Low and Middle Income Mothers’ Regulation of Negative Emotion: Effects of Children's Temperament and Situational Emotional Responses

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of situational (child situational emotions) and dispositional (child temperament) child variables on mothers' regulation of their own hostile (anger) and nonhostile (sadness and anxiety) emotions. Participants included 94 low and middle income mothers and their children (41 girls; 53 boys) aged 3 to 6 years. Children's situational emotions (anger, sadness, or fear) and parent emotion type (hostile or nonhostile) were important predictors of mothers' regulation, but their effects were influenced by SES: Middle income mothers were more likely to control hostile than nonhostile emotions in response to child anger and sadness, and more likely than low income mothers to control hostile emotions in response to child sadness and fear. Low income mothers were more likely than middle income mothers to control nonhostile emotions in response to child anger. However, results also suggest that differences in emotion regulation between low and middle income mothers may stem from the link between SES and authoritarian parenting beliefs. Maternal regulation of negative emotion was not predicted by child temperament.

A Parent-Report Instrument for Identifying One-Year-Olds at Risk for an Eventual Diagnosis of Autism: The First Year Inventory

“…However, we note that other bases for this disparity include cultural or educational differences in parental knowledge of typical child development; parental sensitivity and/or coping with behaviors that could be construed as problematic in their infants; or differences in the home environment that might affect symptoms, particularly related to regulatory functions. This interpretation would be consistent with well established findings in general child development and temperament (e.g., Bynum & Brody, 2005;Martini, Root, & Jenkins, 2004). Whether this effect is about infants per se or about how parents answer questions remains to be seen, but future development of the FYI might include questions to assess the parent's knowledge about child development or sensitivity to the child's temperament.…”

Emotion socialization practices in Latina and European-American mothers of preschoolers with behavior problems

“…First, to compare the verbal expression of positive and negative affect, parental affect expression (positive vs. negative) was entered as a within-subjects factor, mothers’ ethnicity (Latina vs. European American) was entered as a between-subjects factor, and mothers’ years of education and child externalizing symptoms were entered as covariates. Education was controlled for because ethnicity has been found to be highly confounded with social class (Leyendecker, Harwood, Comparini, & Yalçinkaya, 2005) and because social class may be associated with emotion socialization (Martini, Root, & Jenkins, 2004). This analysis revealed a significant interaction between mothers’ verbal expression of affect and ethnicity, F (1,130) = 4.66, p = .03.…”

Gender and parents' reactions to children's emotion during the preschool years

“…There are few studies investigating emotion socialization practices in low-SES samples (for an exception see Chapter Two), and far fewer with fathers from low-SES samples. Indeed, it is documented that mothers in a low-SES group respond differently to their children' s emotions than mothers in a middle-SES group (Martini, Root, & Jenkins, 2004). Thus, it is important to keep in mind that the results presented herein are not universal.…”