Guilt and Shame: Explaining Associations Between Emotion Socialization and Emerging Adult Well‐Being

Abstract

Objective To explore shame and guilt as potential pathways linking recalled emotion socialization (ES) parenting behaviors during childhood with emerging adult outcomes. Background Although ES has been associated with youth outcomes, more research is needed to uncover variables that may explain such associations. Additionally, the present study addresses limitations of extant literature by (a) exploring ES within the context of recalled discrete expressions of fear, anger, and sadness; (b) indexing both maternal and paternal ES responses; and (c) considering the possible moderating role of emerging adult gender. Method A sample of 206 undergraduate and graduate students completed questionnaires asking them to recall parental ES during childhood and to report on current shame‐ and guilt‐proneness, depressive symptomology, and compassion for others. Following preliminary analyses, path analysis and the Monte Carlo method for assessing indirect effects were used to evaluate the statistical significance of the indirect effects in the path models. Results Data suggest that shame and guilt help to explain the associations between certain parental ES practices and emerging adult outcomes. Associations between variables differed when taking into account discrete emotion expressed, parent gender, and participant gender. Conclusion Results highlight the complexity of ES processes and the importance of guilt and shame in understanding relations between ES and young adult outcomes. Important associations may be obscured in the ES literature by the common practice of collapsing discrete emotions into global indices and the tendency to primarily investigate mothers' ES practices. Implications A more nuanced understanding of ES processes can contribute to the development of targeted and effective ES prevention and intervention programs.

Profiles of Emotion Socialization Across Development and Longitudinal Associations with Youth Psychopathology

“…We also examined predictors of ES profiles related to family demographics and parent emotional competence. Mothers were less likely to be in the Emotion Dismissing profile compared to fathers, consistent with previous research showing that mothers tend to utilize more supportive ES strategies with youth relative to fathers (e.g., Baker et al, 2011;O'Leary et al, 2019). Although child sex did not predict class membership in our study, more research is needed to clarify how parent-child ES dynamics develop differently based on parents' sex, as well as when and how parent ES strategies vary by child sex (i.e., O'Leary et al, 2019).…”

“…Furthermore, parents of anxiety-disordered youth were less likely to engage with the child's emotion in a supportive way and more likely to be dismissive, relative to parents of non-disordered youth (Hurrell et al, 2017). These studies represent only a sampling from a much larger literature suggesting that supportive ES strategies are associated with higher levels of emotional competence and lower levels of psychopathology (e.g., Cunningham et al, 2009;Fainsilber Katz et al, 2016), with the opposite being true for unsupportive strategies (e.g., Garside & Klimes-Dougan, 2002;O'Neal & Magai, 2005;O'Leary et al, 2019). Despite these noted trends, important contextual variables can influence the trajectories or outcomes associated with ES strategies, particularly those putatively labeled as unsupportive.…”

“…Very little research, however, has examined the diversity of strategies each parent uses and/or the ways in which distinct withinparent ES strategies cluster or how they may interact to amplify or buffer the impact of other strategies. Data from a few notable exceptions (e.g., Garside & Klimes-Dougan, 2002;Lunkenheimer et al, 2007;O'Leary, 2020;O'Leary et al, 2019) do suggest that parents employ a variety of ES strategies. In one study, one-third of parents engaged in both supportive and unsupportive strategies with their children; additionally, coaching and dismissing responses interacted such that coaching, in the context of dismissing, was related to lower levels of youth internalizing symptoms and emotional lability/negativity (Lunkenheimer et al, 2007).…”

“…With regard to demographics, a number of prior studies have suggested that mothers and fathers tend to use different socialization strategies, with fathers more likely, on average, to use more unsupportive strategies and mothers more likely to use supportive strategies (e.g., Baker et al, 2011;O'Leary et al, 2019). Child sex also appears to impact socialization messages (Cassano et al, 2007;O'Leary et al, 2019). Given that most studies, to date, have been crosssectional or have spanned only several years, the field lacks a guiding developmental model of ES (Katz et al, 2012).…”

Parent Education: What We Know and Moving Forward for Greatest Impact

“…When examining the content of parenting programs, common elements across programs are evident. One theme that has more recently emerged is the importance of parenting skills related to emotion socialization and communication (Luthar & Eisenberg, ; O'Leary et al, ). Positive emotional communication practices can be encouraged through healthy and nurturing parent–child interactions, which can also help children establish a sense of emotional security (Morris, Robinson, et al, 2017).…”