1-018 - Antecedents and Consequences of Emotional Development in Cultural Contexts

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The causes and consequences of children’s emotional development have been of great interest to researchers and practitioners. Studies have shown that children’s emotional experience is critical for their physical and psychological well-being and that early socialization is an important antecedent of emotional development. However, culture may moderate these relationships given different cultural beliefs concerning emotion and associated socialization practices. This symposium examines antecedents and consequences of emotional development in various cultural contexts. We aim to show that culture moderates both how socialization affects emotional development and in turn, how emotion knowledge affects well-being.
The effect of parenting practices on children’s emotional development is examined in the first two papers. The first paper presents how parenting practices during mother-child interaction (e.g., magnifying responses to children’s emotions and maternal emotion expression) predict preschoolers’ emotion expression and emotional problems, and how these relations differ between European and African Americans. The second paper presents how Japanese mothers’ sensitivity, responsiveness, and behavior management interact with child’s characteristics to contribute to preschoolers’ emotion knowledge. The third study explores the developmental trajectory of European and Chinese American children’s emotion knowledge across early middle childhood, as well as its relation to their well-being. These three papers together demonstrate the important role of culture in shaping the trajectory, antecedents, and consequences of children’s emotional development. Our discussant, a prominent developmental psychologist in the field of culture and emotional development, will synthesize these presentations and highlight the importance of understanding the cultural background when facilitating children’s emotional development and well-being.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Yang Yang, Cornell University

Discussant

• Susanne Denham, George Mason University

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Emotion Socialization and Child Outcomes among African Americans and European Americans - Presenting Author: Emma Hooper, Ohio State University; Xin Feng, Ohio State University; Seulki Ku, Ohio State University; Micah Gerhardt, The Ohio State University; Qiong Wu, Ohio State University; Stephen Sleva, The Ohio State University

• How Culture Plays a Role? Relations between Parenting Practice and Preschoolers’ Emotion Knowledge in Japan - Presenting Author: Naomi Watanabe, George Mason University; Nicole M. Jones, George Mason University; Susanne Denham, George Mason University; Hideko Hamada Bassett, George Mason University; Tessei Kobayashi, NTT Communication Science Laboratories

• Emotion Knowledge and Socio-emotional Wellbeing across the Early Middle Childhood: A Cross-cultural Longitudinal Investigation - Presenting Author: Yang Yang, Cornell University; Qi Wang, Cornell University