Links Between Maternal Emotion Socialization Goals and Practices in an Urban Indian Context

Abstract

Socialization goals and practices are shifting and changing in countries like India due to modernization, particularly in urban context. Given the shift, mothers may endorse balanced socialization goals over traditional relational goals and that may influence their emotion regulation behavior with the toddlers. This paper aims to test whether mothers’ emotion socialization practices toward their toddlers differ with reference to their socialization goals for both positive and negative socially disengaging and engaging emotions. Fifty mothers of toddlers (<em>M</em> = 25 months) from Vadodara, India, participated in the study. They answered the Emotion Socialization Goals Questionnaire (Chan et al., 2006) and were interviewed about their emotion regulation practices. Results indicated that the majority (58%) of Indian mothers showed clear preference for endorsing balanced goals. As expected, mothers with relational goals endorsed more non-supportive strategies like training, especially for negative socially disengaging emotions. No differences occurred for positive emotions. The findings are discussed with respect to the various emotion competence models that are present in the Indian cultural context.