Effects of Mother’s Emotional Expressiveness and Reaction to Child Negative Emotions on Child Emotional Intelligence

Abstract

This study examines child emotional intelligence in relation to mother’s emotional expressiveness and reaction to child negative emotions. A sample of 352 children and mothers from 4 elementary schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi participated in the study. Child emotional intelligence and mother’s reaction to child negative emotions were evaluated by child-report, and mother’s emotional expressiveness was assessed by mother-report. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, two-way analysis of variances, Pearson’s correlation and multiple regression analyses. The findings were as follows. First, mothers of boys showed more oversensitive-reaction to child negative emotions than mothers of girls. Mothers of 6th-graders showed more emotion-minimizing-reaction to child negative emotions than mothers of 5th-graders. Second, girls showed a higher level of overall emotional intelligence than boys. Girls showed a higher level of emotion expression and emotion regulation than boys. The 5th-graders showed higher level of emotion expression than 6th-graders; however, 6th graders showed a higher level of emotion perception than 5th-graders. Third, more emotion-coaching-reaction and less oversensitive-reaction by mothers predicted a better emotional intelligence of children. A mother’s appropriate emotional socialization behaviors associated with child emotional intelligence were discussed. Keywords: emotional intelligence, mother’s emotional expressiveness, child negative emotions, mother’s reaction