Gender Differences in Perceptive Emotional Adjustment of Parents on Their Children’s Emotional Intelligence

M T Sánchez-Núñez,C Rubio Medina,N García Rubio

doi:10.4236/psych.2018.91009

Abstract

In the field of intelligence, parental beliefs about their children’s intelligence can influence their performance (Beyer, 1999). In a particular way, this phenomenon is known as the Pygmalion effect (Furnham & Bunclark, 2006). In the area of Emotional Intelligence (EI), the research is scarce. Therefore, our objective is to study if the perceptive emotional adjustment differs according to the sex of the parents, and also to examine if this is reflected in the predictive power of the EI of the children. The sample consisted of 1005 subjects, including 335 students from the University of Castilla la Mancha and their respective fathers and mothers. According to the results of this study, we can conclude that emotional abilities of children perceived by their parents are quite close to those provided by children themselves. However, the mothers, in particular, were able to report these EI abilities more closely, showing, in comparison to fathers, a more accurate emotional adjustment with relation to their children’s EI. The prediction of the EI of children varies according to the EI factor we are referring to, as well as with the sex of the parents.

Highlights

The family is considered the most important context for emotional literacy in children and the parents are the primarily responsible agents in teaching their children emotional competences
Our objective is to study if the perceptive emotional adjustment differs according to the sex of the parents, and to examine if this is reflected in the predictive power of the Emotional Intelligence (EI) of the children
Our goal is to focus on gender differences in self-reported EI (SEI) and Perceived Emotional Intelligence (PEI) in the family, in particular, in the perceptual adjustment of parents regarding the SEI of their children and how it might influence the children SEI

Summary

Introduction

Parents who are sensitive to the emotional needs of their children, showing them empathy and regulating their emotions, help them to develop those same skills on themselves, boosting their EI (Eisenberg, 1998; Salovey, Bedell, Detweiler, & Mayer, 2000; Sunew, 2004; Zeidner, Matthews, Roberts, & MacCann, 2003). The socialization pathways of EI can be direct or indirect (Zeidner et al, 2003): a) Direct effect route: research has shown that explicit rules given by the parents to their children about how they should express and regulate emotions are important factors for the emotional development of children and their relationships with peers (Gottman, 1997; Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981; Thompson, 1998). It is confirmed that the existence of frequent dialogues between mothers and children about emotions, improves knowledge and emotional understanding of children (Brown & Dunn, 1996; Denham, 1998; Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994; Shipman & Zeman, 1999)

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