Profiles of Emotion Socialization Across Development and Longitudinal Associations with Youth Psychopathology

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Although there is relative consensus in the literature regarding associations between certain emotion socialization (ES) strategies and youth...     

Effects of Parent Emotion Socialization on the Neurobiology Underlying Adolescent Emotion Processing: A Multimethod fMRI Study

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Parents’ emotion socialization (ES) practices impact socioemotional development throughout adolescence. Little is known, however, regarding...     

Parent Socialization of Coping and Child Emotion Regulation Abilities: A Longitudinal Examination

This study examined the hypothesis that parent socialization of coping (SOC) would have a longitudinal relation with child emotion regulation abilities. Participants included a sample of 256 parents of 5- to 12-year-old children (child M age = 8.36, SD = 2.03, 54.7% male; parent M age = 34.49, SD = 6.20, 59% female). Data on demographic information, parenting behaviors, and child emotion regulation abilities were collected via online questionnaires at baseline and 12 months. Results from longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses suggested that parent SOC, measured at baseline, predicted child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation, measured 12 months later. More specifically, parental engagement coping suggestions predicted child's adaptive emotion regulation, whereas parental disengagement coping suggestions predicted child's maladaptive emotion regulation. Further, child gender emerged as a moderator in the longitudinal association between socialization of engagement coping and child adaptive emotion regulation: Whereas this association was small and marginally significant for girls, it was large and statistically significant for boys. Results highlight the importance of parent SOC as potentially contributing to emotion regulation abilities of 5- to 12-year-olds.     

Parental Socialization of Emotion

Recently, there has been a resurgence of research on emotion, including the socialization of emotion. In this article, a heuristic model of factors contributing to the socialization of emotion is presented. Then literature relevant to the socialization of children's emotion and emotion-related behavior by parents is reviewed, including (a) parental reactions to children's emotions, (b) socializers' discussion of emotion, and (c) socializers' expression of emotion. The relevant literature is not conclusive and most of the research is correlational. However, the existing body of data provides initial support for the view that parental socialization practices have effects on children's emotional and social competence and that the socialization process is bidirectional. In particular, parental negative emotionality and negative reactions to children's expression of emotion are associated with children's negative emotionality and low social competence. In addition, possible moderators of effects such as level of emotional arousal are discussed.     

Parental Socialization of Emotion

Recently, there has been a resurgence of research on emotion, including the socialization of emotion. In this article, a heuristic model of factors contributing to the socialization of emotion is presented. Then literature relevant to the socialization of children's emotion and emotion-related behavior by parents is reviewed, including (a) parental reactions to children's emotions, (b) socializers' discussion of emotion, and (c) socializers' expression of emotion. The relevant literature is not conclusive and most of the research is correlational. However, the existing body of data provides initial support for the view that parental socialization practices have effects on children's emotional and social competence and that the socialization process is bidirectional. In particular, parental negative emotionality and negative reactions to children's expression of emotion are associated with children's negative emotionality and low social competence. In addition, possible moderators of effects such as level of emotional arousal are discussed.     

Parent Emotion Expression and Autonomic-Linked Emotion Dysregulation in Childhood ADHD

Despite evidence that ADHD is associated with disruptions in emotion regulation, few studies have examined the biological correlates of emotion dysregulation among children with this disorder. Prior work has pointed to roles of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system, as indexed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP), respectively. Work in typically developing populations suggests that parenting behavior and parental emotion expression may shape the development of these systems. To date, a single study has examined the independent and interactive roles of autonomic nervous system functioning and parent emotion expression in youth with ADHD. This study seeks to extend that work. 86 children (42 with ADHD), aged 8–12 years, and a parent completed a parent-child interaction task, while electrocardiography and impedance cardiography data were recorded to derive RSA and PEP. Parent and child emotion word use (positive and negative valence) were coded from recordings of the task. Parents of youth with ADHD used fewer positive emotion words throughout the task. Additionally, throughout the task, children with ADHD engaged in excessive RSA withdrawal from baseline. Further, the association between RSA reactivity and ADHD diagnosis was moderated by parent positive emotion word use. Specifically, those with RSA augmentation and parents displaying high positive affect across the task conditions were least likely to have an ADHD diagnosis. If replicated and extended, these results support the use of interventions specifically designed to increase parental modeling of positive emotions, while simultaneously focusing on building emotion regulation skills in youth with ADHD.     

The Association Between Observed Parental Emotion Socialization and Adolescent Self-Medication

The current study examined the moderating influence of observed parental emotion socialization (PES) on self-medication in adolescents. Strengths of the study include the use of a newly developed observational coding system further extending the study of PES to adolescence, the use of an experience sampling method to assess the daily covariation between negative affect and substance use, and a focus on PES styles defined by the interaction of emotion-dismissing and emotion-coaching behaviors. Using multi-leveling modeling, we tested PES as a moderator of daily negative mood-substance use relation in a sample of 65 elevated-risk adolescents (48% male, 58% Caucasian, with a median age of 14). Results showed a three-way interaction between emotion-coaching PES, emotion-dismissing PES and daily negative mood in predicting daily substance use. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of PES styles and their effects on self-medication through compromised emotion regulation and interpersonal processes.

Emotion Socialization in Cross‐Cultural Perspective

Emotion socialization aims to promote children’s emotion competence. Children’s competence is embedded in cultural contexts that influence caregivers’ expectations of appropriateness of children’s expression and experience of emotions. Two aspects of emotion competence – individualistic and relational emotion competence – are outlined. They offer a theoretical framework to interpret cultural commonalities and differences in emotion socialization strategies. This review summarizes current knowledge about caregivers’ emotion socialization strategies toward children’s negative emotional expressions and related behaviors in cultural perspective. The number of empirical studies in cultures outside of United States remains low. Nonetheless, the available evidence describes a range of emotion socialization strategies that are embedded in caregiving, and their consequences for children’s emotion development. Besides several commonalities across cultures, we describe differences in the degree to which strategies are endorsed by caregivers as well as some of the qualitative information that point to cultural variations. Finally, we note gaps in the literature and suggest future research directions.     

Continuity in Emotion Knowledge from Preschool to Middle-Childhood and Relation to Emotion Socialization

This longitudinal study examined the preschool correlates of middle school children's knowledge of emotional display rules. Participants included 50 children (29 girls) who were seen at preschoolage and again 4 years later. A total of 91% of the children were Caucasian, 4.5% were Mexican American, and 4.5% were Asian American. During the preschool period, measures included children's knowledge of facial expressions, knowledge of emotion-eliciting situations, and emotional role-taking ability. In addition, the rate at which their mothers explained the causes of emotions was assessed. Four years later, the children's knowledge of emotional display rules was assessed. The display rule measures included expression regulation knowledge (i.e., whether the children altered the facial expression relative to the internal feeling without providing a motive), self-protective display rules, and prosocial display rules. Results revealed that preschoolers' situation knowledge was a negative predictor of expression regulation knowledge and that emotional role-taking was inversely related to knowledge of self-protective display rules. The results also demonstrated that the rate at which mothers' explained emotions to their children as preschoolers was positively associated with expression regulation knowledge and knowledge of prosocial display rules.     

Emotion Socialization in the Context of Family Risks: Links to Child Emotion Regulation

The current study expands upon the extant literature by examining the influence of contextual risk factors (e.g., parental psychological distress, household income, educational attainment) on parental responses to children’s emotional experiences. Participants included 97 ethnically and demographically diverse mother–child dyads with children ranging in age from 7 to 12. Mothers reported indicators of supportive and unsupportive emotion socialization practices, and measures of child emotion regulation and emotion dysregulation. Higher scores on the familial risk index were positively related to increased emotion dysregulation and negatively related to decreased emotion regulation through mediated effects of mothers’ unsupportive reactions to children’s negative emotional expressions. These findings suggest the importance of considering contextual influences on the emotion socialization process and offer potential avenues to foster adaptive emotional development in the context of high risk.     

The Role of Temperament in the Etiology of Child Psychopathology

A substantial proportion of children and adolescents come to suffer from psychological disorders. This article focuses on the temperament factors that are involved in the pathogenesis of child psychopathology. It is argued that besides the reactive temperament factor of emotionality/neuroticism, the regulative process of effortful control also plays an important role in the etiology and maintenance of internalizing and externalizing problems in youths. More specifically, vulnerability to child psychopathology is determined by a temperament that is characterized by high levels of emotionality/neuroticism and low levels of effortful control. Models are hypothesized in which reactive and regulative temperament factors either have interactive or additive effects on the development of psychological disorders in children, and conceptualized in terms of a developmental psychopathology perspective. Directions for future research and clinical implications of this temperamental view on psychopathology are discussed.     

A Family Socialization Model of Transdiagnostic Risk for Psychopathology in Preschool Children

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - This longitudinal study examined the presence of general (P) and specific internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) psychopathology factors in a...     

The Bridging Role of Television in Immigrant Political Socialization

A survey of Korean-American immigrants in California compares television news with other socialization factors in the acquisition of knowledge about American politics. U. S. television news exposure ranks alongside the newspaper as a positive predictor of U.S. political learning for this sample of Korean immigrants and is more important than other predictors, including years of schooling. Among long-time U.S. residents and those with strong English language skills, the newspaper is the main predictor of political learning, as is the case in other studies of adult Americans. But for those who have been in the U.S. a short time and who lack skill in English, TV news is the stronger predictor for these immigrants, as it is in studies of indigenous American adolescents.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization of Adolescent Girls Engaging in Non-Suicidal Self-Injury

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Non-suicidal self injury (NSSI) is a transdiagnostic maladaptive behavior that is highly prevalent in adolescence. A greater understanding of the...     

Emotion Socialization in Families of Children With an Anxiety Disorder

Compared emotion socialization in 26 children with anxiety disorders ages 8–12 years and their mothers to 26 nonclinical counterparts without psychopathology. Children and their mothers participated in an emotion interaction task in which they discussed occasions when the child felt worry, sadness, and anger. Responses were coded for length of discussion, proportion of words spoken by child vs. mother, frequency of positive and negative emotion words, explanatory discussion of emotion, and maternal facilitation of emotion discussion. Children and their mothers also completed the Expressiveness and Control scales of the Family Environment Scale. Results indicated that mothers of children with an anxiety disorder spoke less frequently than their child, used significantly fewer positive emotion words, and discouraged their childrens emotion discussions more than did mothers of nonclinical children. Nonclinical children and their mothers indicated significantly more emotional expressiveness in their families than did children with an anxiety disorder and their mothers. These results highlight the potential role of truncated family emotional expressivity in the emotional development and functioning of children with an anxiety disorder.     

The Effects of Children on Parents: Adoptee Genetic Dispositions and Adoptive Parent Psychopathology

The purposes of this experiment were to investigate the effects of age, item type, and culture on the mental-real distinction made by children. A sample of 42 children (21 affluent and 21 deprived) in three age ranges (3- and 4-year-olds, 5-and 6-year-olds, and 7- and 8-year-olds) participated. Nine items were used. The behavioral-sensory and public-existence criteria (Wellman &; Estes, 1986) were used to gauge the children's ability to make the distinction. Contrary to previous research findings, the 3- and 4-year-olds in this study were unable to make the mental-real distinction. An age-related improvement in making this distinction was observed, and item type affected the mental-real distinction. The affluent children consistently outperformed their deprived counterparts. This finding was partly construed as evidence for the influence of culture on the ability to make this distinction in these age groups.     

The Association of Parent Mindfulness with Parenting and Youth Psychopathology Across Three Developmental Stages

The primary purpose of the current study was to test a model examining the process by which parent dispositional mindfulness relates to youth psychopathology through mindful parenting and parenting practices. The universality of the model across youth at three developmental stages was examined: young childhood (3–7 years; n?=?210), middle childhood (8–12 years; n?=?200), and adolescence (13–17 years; n?=?205). Overall, participants were 615 parents (55 % female) and one of their 3-to-17 year old children (45 % female). Parents reported on their dispositional mindfulness, mindful parenting, positive and negative parenting practices and their child’s or adolescent’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Consistent findings across all three developmental stages indicated that higher levels of parent dispositional mindfulness were indirectly related to lower levels of youth internalizing and externalizing problems through higher levels of mindful parenting and lower levels of negative parenting practices. Replication of these findings across families with children at different developmental stages lends support to the generalizability of the model.     

Parent vs. Self-Report: Contributions Toward Diagnosis of Adolescent Psychopathology

Assessment of psychopathology in adolescents can be complicated due to uncertainties about who should be considered the primary informant. While a multimethod, multiinformant approach to assessment allows for a thorough assessment, it can also result in contradictory findings. The purpose of this study was to use a sample of 121 adolescents to investigate issues of parent-adolescent agreement on behavior rating scales and a structured diagnostic interview. Additionally, this study evaluated whether adolescent report offers unique information to the assessment beyond the parent's report. The sample included both normal controls and adolescents who met criteria for diagnosis of an Internalizing or Externalizing disorder based on the DSM-IV criteria. Agreement between parents and adolescents on the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents—Revised (DICA-R) was low for ADHD (39.4%) and Externalizing Disorders (41.1%) and moderate for Internalizing Disorders (56.6%). A significant difference was found between the number of ADHD symptoms reported, with parents reporting more symptoms (M = 9.42) than adolescents (M = 8.34). Regression analysis indicated that the adolescent completed Youth Self-report (YSR) contributed unique information beyond the parent completed measures in predicting both the adolescent and the parent interviews for Internalizing Disorders. This finding emphasizes the need to continue to collect self-report information, especially when assessing Internalizing disorders, which inherently contain symptoms indicating high-risk behaviors such as suicide ideation.