Parents’ Positive Emotional Affect is Infectious in Dyadic Math Interaction

• In Event: The What and How of Parents’ Socialization: Exploring the Bridging Role of Children’s Psychological Processes

Abstract

Prior literature grounded in the Self-Determination Theory (Ryan et al., 2019) has documented the long-term implications of parents’ autonomy-support, control, and affect for children’s motivation and achievement in mathematics (e.g., Oh et al., 2022; Silinsikas & Kikas, 2019). What is lacking in the existing literature are studies that explain the behavioral underpinning as to why these patterns emerge. It has long been theorized that parental control would deprive children of opportunities to engage in learning materials, whereas autonomy-supportive parenting would afford more space for engagement from children (Grolnick & Pomerantz, 2009). It has also been assumed that parents’ emotional affect during dyadic math interaction creates an ever-existing environment that can implicitly shape children’s early experience in math learning (e.g., Pomerantz et al., 2005). However, few studies have connected parental control and autonomy-support to children’s behavioral engagement (e.g., Wu et al., 2024). Even fewer has tested the contagiousness of parents’ affect to children’s own affect, although positive emotions have been recognized as the spark plug for initial interest in mathematics (Vongkulluksn et al., 2018).
To further unpack the behavioral and emotional processes through which parents’ socialization occurs, the current study employed an observational method to capture the moment-by-moment association between parental practices and children’s behavioral engagement and affect during an informal math learning activity. Specifically, 73 parents (mothers = 81.9%; URM = 32.9%) and their children (girls = 42.5%; 2nd graders = 47.9%; 3rd graders = 52.1%) played a 15-minute math activity designed to simulate situations where parents guide their children to learn an unfamiliar math concept. Based on video recordings of the interaction, trained research assistants coded parents’ autonomy-support, control, affect, as well as children’s behavioral engagement and affect on 30-second intervals (ĸs > .75; ϒs > .89).
On a between-dyad level, descriptive statistics of composite variables revealed a negative correlation between parental control and children’s engagement (r = -.40, p < .001), and a positive correlation between parents’ positive affect and children’s positive affect (r = .53, p < .001). Multilevel modeling further indicated that parents’ autonomy-support (b(SE) = -.07(.03), p = .01) and control (b(SE) = -.11(.02), p < .001) were both negatively associated with children’s behavioral engagement on a within-interval level. In terms of affect, we found that parents’ positive affect predicted both positive (b(SE) = .50(.13), p < .001) and negative (b(SE) = .50(.18), p < .01) affect of their children in the following interval after controlling for children’s affect in the previous interval, whereas parents’ negative affect did not predict children’s positive (b(SE) = .20(.16), p = .23) or negative affect (b(SE) = .07(.23), p = .77).
This study sheds light on the nuanced ways parenting behaviors and affect can act on children’s engagement and affect in real time. Although there are mixed findings regarding autonomy support and negative affect, the message regarding parental control and positive affect is clear: When parents display warmth, joy, or love, children are more likely to enjoy math learning, whereas over-interference can disengage children from math learning.

Authors

• Yuchen Song, University of Georgia

• Jiawen Wu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Michael M. Barger, University of Georgia

• Eva M. Pomerantz, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign