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

Abstract

Although there is relative consensus in the literature regarding associations between certain emotion socialization (ES) strategies and youth behavioral health, there is very limited research from a person-centered perspective. To address this gap, the current study examined patterns of ES strategies in families and explored predictors and youth outcomes associated with those patterns. An economically-diverse sample of 229 predominately White mothers and fathers of youth aged 3-12 years was recruited online for a longitudinal study. Latent profile analysis was used to determine the optimal number of family clusters with similar ES profiles. Model fit supported a four-class model, which consisted of an Emotion Coaching profile, characterized by the lowest levels of putatively labeled unsupportive ES practices and the highest levels of putatively labeled supportive ES practices, a Moderate profile characterized by moderate levels of both unsupportive and supportive ES practices, a Limited Engagement profile characterized by low levels of both unsupportive and supportive ES practices, and an Emotion Dismissing profile characterized by the highest levels of unsupportive ES practices and the lowest levels of supportive ES practices. Cross-sectional and longitudinal differences were observed across the ES profiles with regard to demographic and parent emotional competence predictors and youth outcomes. The current study extends the literature on ES by providing evidence on how distinct ES profiles differentially predict youth behavioral health outcomes. Findings also underscore the importance of examining parent emotional competence as a catalyst for adaptive change in the family system.

Transdiagnostic Implications of Parental Socialization of Child and Adolescent Emotional Development: Commentary and Future Directions

“…Several articles included in this special issue highlight parent emotion socialization throughout different developmental stages using cross-sectional designs, with a handful using longitudinal designs (see Table 1). Studies spanned from early childhood (Dunbar et al, 2021;Mckee et al, 2021;Price & Kiel, 2021), to school age (Johnco et al, 2021;Jordan et al, 2021;Moffitt et al, 2021;Trent et al, 2021), through adolescence (Berla et al, 2021;Breaux et al, 2021;Fredrick & Luebbe, 2021;McQuade et al, 2021;McKone et al, 2021;Otterpohl et al, 2021;Oddo et al, 2020;Rapp et al, 2021;White et al, 2021;Watson et al, 2021).…”

“…These studies begin to describe the developmental unfolding of emotion socialization which can help describe the process of emotion socialization over time and inform intervention targets. However, measurement of emotion socialization over time can be difficult to examine given changes in parent-child interactions and child development, and longitudinal studies are still limited (for exceptions, see Byrd et al, 2021;McKee et al, 2021;McQuade et al, 2021;Oddo et al, 2020;Otterpohl et al, 2021;Price & Kiel, 2021).…”

“…In the current special issue, parent or child gender was directly tested in the analyses in eight articles (Berla et al, 2021;Cohodes et al, 2021;Fredrick & Luebbe, 2021;Mckee et al, 2021;Oddo et al, 2020;Otterpohl et al, 2021;Price & Kiel, 2021;Trent et al, 2021) and included as a covariate in five articles (Breaux et al, 2021;Byrd et al, 2021;Jordan et al, 2021;Valentino et al, 2021;Watson et al, 2021). Additionally, two studies included only female children (McKone et al, 2021;White et al, 2021) and many studies included only mothers (Table 1).…”

Parental Influence on Child Social and Emotional Functioning

“…Almost all previous studies extracted at least an emotion coaching profile, and/or emotion dismissing profile, thus provide empirical support for supportive/emotion coaching and unsupportive/emotion dismissing subgroups of parents Sosa-Hernandez et al, 2020;Buhler-Wassmann et al, 2021;McKee et al, 2021;Howe and Zimmer-Gembeck, 2022;Zhu and Dunsmore, 2022). Furthermore, all studies extracted at least two profiles that do not align with emotion coaching or emotion dismissing parenting, which suggests that a binary classification may be insufficient to capture the heterogeneous patterns of parents' emotion socialization Sosa-Hernandez et al, 2020;Buhler-Wassmann et al, 2021;McKee et al, 2021;Trevethan et al, 2021;Zhu and Dunsmore, 2022).…”

“…There are a number of limitations of previous person-centered emotion socialization studies that need to be considered. First, the majority of these studies focused solely on one element of parents' emotion socialization (i.e., emotion-related parenting practices) Sosa-Hernandez et al, 2020;McKee et al, 2021;Trevethan et al, 2021;Zhu and Dunsmore, 2022). One known study has included an assessment of parents' beliefs about emotions, and parents' emotion expression, although, this study did not include fathers (Buhler-Wassmann et al, 2021).…”