Ethnic Differences in Women's Emotional Reactions to Parental Nonsupportive Emotion Socialization

Recent evidence suggests that the association between parents’ use of nonsupportive emotion socialization practices and their children's subsequent negative emotional outcomes varies based on ethnicity. The goal of this study is to test the proposition that African American women interpret parental nonsupportive emotion socialization practices less negatively than European American women. In this study, 251 European and African American women completed a measure on recalled feelings when their parents engaged in nonsupportive emotion socialization practices during childhood. Results indicated that African American women reported feeling more loved and less hurt and ashamed than European American women when their parents enacted nonsupportive emotion socialization practices such as ignoring, punishing, minimizing, and teasing them when distressed. Possible mechanisms for this difference and the need for additional research exploring ethnic differences in emotion socialization and its effects on adjustment are discussed.