Emotion Socialization by Mothers and Fathers: Coherence among Behaviors and Associations with Parent Attitudes and Children's Social Competence

TLDR

The study highlights implications for developmental theory and parent‑focused interventions. The study examined interrelations among various parental emotion socialization behaviors in 88 mothers and 76 fathers of eight‑year‑old children. Parents completed questionnaires on emotion socialization behaviors, attitudes, and child social functioning, and participated in an observed parent–child emotion discourse task and a child social problem‑solving interview. The study found gender differences and couple concordance in some emotion‑socialization behaviors, and that fathers’ reactions, family expressiveness, and coaching formed a coherent structure predicted by fathers’ emotion‑coaching attitudes and linked to children’s social competence, whereas mothers showed a less clear structure but attitudes predicted all three behavior types.

Abstract

Abstract This study examined inter‐relations among different types of parental emotion socialization behaviors in 88 mothers and 76 fathers (co‐residing with participating mothers) of eight‐year‐old children. Parents completed questionnaires assessing emotion socialization behaviors, emotion‐related attitudes, and their children's social functioning. An observed parent–child emotion discourse task and a child social problem‐solving interview were also performed. Parent gender differences and concordance within couples in emotion socialization behaviors were identified for some but not all behaviors. Fathers' reactions to child emotion, family expressiveness, and fathers' emotion coaching during discussion cohered, and a model was supported in which the commonality among these behaviors was predicted by fathers' emotion‐coaching attitudes, and was associated with children's social competence. A cohesive structure for the emotion socialization construct was less clear for mothers, although attitudes predicted all three types of emotion socialization behavior (reactions, expressiveness, and coaching). Implications for developmental theory and for parent‐focused interventions are discussed.