Poster #216 - Examining the Relationship Between Parental Emotion Socialization and Chinese Children’s Depressive Symptoms

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

The association between parental responses to children’s emotions and children’s psychological adjustment has been well documented in Western samples (e.g., Baker, Fenning, & Crnic, 2011; Eisenberg et al., 1999; Hurrell, Houwing, & Hudson, 2017; Liu & Merritt, 2018). Parental emotion socialization is typically related to better emotion regulation skills and less psychological distress among children and adolescents. However, parental emotion socialization goals and practices may differ for girls and boys in specific cultural contexts, and girls may be more susceptible to parental emotion socialization (e.g., Denham, Bassett, & Wyatt, 2010; Matsumoto et al., 2008; Trommsdorff & Cole, 2011). Given the complexity of culture and sex differences, the current study aims to investigate the associations between parental emotion socialization and children’s depressive symptoms in contemporary urban China, and whether this relationship differs by parent and child sex.

Data were drawn from a longitudinal, mixed-method study on parenting and child development in Nanjing, China since 2006. This investigation used data collected in 2016, including 440 parents (192 fathers, 248 mothers) and 268 children (142 boys, 126 girls, Mage = 9.70, SD = 0.46). Parents reported on their supportive emotion socialization (sample items “encourage your child to talk about his/her feelings/emotions” “take the time to explain to your child how others are feeling” “tell your child when you feel happy”). Children reported on their depressive symptoms using the adapted Children Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1992). T-tests were conducted to compare fathers’ and mothers’ emotion socialization behaviors toward boys and girls. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship between parental emotion socialization and children’s depressive symptoms. Maternal and paternal emotion socialization behaviors were tested in separate models and the moderating role of child sex was examined.

We found that overall mothers reported more supportive emotion socialization behaviors than fathers. Further, girls’ fathers showed significantly higher levels of supportive socialization behaviors than boys’ fathers. More importantly, the relationship between parental emotion socialization and children’s depressive symptoms was moderated by parent and child sex. Particularly, paternal emotion socialization was associated with higher depressive symptoms for girls, whereas it was linked to lower depressive symptoms for boys. However, there were no significant associations between maternal emotion socialization and depressive symptoms for either girls or boys.

Our findings suggest that paternal supportive emotion socialization is a protective factor for boys, but a risk factor for girls. Such findings indicate that it is important to for fathers to react to boys’ emotions in a supportive way, which may particularly protect them from internalizing problems. On the other hand, fathers’ involvement in girls’ emotional life may indicate their reactions to girls’ existing distress and sadness. Such reactions may increase the likelihood of ruminating over the emotions and events, which leads to more depressive symptoms. Our findings highlight differential effects of parental emotional socialization for adolescent boys vs. girls and we will further examine our socialization measure and tease out effects of different components. We will also examine longitudinal associations to understand these effects for the final presentation.

Authors

• Lixian Cui, New York University – Shanghai
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xiao Ling, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Niobe Way, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xinyin Chen, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author