Correlates of affectionate and angry behavior in child care educators of preschool-aged children

Abstract

The present study marks the first empirical exploration designed to investigate factors related specifically to child care educators’ levels of affection and anger. Based on the presumption that their affectionate and angry behaviors would have major implications for the development of the children for whom they care, the aim of the present investigation is to provide the groundwork for identifying what factors are associated with educator warmth and anger in child care settings. Several categories of variables were used to predict affectionate and angry caregiver behavior. These included educator characteristics, such as training and experience, personal resources such as well-being, self-esteem and social support, the work environment as measured by regulatable characteristics, wages and global quality, and the caregiver’s perceptions and opinions about her work. A multi-method, multi-respondent approach was employed, including researcher observations, educator self-report questionnaires, and objective data collected from directors and from Québec’s official licensing agency. The findings from this study suggest that different sets of variables are related to affection and anger. The work environment had a greater relation with caregivers’ affectionate behavior, whereas more internal, negative perceptions were linked to the expression of anger in the classroom. Though educator training did not predict anger or affection, training did in fact become very important to the quality of the interactions the educators had with the children when other risk factors were present.