Parental Socialization Research Articles

Beyond table manners: Children’s gratitude for food and the role of parental socialization

This investigation explores children’s food gratitude and parents’ socialization of this gratitude within the United States. Study 1 examined children’s spontaneous expressions of gratitude (N = 1,441), focusing on the concepts of food environmental sustainability, properties, origins, scripts, and well-being. Study 2 surveyed parents (N = 110) regarding their engagement in socialization practices that promote children’s food gratitude: conversations; modeling; niche selection; and, scaffolding. The results unveil nuances in younger and older children’s gratitude for food concepts as well as parents’ differential use of food gratitude socialization practices and emphasis on specific concepts. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that parents’ food gratitude socialization practices predict parents’ reports of their children’s food gratitude. These studies elucidate variability in children’s gratitude for food and parents’ contribution to its development within this domain. These findings have implications for food gratitude socialization. (137 words)

A Pilot Study to Examine the Effects of an Emotion Coaching Parenting Program for Chinese Parents of Preschoolers.

Parental emotion socialization is crucial to children's development, yet emotion-focused parenting programs are scarce in non-Western contexts. In this study, we developed a four-week emotion-focused parenting program based on the principles of emotion coaching for Chinese families with preschool-aged children. This program integrated parent group sessions with home-based parent-child shared reading. A total of 73 parents of preschoolers were recruited and randomly assigned to experimental and waitlist control groups. Three waves of data on parents' emotion-related parenting beliefs and practices and parenting stress were collected at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and three-month follow-up. Significant reductions in parents' punitive reactions, minimization reactions, and parent-child dysfunctional interactions were found in both the experimental and the waitlist control groups immediately after completion of the program. When combining data from both groups, a significant improvement in parents' expressive encouragement was observed at post-intervention and follow-up. Additionally, delayed effects of the program were found on parents' emotion-dismissing beliefs, problem-focused reactions, and overall parenting stress. This study was one of the first in China to develop an emotion-focused parenting program and rigorously examine its feasibility and effects, offering insights into the development of similar parenting programs in China.

Cross-cutting families: how parent politics shape political communication and socialization practices

Abstract Many families in the United States hold divergent political beliefs, which may cause relational issues between parents and affect the political socialization of their child(ren). Through a mixed-methods approach, we first assess data from in-depth interviews (N = 30) with parents in cross-cutting romantic relationships, or relationships where partners hold different political beliefs, to inductively explore the connection between parent politics and political socialization within the family. We find that parent political differences shape parent political communication, which is related to the political socialization of their child(ren). Drawing from these interviews, we employ survey data of cross-cutting and politically similar parents in the U.S. (N = 484), offering complementary evidence that cross-cutting parent relationships are negatively associated with expressiveness and political socialization, and that the relationship with political socialization is mediated by parent expressiveness. These findings showcase the role that parent disagreement plays in family political communication and political socialization.

Parental socialization and identity in U.S. Muslim youth

Parental socialization and identity in U.S. Muslim youth

Maternal socialization and infant helping in Uganda and the United Kingdom.

Prosocial behavior, including instrumental helping, emerges early in development, but the role parental attitudes and practices take in shaping the emergence of early helping across different cultural contexts is not well understood. We took a longitudinal approach to investigate maternal socialization of early helping across two different cultural groups. Participants were mother-infant dyads from urban/suburban York, United Kingdom (43 infants: 21 females, 22 males) and the rural Masindi District, Uganda (39 infants: 22 females, 17 males). We examined cultural variations in mother's helping-related parenting practices toward 14- and 18-month-olds and infants' actual helping in experimental tasks at 18 months. We then asked whether maternal parenting practices and socialization goals predicted individual variation in infant helping. We found that U.K. mothers scaffolded infant helping using a larger range of strategies than Ugandan mothers, but expecting an infant to help was more common in Uganda than in the United Kingdom. Moreover, we found that the Ugandan infants were more likely and often quicker to help an adult in need than the U.K. infants. Finally, we found that maternal scaffolding behaviors positively predicted individual variation in infant helping at 18 months in the United Kingdom, but not in Uganda. By contrast, maternal alignment with relational socialization goals at 11 months positively predicted infant helping at 18 months in the Ugandan, but not in the U.K., sample. These results indicate that early instrumental helping behavior varies across societies and that maternal socialization goals and scaffolding behaviors can shape infant helping in culturally specific ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The Longitudinal-Experimental Design and the Development and Prevention of Criminal Offending Over the Life-Course: Advances in Science and Policy From the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study.

David Farrington (1944-2024) wrote extensively about the methodological rigour and utility of the longitudinal-experimental research design to advance knowledge about the development, explanation, prevention and treatment of antisocial behaviour and criminal offending over the life-course. Founded in 1935, the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study (CSYS) is recognised as the first randomised controlled trial in criminology and the first longitudinal-experimental study in criminology. To report on key scientific and policy contributions made by the CSYS in investigating the development and prevention of delinquency and criminal offending over the life-course. Uses previously analysed observational and experimental data from follow-ups of study participants conducted in middle age (N=494; mean=47years) and old age (N=488; 84-92years). Identified several parental socialisation practices and interactions during childhood (but not father absence) as strongly associated with serious criminal offending in middle age. Support for peer deviancy as a causal mechanism for iatrogenic effects among treatment groups, compared to pair-matched controls, during middle age drew policy attention to group-based prevention interventions. The longitudinal-experimental design is a highly important yet under-utilised methodological approach in criminology. Future research should include revisiting the original plan for the design, addressing a key potential concern of the design and carrying out longer follow-ups at key stages of the life-course.

Putting ourselves together: School belonging, parental socialization, and teacher support of Latinx youth.

Limited research has considered how family and school factors combine to support Latinx students' academic achievement in early adolescence. We examined associations between parental academic socialization (PAS), teacher support (TS), school belonging, and achievement outcomes to understand the roles of family and teacher factors in youths' school belonging and achievement. Youth (N = 65, mean age = 11.74, SD = 1.11) and their parents completed questionnaires on school belonging, PAS, and TS, and we collected grade point average, standardized test results, and teacher perceptions of student skills and traits from their schools. Results indicated that TS, but not PAS, was negatively associated with school belonging and achievement. Belonging mediated the effect of TS on academic outcomes through a positive indirect relation. Findings implicate the role of school psychologists in guiding teacher support strategies for Latinx students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

MENGENALKAN BERAGAM PROFESI ORANG TUA PADA ANAK KELAS 1 MELALUI GAMBAR VISUAL DAN BERCERITA

The introduction and socialization of parents' professions at SD Negeri 3 Belega is part of the introduction to the school environment. The introduction of parents' professions aims to foster their understanding of the diversity of roles in society and appreciate the contribution of each profession. The introduction of this profession is full of meaning that can direct children regarding their interests and future goals. The introduction of this profession is carried out using interesting visual presentation media and storytelling. The results of this activity illustrate that the students of SD Negeri 3 Belega have been able to understand the basic concepts of parents' professions and even tell stories about the professions of their parents and the people around them. The approach of interesting visual images and storytelling is suitable for learning because it increases enthusiasm, active interaction, and interest in further exploration of children.

Implementation of Collage Techniques to Improve Cognitive and Fine Motor Skills in Children Aged 4-6 Years

Early childhood development is an essential period for establishing the groundwork and gaining abilities that will impact a child's life ahead. A child's growth is influenced by the stimulation they experience; when they receive adequate stimulation in their early years, children will mature and develop suitably for their age. Some of the essential areas of growth include cognitive abilities and fine motor skills. An engaging educational task that promotes both cognitive skills and fine motor abilities is creating collages. Collage consists of crafting art by adhering dry leaves or various materials to a flat surface or drawing with glue. This service seeks to present new strategies for children, promote imaginative learning techniques, and enhance the growth of cognitive and fine motor skills to guarantee healthy development. The service involved 30 children between the ages of 4 and 6 through techniques like parent socialization, training, and mentoring for children. The technique of creating collages was especially effective for improving cognitive and fine motor skills, as it allows children to enhance their problem-solving skills and reinforces their small muscle development.

The Governance of Reproductive Contingencies between Italy and Japan

Gametes cryopreservation led to the accumulation of abandoned reproductive cells. A regulatory forecast of possible survivorship has not accompanied such a phenomenon and the current laws aren’t capable of determining how the cells should be used in the event of a marriage crisis, death, or transition. In Italy, the law does not allow for case resolution, and regulations on assisted reproduction have not been updated in the past 20 years, while the national case law is set to be the one to solve very peculiar cases applying quite controversial rules. In Japan, the solution is based on national case law, since there is no law on embryos and cells, however, it is struggling to leave behind the bio-paradigm and follow the new patterns of consent-based social parenthood.

The Parental Afrocentric Socialization Scale: A development and validation study with Black emerging adults.

This study aimed to develop an Afrocentric socialization measure that is needed to further Afrocentric research and evaluate Afrocentric interventions. An item pool was created from previous measures, after which further selection and refinement took place based on expert opinion. The factor structure was examined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in an initial sample of 202 males. Then a second study was carried out among males and females (n = 748) that was used for a second EFA on a random sample (n = 200), confirmatory factor analysis (n = 548), and for validation. The results indicated that the Parental Afrocentric Socialization Scale (PASS) was able to assess ntu (self-determination, being meaningful in the world), luvila (value of heritage, being part of the group), imani (faith, the relationship with God), and ubuntu (I am because you are, relationships with other people). The factor structure was sex invariant and the scales were reliable. Support for the validity of the PASS was found in correlations with measures of ethnic identity, flourishing, career aspirations, and collectivism. The PASS provides a new measurement of specific strengths of Afrocentric socialization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A Thematic Analysis of Low-Income African American Fathers’ Meta-Emotion Interview Responses

This study explored African American fathers’ beliefs about and experiences with their own and their children’s negative emotions. Participants included 58 African American fathers in the Midwestern region of the United States between the ages of 29 and 40 ( M age = 30.94). Participants completed the Meta-Emotion Interview, a semi-structured interview of parents’ and their children’s negative emotion. A theoretical thematic analysis of participants’ responses to a subset of Meta-Emotion Interview questions about sadness and anger was conducted. Five themes of African American fathers’ beliefs about and experiences with their own and their children’s negative emotions were interpreted: (1) responsibility for children’s emotions, (2) complex relationship with anger, (3) reckoning negative emotions, (4) children at the center, and (5) actively working through emotions. Taken together, these five themes demonstrate that African American fathers recognize the inherent value of negative emotions while navigating the potential harm these emotions may bring to self and others. Furthermore, the findings provide insight into the role of African American fathers in parental emotion socialization processes.

Supplemental Material for The Parental Afrocentric Socialization Scale: A Development and Validation Study With Black Emerging Adults

Supplemental Material for The Parental Afrocentric Socialization Scale: A Development and Validation Study With Black Emerging Adults

Challenging the dichotomy: Examining parent socialization goals and behaviors regarding positive affect in Bengaluru, India.

Parents' responses to youth positive affect (PA) have been dichotomized as enhancing and dampening. This dichotomy may not fit with cultural scripts about emotion in communities where a balance between positive and negative emotions is preferred. To assess parents' PA socialization in a culturally relevant manner for urban, middle-class families in India, we developed a new measure of parental goals about happiness and adapted the Responses to Adolescent Happy Affect Scale (RAHAS). We tested the psychometric properties of these measures and assessed relations among parental socialization goals and behaviors across 5 months. Our sample included 377 adolescent (84.4% girls; Mage = 14.47) and parent (63.9% mothers) dyads, primarily Hindu, in Bengaluru, India. Two parental goals factors emerged: "Balancing and Controlling" and "Maximizing and Sharing" happiness. Three factors emerged for the adapted RAHAS. Two factors were the same as the original RAHAS: (a) "Enhancing" strategies to upregulate PA and (b) "Dampening" strategies to downregulate PA. A third factor emerged: (c) "Balancing" strategies, which were culturally salient for families in India and aimed for moderation. Among socialization behaviors, "Enhancing" and "Dampening" were inversely related, while "Balancing" related positively to each. Balancing and Controlling goals were only correlated to "Balancing" behaviors. Maximizing and Sharing goals were correlated positively with "Enhancing" and inversely with "Dampening." Longitudinally, Maximizing and Sharing and Balancing and Controlling goals were related to a significant increase and marginal decrease in "Dampening," respectively. Challenging the dichotomy, our findings highlight the relevance of balancing to theories of PA socialization.

Considering heterogeneity within negative emotionality can inform the distinction between diathesis-stress and differential susceptibility: Children's early anger and fear as moderators of effects of parental socialization on antisocial conduct.

The importance of interactions between child temperament and parenting has been accepted ever since Thomas and Chess (1977) proposed their "goodness-of-fit" construct, but over the last three decades, pertinent research has grown exponentially. Researchers examining child characteristics that can moderate the effects of socialization have tested increasingly complex, nuanced, and sophisticated models, largely inspired by the highly influential frameworks of child plasticity or differential susceptibility (Belsky & Pluess, 2009). Yet, multiple questions remain unsettled. We addressed four such questions as applied to predicting children's observed disregard for rules at age 4.5 in a study of 200 community families from the US Midwest. (a) We examined children's observed negative emotionality at 16 months, most commonly seen as a plasticity "trait," but separating anger and fear proneness, which may differently moderate effects of socialization. (b) We examined two separate aspects of observed parental socialization at age 3, mutually responsive orientation and power assertion. (c) We distinguished analytically diathesis-stress from differential susceptibility. (d) We examined all effects in mother- and father-child relationships. We supported both diathesis-stress and differential susceptibility, depending on the facet of negative emotionality, the aspect of socialization considered, and parental gender, highlighting the nuanced nature of the processes involved.

A Systematic Review of Parent Socialization of Negative Affect in Clinical Child Samples: Relations to Youth Emotion Regulation Abilities.

Emotion-focused parenting practices, known as parent emotion socialization, play a crucial role in shaping youth's emotion regulation (ER) abilities. The impact of parent emotion socialization behaviors (ESB) on youth ER has been studied extensively in community samples. However, research on these relations in clinical samples is more limited, albeit growing. The current systematic review sought to evaluate the existing literature examining parent ESB of negative affect in various clinical child and adolescent samples. A literature search was conducted in April 2023, resulting in 1153 abstracts being reviewed. Two reviewers independently screened the titles and abstracts to identify relevant papers, with 152 articles being independently reviewed in full, of which 26 articles met inclusion criteria and are included in the current review. Studies (16 cross-sectional, 6 longitudinal, 4 intervention) utilized multi-methods of assessing youth ER, including questionnaires, physiological, and observational measures in a range of clinical samples, including youth diagnosed with internalizing, externalizing, and neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as youth at-risk for clinical diagnoses such as physically abused children. Overall, results support significant, negative associations between parent ESB practices and youth emotion dysregulation (rs = .22-.35) and negativity/lability (rs = .19-.60), and positive associations with youth ER abilities (rs = .18-.76). Some studies highlighted varying impacts of parental ESB on children with versus without clinical disorders/symptomology, with effects being more pronounced within clinical populations. Implications for these findings and future research directions are discussed, including the significance of focusing on parent ESB in intervention work with clinical child populations.

The child's history of early stance toward parental socialization as a context for emerging moral self: A cascade from infancy to toddlerhood to preschool age.

As interest in early morality has grown, researchers have increasingly focused on young children's moral self, but recent studies have targeted mostly its structure and associations with behavior rather than its developmental origins. Addressing this gap, we followed children, mothers, and fathers in U.S. Midwest from late infancy (16 months old, N = 194, 93 girls, 101 boys), to toddlerhood (3 years old, N = 175, 86 girls, 89 boys), to preschool age (4.5 years old, N = 177, 86 girls, 91 boys). We proposed that moral self at preschool age originates in the second and third years, when the onset of parental control engenders in the child both receptive and adversarial stance toward the parent. In infancy and in toddlerhood, we collected behavioral indications of both stances-positive affect and responsiveness (in toddlerhood, also positive representation of the parent); and defiance and violations of parental prohibition. At preschool age, we measured child moral self in a puppet interview (Kochanska, 2002). For both mother-child and father-child relationships, structural equation modeling supported direct paths from receptive and adversarial stance at age 3 years to higher and lower moral self, respectively, and the expected indirect effects of the child's receptive stance in infancy on moral self, mediated by the receptive or adversarial stance in toddlerhood. The path from toddler-age adversarial stance to lower moral self was present only in father-son relationships. This study highlights the long-term pivotal significance of the child's early stance toward the parent for the formation of moral self. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Parental emotion socialization and parent-child attachment security: A meta-analytic review.

Although parental sensitivity is an established determinant of children's attachment security, effect sizes are modest, suggesting other aspects of parenting that might support secure attachment. Parental emotion socialization (ES) has been proposed as a parenting domain that is theoretically linked to secure parent-child attachment. The goal of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the strength of the relations between parental ES and attachment security in children under the age of 18. We conducted three meta-analyses assessing the links of supportive parental ES, nonsupportive parental ES, and parental elaboration with attachment security assessed with behavioral, representational, and questionnaire measures (ks = 9-11 samples; Ns = 576-1,763 participants). The relation between supportive ES and security was significant but very small (r = .06). The relation between nonsupportive ES and security was not significant (r = -.05). Parental elaboration emerged as a key correlate of secure attachment, with a medium effect size (r = .24), similar to the relation between sensitivity and attachment security. The findings underscore the need for further research to elaborate on the role of ES in the development of attachment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for The Child’s History of Early Stance Toward Parental Socialization as a Context for Emerging Moral Self: A Cascade From Infancy to Toddlerhood to Preschool Age

Supplemental Material for The Child’s History of Early Stance Toward Parental Socialization as a Context for Emerging Moral Self: A Cascade From Infancy to Toddlerhood to Preschool Age

Supplemental Material for Parental Emotion Socialization and Parent–Child Attachment Security: A Meta-Analytic Review

Supplemental Material for Parental Emotion Socialization and Parent–Child Attachment Security: A Meta-Analytic Review