Racial-ethnic differences in positive emotion socialization: Links to child emotional lability

Abstract

The present study examined associations between parental socialization of positive emotion and child emotional lability across African American, Asian American, and European American parents (n = 1148). Examination of mean differences with invariant measures across groups indicated notable trends between parents, such that African American and Asian American parents were more likely to teach and express discomfort in response to child positive emotions compared to European American parents; in contrast, all groups were equally likely to encourage their children's positive emotions. Structural equation modeling yielded good model fit for African American and Asian American, but not European American, parents. Examination of paths for African American and Asian American parents indicated positive effects of encouragement responses on child emotional lability for both parent groupos, and positive effects of discomfort responses on child emotional lability for African American, but not Asian American, parents. Findings contribute to our understanding of sociocultural influences on the socialization of positive emotion and associations with child emotional lability.