An empirical test of the model of socialization of emotion: Maternal and child contributors to preschoolers’ emotion knowledge and adjustment.

Abstract

This study tested child characteristics (temperamental executive control and negative reactivity) and maternal characteristics (parenting behaviors and maternal depressive symptoms) as predictors of a mother's emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs). Further, parenting behaviors and ERSBs were examined as predictors of children's emotion knowledge, social competence, and adjustment problems. ERSBs and children's emotion knowledge were tested as mediators of the effects of child and parent characteristics on adjustment. A community sample (N ϭ 306) of mothers and children (36 -40 months at T1) were assessed 4 times, once every 9 months, and assessments included maternal reports of depressive symptoms, observed temperament, observational ratings of general parenting at T1, maternal report of ERSBs at T1 & T2, behavioral measures of emotion knowledge at T3, and teacher ratings of children's adjustment at T4. There were no predictors of ERSBs above prior levels. Higher executive control and lower maternal depressive symptoms predicted greater child emotion knowledge, highlighting the roles of maternal and child contributors to emotion knowledge. Greater emotion knowledge and positive affective quality in parenting predicted children's adjustment, with emotion knowledge mediating the effects of executive control on children's adjustment. In addition, lower levels of maternal supportive ERSBs predicted greater adjustment problems. This study highlights the roles of key variables in Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad's (1998) heuristic model of emotion socialization and the importance of emotion socialization and emotion knowledge in children's adjustment.

Applying new RDoC dimensions to the development of emotion regulation: Examining the influence of maternal emotion regulation on within-individual change in child emotion regulation

“…Of note, the influence of change in maternal ER difficulties on child ER was restricted to the RDoC defined cognitive (executive control) and social (emotion knowledge) systems. This is in line with research documenting the impact of parental influences on children's attention deployment and set shifting (Fay-Stammbach, Hawes, & Meredith, 2014) as well as on children's enhanced knowledge and awareness of emotions (Thompson et al, 2020). However, we failed to detect a link between change maternal ER difficulties and positive (delay of gratification) or negative (frustration tolerance) valence systems.…”

Findings, issues, and new directions for research on emotion socialization.

“…In addition to the mediated pathways found in the aforementioned articles, there was considerable evidence in other articles that ERSBs and other (likely related) aspects of parenting predicted children's self-regulation (Cui et al, 2020;Godleski, Eiden, Shisler, & Livingston, 2020;Speidel, Wang, Cummings, & Valentino, 2020), amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) functioning (Chen, McCormick, Ravindran, McElwain, & Telzer, 2020), affective intensity (Cui et al, 2020), and/or (mal)adjustment (e.g., Thompson et al, 2020), when mediation sometimes was either not found or not examined. These findings provide additional partial support for some paths in the model.…”

“…In longitudinal models examining mediated relations, it is clear that there often is considerable stability in parenting, top-down self-regulation, and child outcomes (e.g., Neppl et al, 2020; Thompson et al, 2020). Thus, it is important to consider the time lags between assessments.…”

Parent and Peer Emotion Responsivity Styles: An Extension of Gottman’s Emotion Socialization Parenting Typologies

“…This social referencing can be accomplished through discussion with parents, or by observing how parents tend to respond to both the child’s emotions and the emotions of others [ 19 , 23 ]. As children develop the ability to converse in early childhood, parents begin to be able to discuss emotions or emotion-related situations with their child, which can contribute to enhanced emotion knowledge and increased emotion socialization [ 24 ]. In addition, as children progress from early childhood into middle childhood they are more capable of developing cognitive strategies that allow them to express, internalize, and regulate their emotional experiences and behavior with increasing independence, though parents often continue to act as essential co-regulators by providing consistent emotional guidance and support [ 8 , 25 ].…”