Beyond Sensitivity: Maternal Positive Emotion and its Relation to Child Regulation

• In Event: 2-168 - Maternal Socialization of Toddlers' Self-Regulation: Examination of Moment-to-Moment Dynamics in Diverse Samples

Integrative Statement

As Kopp (1982) postulated, parenting, particularly sensitive, responsive parenting behavior, is an influential early antecedent of the development of children’s self-regulation (e.g., Calkins & Johnson, 1998; Eisenberg et al., 2001; Garner, 1995; Reuben et al., 2016). A next step that can contribute to parenting interventions is to unpack sensitivity and identify its “teachable units.” One such unit is parents’ nonverbal emotion when children do not comply. We studied the extent to which mothers’ facial/vocal positive emotion while toddlers handle a delayed reward reduced the likelihood of toddler negative reactions and increased the likelihood that toddlers engaged non-angrily with their mothers and, subsequently, distracted themselves. Distraction is an optimal strategy in delayed reward tasks (Gilliom et al., 2002; Mischel & Mischel, 1983). We predicted that mothers’ positive emotion expression increased the likelihood that toddlers engage calmly in response, and decreased the likelihood of angry bids or negative emotional reactions (controlling for maternal sensitivity, toddler negative affectivity and effortful control).
Participants were 112 24-month-olds (46% female; Mage = 24.40 months, SDage = 1.31) and their mothers from economically strained, rural and semirural families. Data came from an 8-minute laboratory wait task, often used to elicit toddler frustration. Mothers told their toddlers to wait to open a gift until mothers finished some work. Three different, independent teams coded maternal emotion, child emotion, and child behavior second-by-second (all reliabilities κ > .79). Visual inspection of the raw data suggested analyzing associations within 10-s intervals. The variables were the occurrence (1) or non-occurrence (0) of a behavior in each 10-s interval. Multilevel models tested the extent to which maternal positive emotion in one moment influenced toddler emotion and behavior in the same moment, over and above the autocorrelations of toddler’s behavior and control variables.
Mothers oriented away from their work and toward toddlers in 39% of intervals, largely when toddlers had difficulty with waiting, and 9% of mother orientations toward toddlers included maternal positive nonverbal emotion expression. Maternal positive emotion increased the likelihood of toddler calm (non-negative) responses in the 10-s interval (odds ratio estimate = 1.32, p = 0.05). However, maternal positive emotion was not related to toddler angry bids to the mother (odds ratio estimate = 0.90, p = 0.48) or negative emotion more generally (odds ratio estimate = 1.16, p = 0.24). We are now analyzing the relation between maternal positive emotion in one interval and toddler use of distraction in a subsequent interval.
Although there are likely individual differences in how best to interact with noncompliant toddlers, this evidence suggests potential advantages of smiling and using a positive tone of voice when toddlers struggle with a frustrating wait. Mothers’ positive emotion may shift toddlers’ focus away from the demands of waiting for the mother to finish her work and to open the gift. We also discuss various ways to study temporal contingencies in dyadic interactions, including decisions about interval length and use of both concurrent and subsequent intervals. As Dix (1991) first suggested, parental emotion is worthy of careful investigation.

Authors

• Mary Samantha English, The Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Pamela M. Cole, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Emily N LeDonne, Fernandes Center for Children & Families, St. Anne's Hospital
  Non-Presenting Author