Emotion-related Socialization Behaviors Research Articles

Parental self-regulation and engagement in emotion socialization: A systematic review.

Parental emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs)-including reactions to emotions, emotional expressiveness, and emotion-related discussion-can foster or hinder children and adolescents' self-regulation development. Toward a goal of identifying specific mechanisms by which children and adolescents develop skillful, adaptive self-regulation or, conversely, self-regulation difficulties and psychopathology, it is crucial to identify processes that shape and maintain parental engagement in ERSBs. This present study is a systematic review of the associations between parental self-regulation and three different ERSBs (reactions to emotions, emotional expressiveness, and emotion-related discussion), building upon research that posits parental top-down self-regulation (i.e., emotion regulation, executive function, and effortful control) is critical for parenting behavior. Fifty-three studies were identified for inclusion. All but four of these studies were cross-sectional, limiting conclusions that could be drawn regarding whether parental self-regulation is associated with ERSBs over time. Studies used a wide range of methods (e.g., self-report, physiological assessment, observer ratings) to assess both parental self-regulation and ERSBs, rendering a meta-analysis premature. Across studies included in the review, parental self-regulation was positively associated with supportive ERSBs and negatively associated with unsupportive ERSBs. Future directions for research and implications for translational efforts are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the Interaction Between Preschool Executive Control and Caregiver Emotion Socialization in Predicting Adolescent Weight Trajectories.

There is a critical need for research examining how neural vulnerabilities associated with obesity, including lower executive control, interact with family factors to impact weight trajectories across adolescence. Utilizing a longitudinal design, the present study investigated caregivers' emotion socialization practices as a moderator of the association between preschool executive control and adolescent body mass index (BMI) trajectories. Participants were 229 youth (Mage = 5.24, SD = 0.03; 47.2% assigned female at birth; 73.8% White, 3.9% Black, 0.4% Asian American, 21.8% multiracial; 12.7% Hispanic) enrolled in a longitudinal study. At preschool-age, participants completed performance-based executive control tasks, and their caregivers reported on their typical emotion-related socialization behaviors (i.e., supportive and nonsupportive responses to children's negative emotions). Participants returned for annual laboratory visits at ages 14 through 17, during which their height and weight were measured to calculate BMI. Although neither preschool executive control nor caregiver emotion-related socialization behaviors were directly associated with BMI growth in adolescence, supportive responses moderated the association between executive control and BMI trajectories. The expected negative association between lower preschool executive control and greater BMI growth was present at below average levels of supportive responses, suggesting that external regulation afforded by supportive responses might reduce risk for adolescent overweight and obesity among children with lower internal self-regulatory resources during preschool. Findings highlight the importance of efforts to bolster executive control early in development and targeted interventions to promote effective caregiver emotion socialization (i.e., more supportive responses) for youth with lower internal self-regulatory abilities to mitigate risk for overweight and obesity and promote health across childhood and adolescence.

Trajectories of Chinese paternal emotion-related socialization behaviors during early adolescence: Contributions of father and adolescent factors.

Parental emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) are developmental and multiply determined. However, longitudinal studies on the development patterns of ERSBs and their antecedents, especially for Chinese fathers, are scarce. This study examined the longitudinal trajectories of Chinese fathers' ERSBs during early adolescence and whether they are influenced by the father (depressive symptoms and emotion dysregulation) and adolescent factors (depressive symptoms and emotional intelligence). We used 4-year, self-reported, survey-based data from Chinese early adolescents (46.70% girls, Mage at Wave 1 = 10.26 years, SD = 0.33) and their fathers (Mage at Wave 1 = 40.36 years, SD = 4.22), and data analyses were conducted using unconditional and conditional latent growth model (N = 1061 at Wave 1). The results revealed an increase in the father's supportive and non-supportive ERSBs over 4 years. Furthermore, father's depression symptoms, emotion dysregulation, and adolescent's depression symptoms can predict paternal supportive ERSBs' trajectories, while only the father's depression symptoms and emotion dysregulation can predict the change in non-supportive ERSBs. The findings give a holistic picture of the developmental trajectories of paternal ERSBs during early adolescence, and highlight the importance of accounting for differences in father and adolescent factors in understanding changes in parental ERSBs during this critical developmental period.

The Influence of Parents on Emotion Regulation in Middle Childhood: A Systematic Review.

Emotion regulation (ER) has been identified as a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology, making it an ideal target for prevention and treatment. This study explores how parents can nurture the development of child ER. In April 2022, a systematic review was executed focusing on malleable factors in the parental emotion-socialization process during middle childhood. Papers in PubMed, Web of Science and Medline were screened on content-related and methodological criteria. Their methodological quality was assessed. Knowledge was assembled using a summarizing framework encompassing four factors involved in emotion socialization. Fifty papers shed light on modifiable factors at the level of parental meta-emotion philosophy, emotion-related socialization behaviors, the ER skills of parents and the emotional climate of the family. Adaptive socialization appears to be context- and child-specific, thereby taxing parents’ ER skills and their ability to put them into practice flexibly. The four changeable factors in the emotion-socialization process are highly intertwined, resulting in four possible entries for parent-directed interventions. Importantly, time should be devoted to the ER capacities of parents and their ability to attune to the situation and their child. Regarding the latter, replication studies are necessary. Recommendations for clinical interventions are provided.

Testing TIK (Tuning in to Kids) with TEC (Test of Emotion Comprehension): Does enhanced emotion socialization improve child emotion understanding?

This study examined the predictive link between enhanced parental emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) and children's emotional understanding. Parental ERSBs were enhanced using the Tuning in to Kids (TIK; Havighurst & Harley, 2007) parenting intervention, and children's emotional understanding was directly assessed using the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC; Pons & Harris, 2000). 40 children in their final year of kindergarten and one of their parents participated in the study. TIK led to positive changes in parental expressive encouragement. All children showed statistically significant improvements in emotion understanding at six-month follow-up. As expected, parental expressive encouragement positively predicted children's development of emotional understanding from baseline to follow-up. Thus, when parents encouraged children to talk about emotions, children's emotional understanding improved. Unexpectedly, emotion-focused responses (warm but dismissive) negatively predicted children's development of emotion understanding, Children's emotional understanding did not improve as much when parents responded with comfort and distraction. Implications are discussed.

A Pilot Study of a Parent Emotion Socialization Intervention: Impact on Parent Behavior, Child Self-Regulation, and Adjustment.

Adequate emotion regulation in children is crucial for healthy development and is influenced by parent emotion socialization. The current pilot study aimed to test, for the first time in a Scandinavian population, whether an emotion-focused intervention, Tuning in to Kids (TIK), had positive effects on parent emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs), and children's self-regulation, anxiety, and externalizing behavior problems. We conducted a controlled trial of the 6-week evidence-based TIK parenting program with 20 parents of preschool children aged 5–6 years and 19 wait-list controls. Assessments at baseline and 6 months after the intervention included parent-report questionnaires on parent ERSBs and child adjustment, as well as aspects of children's self-regulation assessed with two behavioral tasks, the Emotional Go/No-Go task (EGNG) and the AX-Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT). Results showed a significant increase in reported parent emotion coaching behavior and an uncorrected significant decrease in parents' report of child externalizing problems in intervention participants compared to controls. The behavioral data showed an uncorrected significant improvement in child emotion discrimination in the control condition compared to the intervention condition, while measures of children's executive control improved from baseline to follow-up for both conditions but were not significantly different between conditions. These findings suggest that this emotion-focused parenting intervention contributed to improvement in parents' emotion coaching and their appraisal of child externalizing problems, while children's self-regulation showed mainly normative developmental improvements. Further research with a larger sample will be the next step to determine if these pilot findings are seen in an adequately powered study.

Heterogeneous patterns of maternal emotion socialization and their association with maternal depression and maltreatment history: A person-centered approach

BackgroundThe influence of parent's emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) on children, and predictors of such ERSBs has been studied extensively. However, to our knowledge, no study used a person-centered approach for subtyping the parental ERSB patterns and identifying parental characteristics that could discriminate the patterns. ObjectivesThe present study explored establishing heterogeneous maternal ERSBs and confirmed whether mothers' depression and maltreatment experienced in childhood are predictive of the subtypes. Participants and settingIn Korean, 695 mothers of 7–12-year-old children participated in the study. We conducted a latent profile analysis (LPA) using the six reaction categories of the Korean version of the Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale (K-CCNES). We compared the characteristics of children and mothers among the derived classes and conducted a multinomial regression analysis to evaluate the predictors for each class. ResultsFive classes emerged based on the LPA: “restrained” (25.0%), “ineffective” (19.0%), “harsh” (7.3%), “dismissive” (28.9%), and “supportive” (19.7%). Demographics, children's behavioral problems, maternal depression, and maltreatment history showed differences between the subgroups. Maternal depression and experiences of emotional neglect contributed to differentiating the negative ERSBs subgroups from positive styles. ConclusionsWe were able to categorize mothers into subgroups displaying heterogeneous patterns of ERSBs. While maternal depression was the strongest predictor of negative patterns, mothers' emotional neglect experiences were an additional characteristic that uniquely predicted the lack of supportive responses to children's negative emotions. Therefore, exploring maternal emotional states and maltreatment experiences could be helpful for clinicians seeking to establish intervention strategies to improve parental ERSBs.

Effects of the Parental Friendship Coaching Intervention on Parental Emotion Socialization of Children with ADHD.

Parental emotion-related socialization behaviors shape children's socioemotional functioning and appear important for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The Parental Friendship Coaching (PFC) intervention teaches parents to coach their children with ADHD in friendship skills, which includes managing emotions. We examined whether PFC, relative to psychoeducation and social support (Coping with ADHD through Relationships and Education; CARE), improved parental emotion-related socialization behaviors, child affect with a friend, and child social behaviors related to emotional difficulties. Participants were 172 families of children with ADHD (ages 6-11, 30% female), randomized to PFC or CARE. At baseline, children and their real-life friends interacted and their affect was coded. Parents coached their child in friendship skills before and after the child-friend interaction, and parents' praise, warmth, criticism, and discussion of emotion-related friendship strategies were coded. Parents and teachers reported children's withdrawn/depressed and aggressive behaviors. Results suggested that PFC (relative to CARE) led to parents providing more emotion strategies and praise at post-treatment and follow-up, and more warmth at follow-up, and to children showing less withdrawn/depressed behavior at follow-up. For bidirectional relationships from baseline to post-treatment, more parental warmth was associated with less child withdrawn/depressed behavior, and more parental criticism with more child aggression. More child withdrawn/depressed behavior and positive affect at post-treatment were associated with more parental criticism at follow-up. After corrections for multiple comparisons, only PFC effects on praise and emotion strategies at post-treatment, and praise and withdrawn/depressed behavior at follow-up, maintained. Implications are discussed for supporting socioemotional functioning in children with ADHD.

Infant’s Negative Emotionality as a Potential Moderator Between Teacher’s Emotion-Related Socialization Behaviors and Infant’s Emotional Intelligence

Objectives This study aimed to identify the role of teachers’ emotion-related socialization behaviors in the development of an infant’s emotional intelligence and the moderating role of their negative emotionality on it. Methods Data were collected from 198 two-year-old infants (boys = 88, girls = 110) and their child care teachers. Descriptive statistics were computed, and Pearson's correlation and PROCESS macro (model 1) was used for data analysis. Results The study found that the relationship between teachers’ emotion-related socialization behaviors and infants’ emotional intelligence could be deteriorated by the infants’ emotionality. More specifically, their low levels of emotionality showed a significant moderating effect on the relationship between the teachers’ minimization or punitive reactions and the infants’ emotional intelligence. Conclusion These results indicate that infants’ negative emotionality and the teachers’ response to it could hamper the development of infants’ emotional intelligence, and provide a basis for relevant education and programs for preventive interventions. Keywords: infant’s emotional intelligence, negative emotionality, teacher’s emotion-related socialization behaviors, differential susceptibility model

Children's independence Skills Analysis at Low Socioeconomic Environment

Children's independence Skills Analysis at Low Socioeconomic Environment

Pathways to behavior problems in Norwegian kindergarten children: The role of parent emotion socialization and child emotion understanding.

More than two decades of research have shown that parental emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) significantly predict child emotion understanding and externalizing behavior problems. This study aimed to replicate these findings in a sample of 40 Norwegian preschool children and to test whether the effect of parental ERSBs on externalizing child behavior problems was mediated through child emotion understanding. Parental report on ERSBs was obtained using the Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES) questionnaire. Child emotion understanding was assessed directly using the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC). The results showed that parental distress reactions and externalizing child behavior problems were significantly correlated and that parental expressive encouragement was significantly correlated with child emotion understanding. Estimation of indirect effects was conducted using process analysis and showed that parental expressive encouragement was indirectly related to externalizing child behavior problems (b=-0.17) via child emotion understanding. The results suggest that better child emotion understanding, and lower parental distress are related to lower levels of behavior problems in preschool children. These findings provide support for the Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy (PMEP) model, where the effect of parental emotion socialization on externalizing child behavior problems is mediated through emotion understanding.

An empirical test of the model of socialization of emotion: Maternal and child contributors to preschoolers' emotion knowledge and adjustment.

This study tested child characteristics (temperamental executive control and negative reactivity) and maternal characteristics (parenting behaviors and maternal depressive symptoms) as predictors of a mother's emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs). Further, parenting behaviors and ERSBs were examined as predictors of children's emotion knowledge, social competence, and adjustment problems. ERSBs and children's emotion knowledge were tested as mediators of the effects of child and parent characteristics on adjustment. A community sample (N = 306) of mothers and children (36-40 months at T1) were assessed 4 times, once every 9 months, and assessments included maternal reports of depressive symptoms, observed temperament, observational ratings of general parenting at T1, maternal report of ERSBs at T1 & T2, behavioral measures of emotion knowledge at T3, and teacher ratings of children's adjustment at T4. There were no predictors of ERSBs above prior levels. Higher executive control and lower maternal depressive symptoms predicted greater child emotion knowledge, highlighting the roles of maternal and child contributors to emotion knowledge. Greater emotion knowledge and positive affective quality in parenting predicted children's adjustment, with emotion knowledge mediating the effects of executive control on children's adjustment. In addition, lower levels of maternal supportive ERSBs predicted greater adjustment problems. This study highlights the roles of key variables in Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad's (1998) heuristic model of emotion socialization and the importance of emotion socialization and emotion knowledge in children's adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Introduction to the special issue: Socialization of emotion and self-regulation: Understanding processes and application.

Over 20 years ago, Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad (1998; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Cumberland, 1998) published a landmark article focusing on the socialization of children's emotion and self-regulation, including emotion regulation. In this special issue, our goal was to compile current evidence delineating the impact of emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) on children's emotion, self-regulation, and developmental outcomes. The work in this issue highlights the processes involved in predicting both parents' ERSBs as well as children's developmental outcomes. Researchers have moved beyond testing individual "pieces" of the socialization of emotion model and now use innovative and sophisticated methods for testing larger models, allowing for more causal interpretations. Special issue contributors focused on longitudinal studies including ERSBs, reviews of the literature extending the original model, and the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve the emotional lives of children and their families. We focus on some of the major themes of the special issue and conclude with recommendations for policies and programs to promote youths' effective emotion-related outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of dynamic, dyadic parent-child processes in parental socialization of emotion.

We investigated what a dyadic framework added to Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad's (1998) parental emotion socialization model based on the argument that the dynamic organization of emotion in the dyad is more than the sum of its parts and thus makes a unique contribution to emotion socialization. Preschoolers (N = 235) completed challenging problem-solving tasks with mothers and fathers, during which parental emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs), child negative emotional arousal, and dyadic positive emotion data were collected. We examined whether dyadic synchrony of positive emotion at age 3 was a mechanism by which age 3 parental ERSBs impacted children's age 5 aggressive behavior in school, accounting for child gender, child negative emotional arousal, and aggressive behavior in preschool. ERSBs were significantly positively related to dyadic positive synchrony with both mothers and fathers at age 3. Longitudinal models supported an indirect effect, not a moderating effect, of dyadic synchrony: both mothers' and fathers' ERSBs contributed to children's less aggressive behavior at age 5 through the effects of higher dyadic positive synchrony. Findings suggest dynamic, dyadic emotional processes should be considered as a mechanism of emotion socialization and that parent-child positive emotional synchrony is supportive of early childhood emotional development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion socialization as a dynamic process across emotion contexts.

Emotion-related socialization behaviors that occur during parent-child interactions are dynamic. According to Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad's (1998) model, ongoing parental reactions to emotions and discussions of emotion indirectly shape children's socioemotional competence throughout childhood and adolescence. Typically developing adolescents-girls especially-are at increased risk for developing internalizing symptoms. We examined if and how emotion dynamics of mother-daughter interactions contribute to adolescent girls' internalizing symptoms. We applied grid-sequence analysis (Brinberg, Fosco, & Ram, 2017) to observational data obtained while N = 96 typically developing adolescent girls (Mage = 13.99 years) and their mothers engaged in 5 different emotionally-laden discussions. We identified patterns of expressed emotions that unfolded during each discussion and examined how interdyad differences in those patterns were associated with mothers' and daughters' internalizing symptoms. Dyads differed with respect to whether mothers or daughters tended to regulate positive emotion expressions. Interdyad differences in moment-to-moment dynamics of happy/excited and worried/sad discussions were associated with adolescent girls' social anxiety symptoms, although differences in emotion dynamics of proud, frustrated/annoyed, and grateful discussions were not. Taken together, results illustrate how methodological innovations are enabling new examination and detailed description of parent-child emotion socialization dynamics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A review of associations between parental emotion socialization behaviors and the neural substrates of emotional reactivity and regulation in youth.

As highlighted by Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad (1998), parents play a critical role in children's socioemotional development, in part, by shaping how children and adolescents process, respond to, and regulate their emotions (i.e., emotional reactivity/regulation). Although evidence for associations between parenting behavior and youth's emotional processing has relied primarily on behavioral measures of emotion, researchers have begun to examine how parenting is related to the neural substrates of youth's reactivity and regulation. This article reviews a growing literature linking parental behavior with structural brain development as well as functional activity and connectivity in neural regions supporting emotional reactivity/regulation during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. By focusing on normative parental behaviors, we evaluate the evidence for associations between typical variations in caregiving and neural processes thought to support youth's emotional reactivity/regulation. The purpose of this review is to (1) extend the model put forth by Eisenberg and colleagues to consider the ways that parenting behaviors are related to neural substrates of youth's emotional reactivity and regulation; (2) review the empirical evidence for associations between parenting, particularly parental "emotion-related socialization behaviors" (ERSBs), and neural substrates of youth's emotional reactivity/regulation; and (3) recommend future directions for this emerging area of research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Findings, issues, and new directions for research on emotion socialization.

This special issue consists of 20 articles that focus on issues related to Eisenberg and colleagues' (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Cumberland, 1998) model of emotion socialization processes and its relevance for understanding a range of aspects of children's socioemotional functioning. The various papers have addressed a variety of issues including key mediating pathways, predictions of emotion-related socialization behaviors, moderators of pathways, and various potential outcomes of emotion-related socialization behaviors. Methods used in the articles include experimental interventions and nonexperimental longitudinal studies. The goals for this commentary include organizing the findings in this special issue to better highlight their relevance for the 1998 heuristic model and suggesting issues to consider in future research. Moreover, some gaps in the literature are noted. Finally, several minor changes to the model are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Unexpected Impact of Parental Emotional Socialization on Theory of Mind and Emotion Regulation: The Case of Children with Intellectual Disabilities

Improving our understanding of contribution of environmental factors to Theory of Mind (ToM) and Emotion Regulation (ER) competences in children with intellectual disabilities (IDs) is crucial to helping them to boost their emotional and social abilities. Parental emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) have been shown to be favorable factors for the development of these competences in preschoolers. However, few studies have investigated links between mothers’ and fathers’ ERSBs and socio-emotional abilities in children with IDs. The goal of this study is to explore the share of the variance in ToM and ER abilities explained by individual characteristic and each parent’s reactions to the emotions of their children with IDs and emotion-related conversation. Twenty-seven mothers, 16 fathers, and their children with IDs participated. Direct and indirect measures of children’s ToM were used. Questionnaires about children’s ER competences and parents’ ERSBs were completed by parents. The results demonstrated that, at preschool developmental age, parents’ ERSBs had an impact on affective and cognitive ToM as well as on ER, depending on the parent’s gender, on children’s chronological and developmental age, and on the nature of ERSBs, namely reactions or conversations.

The Unforeseen Influence of Parents’ Socialization Behaviors on the Social Adjustment of Children with Intellectual Disabilities

This paper investigates how parents of children with intellectual disabilities (IDs) socialize emotions, and how these behaviors affect their children’s social adjustment. The goals were: 1) to identify the emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) used by parents of children with IDs, in comparison to parents of typically developing (TD) children, and 2) to examine the extent to which these reactions and conversations affect children’s social competences and (mal)adjustment. Parents’ reactions to emotions have been described as either supportive or unsupportive of children’s socio-Emotional development, and their conversations about emotions with their children have also been considered as helpful in this respect. However, little is known about these reactions and conservations in either mothers or fathers of children with IDs. The first study compared these ERSBs in 54 mothers and 32 fathers of children of preschool developmental age with or without IDs. The results showed that parents of children with IDs use more unsupportive reactions to their emotions. The second study investigated the links between parents’ reactions and conversations, and their children’s profiles (IDs, developmental age, social adjustment and externalizing or internalizing problems). Correlational and regression analyses emphasized specific links between some maternal or paternal reactions and conversations on the one hand and children’s characteristics, social adjustment or behavior problems on the other hand.

The Effect of Children’s Temperament and Parent’s Emotion-related Socialization Behaviors on the Child’s Theory of Mind

The Effect of Children’s Temperament and Parent’s Emotion-related Socialization Behaviors on the Child’s Theory of Mind