Poster #202 - Emotion Expression During Parent-Child Book-Reading: Variability by Gender, Emotion Valence, and Mode of Expression

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

There is a rich literature indicating that children learn about emotions from discussing emotions with their parents and benefit from having parents who are expressive with them (Cassidy et al., 1992; Dunsmore et al., 2009; Tolleson et al., 2016). It is still the case, however, that emotion socialization research typically focus on mothers’ practices and less is known about fathers’. Moreover, factors that may influence parental emotion expressions during shared book-reading are not well-understood, as book-reading studies have primarily examined literacy development. This study seeks to remedy these omissions by examining multiple factors that may affect the patterns of emotion expression during parent-child book-reading, including the gender composition of the dyad (parent and child gender), emotion valence (positive and negative emotions), and mode of emotion expressions (verbal and nonverbal).

Participants included 101 parents (66 mothers, 35 fathers) and their preschool-aged children (48 girls, 53 boys). Parents first completed measures assessing their childrearing beliefs and practices. Parent-child dyads were later videotaped engaging in a series of narrative tasks, including reading a book together about emotions. The book (Cain, 2000) included a variety of positive (e.g., happy, excited, proud) and negative (e.g., scared, sad, angry, disappointed) emotions. These observations were transcribed and extra-textual references to emotion were coded in multiple ways, including the frequency and variety of emotion talk (e.g., emotion words and phrases) and nonverbal emotion expressions (e.g., facial and bodily expressions) used by parents and children, analyzed both together and separately by the valence of the emotions being read and discussed.

A series of 2(parent gender) x 2(child gender) MANOVAs indicated the patterns varied depending on the key factors under examination. For emotion talk (verbal expression), while parent gender differences were not found overall, parents used greater emotion talk with daughters compared with sons (p=.04). When we analyzed positive and negative emotions separately, we found that child gender differences were only present for negative emotions, and mother used marginally greater emotion talk when discussing positive emotions (p=.05). For nonverbal emotion expressions, there were significant parent gender differences found, with mothers engaging in greater displays of emotion than fathers (p=.01). This pattern remained for both positive and negative emotions. Child gender differences were not found for nonverbal expressions. We also examined the extent to which parents’ emotion expressions influenced their children’s emotion expressions. After controlling for parent and child gender, regression analyses indicated that parents’ emotion talk significantly predicted their children’s emotion talk (p<.001), and parents’ nonverbal emotion expressions significantly predicted their children’s nonverbal expressions (p<.001).

Our study revealed that shared book-reading is an important context by which children learn about emotions and learn to express emotions. The extent to which parents talk about emotions and physically display emotions, however, varies by gender, mode, and valence of emotion. In this context, mothers appear to serve as richer models of nonverbal emotion expression overall, and daughters are exposed to greater discussions of negative emotions with mothers and fathers alike. The implications of these patterns will be discussed.

Authors

• Grace Cho, St. Olaf College
  Presenting Author

• Mikayla Grossman, St. Olaf College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joy Smith, St. Olaf College
  Non-Presenting Author