental healthproblems. We found that these children tended to be less emotionallyopen and secure, and generated fewer adaptive coping strategiesthan children whose mothers had never had mental health problems.Other themes also emerged from the interviews, such as a senseof trust in the parent–child relationship and the ‘containment’of fears. Implications for social work practice are discussed.     

Broadening the Study of Infant Security of Attachment: Maternal Autonomy‐support in the Context of Infant Exploration

Although security of attachment is conceptualised as a balance between infants' attachment and exploratory behaviours, parental behaviours pertaining to infant exploration have received relatively little empirical attention. Drawing from self‐determination theory, this study seeks to improve the prediction of infant attachment by assessing maternal autonomy‐support during infant exploration, in addition to maternal sensitivity. Seventy‐one dyads participated in two home visits. Maternal sensitivity was assessed when the infants were 12 months old, whereas maternal autonomy‐support and infant attachment were assessed at 15 months. The results revealed that autonomy‐support explained an additional portion of the variance in attachment when maternal socioeconomic status and sensitivity were controlled. These results speak to the relevance of a theory‐driven approach to examining maternal behaviours in the context of child exploration.     

Mother–Child Interaction as a Cradle of Theory of Mind: The Role of Maternal Emotional Availability

The present longitudinal study investigated the relative importance of emotional availability (EA) in 56 mother–child dyads when the child was 7 months and four‐year old as predictors of child's Theory of Mind at 4 years while controlling for early maternal mind‐mindedness (MM). Dyadic EA at 7 months predicted the child's Theory of Mind, even when controlling for child temperamental and cognitive characteristics as well as dyadic EA at 4 years and early maternal MM. Results indicate the specific importance of high emotional connectedness between mothers and infants for preschoolers' Theory of Mind development.     

Family Talk about Internal States and Children's Relative Appraisals of Self and Sibling

This study investigated associations between preschoolers' conversations about internal states and their spontaneous appraisals of self and sibling. Thirty‐two preschoolers (M age = 3.9 years) were observed during naturalistic home interactions with mothers and younger siblings. Various features of mothers' and children's internal state language were coded. Children who talked about internal states to the baby and who talked more about the baby's perspective tended to appraise their sibling negatively relative to self. In contrast, mothers' references to internal states, as well as their promotion and encouragement of the child's own internal state talk, were negatively related to the differences between children's negative appraisals of self and sibling. These results support the social‐constructivist notion that the quality of children's interactions with family members is related to how they construe themselves in comparison to their siblings.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Use of Internal State Talk with their Young Children

The present study extends previous results demonstrating a relation between maternal discourse and child social understanding to include paternal discourse. Emotion understanding (EU) and theory of mind (ToM) were considered as two distinctive aspects of social understanding. Participants were 106 children (54 boys and 52 girls) studied at 3.5 and 5 years. Discourse measures came from separate parent–child conversations during a picture‐book task; measures of EU and ToM came from children's performance on social cognition tasks. Differences in parental talk translated into important differences in the influence of each parent on children's social‐cognitive understanding. Mothers' references to emotion and emotion causal explanatory language predicted children's concurrent EU. Fathers' use of causal explanatory language referring to desires and emotions predicted children's concurrent and later ToM. These results highlight important differences between mothers and fathers in their use of internal state language and its impact on children's social‐cognitive understanding.     

The Use of Emotion Explanations by Mothers: Relation to Preschoolers' Gender and Understanding of Emotions

Mothers’ emotion talk, children's emotion talk, and children's understanding of emotion were examined in 50 mother–child dyads at 41 months. Language measures included total emotion words, unique emotion words, labels, explanations, and different types of explanations. Children's emotion understanding was assessed for labeling, situation, and role‐taking knowledge, as well as an overall score. There were different patterns of relations between mothers’ emotion talk and boys’ and girls’ emotion talk, with mothers’ emotion talk related more strongly to boys’ emotion talk. Mothers’ emotion talk for boys and girls was differentially related to the subparts of the emotion understanding test. Specifically, mothers’ total emotion talk predicted boys’ performance on the situation knowledge test and their use of causal emotion explanations predicted boys’ overall score, but none of the maternal variables predicted girls’ performance. This finding may result from differences in variability of maternal speech to boys’ and girls’, and it may be due to differences in maternal speech in earlier years.