African American and European American Mothers' Beliefs About Negative Emotions and Emotion Socialization Practices

Abstract

SYNOPSIS Objective Mothers’ beliefs about their children’s negative emotions and their emotion socialization practices were examined. Design Sixty-five African American and 137 European American mothers of 5-year-old children reported their beliefs and typical responses to children’s negative emotions, and mothers’ emotion teaching practices were observed. Results African American mothers reported that the display of negative emotions was less acceptable than European American mothers, and African American mothers of boys perceived the most negative social consequences for the display of negative emotions. African American mothers reported fewer supportive responses to children’s negative emotions than European Americans and more nonsupportive responses to children’s anger. African American mothers of boys also reported more nonsupportive responses to submissive negative emotions than African American mothers of girls. However, no differences were found by ethnicity or child gender in observed teaching about emotions. Group differences in mothers’ responses to negative emotions were explained, in part, by mothers’ beliefs about emotions. Conclusions Differences in beliefs and practices may reflect African American mothers’ efforts to protect their children from discrimination.

Prenatal Depressive Symptoms and Toddler Behavior Problems: The Role of Maternal Sensitivity and Child Sex

“…Prior work has shown that depressed mothers of boys tend to show more negative affect and intrusiveness in their interactions with their sons compared to depressed mothers of daughters [36,62]. Other research suggests that African American mothers generally interact with sons and daughters in similar ways during the early years of life [63], but may respond in less supportive ways when their sons display negative emotions compared to their daughters [64]. Mothers who are depressed prenatally may be less sensitive and responsive in the days and months following the birth, leading their infants to respond with elevated levels of negative emotion.…”

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

“…Similarly, low mother-child openness, indexed by mothers’ reports of low levels of child emotion sharing and comfort seeking from the mother as well as low levels of trust in and reliance on the mother, was associated with depressive symptoms for European American children but not African American children (Vendlinski et al, 2006). Finally, African American children whose mothers encouraged them not to express their negative emotions were rated higher on social-emotional competence by their teachers; this association was not apparent for European American children (Nelson et al, 2012). The latter result suggests that some forms of non-supportive emotion socialization may be adaptive for African American children.…”

“…However, in four recent studies in which ethnicity was examined as a moderator of the effect of non-supportive practices on social-emotional outcomes a different pattern was apparent among African American families (Leerkes et al, 2012; Montague et al, 2003; Nelson et al, 2012; Vendlinski et al, 2006). Specifically, the association between remembered punitive emotion socialization in childhood and fearful/preoccupied adult attachment was significantly stronger for European American adults than African American adults (Montague et al, 2003), and remembered parental emotion minimization in childhood was linked with elevated depressive symptoms for European American women but not African American women (Leerkes et al, 2012).…”

“…However, accumulating recent evidence suggests that the association between parents’ use of non-supportive emotion socialization practices and their children's subsequent negative emotional outcomes varies based on ethnicity. That is, parental non-supportive emotion socialization appears to have a greater negative effect on European American than African American children, adolescents, and adults (Leerkes, Supple, Su, & Cavanaugh, 2012; Montague, Magai, Consedine, & Gillespie, 2003; Nelson et al, 2012; Vendlinski, Silk, Shaw, & Lane, 2006). Although the mechanisms that explain this difference have yet to be tested, it has been proposed that African Americans may interpret and experience non-supportive emotion socialization less negatively than European Americans which may protect them from the negative effects of this type of emotion socialization on well-being (Leerkes et al; Montague et al; Vendlinski et al).…”

Analysis of Emotional Socialization Behaviors of Mother-Fathers and Social Skills of Preschool Children

“…Bu annelerin çocuklarının akademik başarıları ve problem çözme becerileri yüksek, sosyal kaygıları da düşüktür. Duygusal sosyalleştirmeye anne-babaların eğitim düzeyinin etkisinin yanında kültürün etkisi ile ilgili yapılan bir çalışmada (Nelson, Leerkes, O'Brien, Calkins ve Marcovitch, 2012) annelerin 5 yaş çocuklarının olumsuz duygularını sosyalleştirmesi incelenmiştir. Araştırmaya 65 Afrika ve Avrupa kökenli anne katılmıştır.…”