Contributions of Child Temperament and Age to Parental Emotion Socialization from Infancy to Middle Childhood

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

Emotion socialization, the process by which children learn about emotions, is influenced by child temperament. Parents are less supportive of negative emotions in children who are temperamentally difficult, affectively negative, and poorly regulated (Taraban & Shaw, 2018), although how parents socialize negative emotions in the context of temperamental surgency has been comparatively understudied. Child age is also a context for emotion socialization, as supportive practices that foster positive social and emotional adjustment in toddlerhood and preschool age hinder adjustment by middle childhood (Mirabile et al., 2018). The present study considered whether temperamental negativity, surgency, and effortful control and age jointly relate to emotion socialization in a sample spanning infancy to middle childhood.

Parents (97% mothers; Mage = 34 years, SD = 5.59) of 279 children (124 males) ages 20 months to 11 years (Mage = 4.01 years, SD = 2.53) completed surveys on their child’s temperament and their own emotion socialization practices. Children were predominately White (80.1%) and non-Hispanic (87.8%). Parents’ supportive, unsupportive, and distress reactions to their child’s negative emotions were measured using age-appropriate versions of the Coping with Negative Emotions Scales (Fabes et al., 1990; Spinrad et al., 2007). Temperament was assessed using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ages 20 months–2 years; Putnam et al., 2010) and the Child Behavior Questionnaire (ages 3–11 years; Putnam & Rothbart, 2006) items on the Very Short Form. All scales showed appropriate reliability (alpha > .70).

Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations are reported in Table 1. Separate hierarchical regressions examined supportive, unsupportive, and distress reactions to child negative emotions. In each model, demographic characteristics were entered first, followed by age and temperament. Interaction terms were entered last. Significant interactions were probed at +1 and -1 SD and using regions of significance analyses (Preacher et al., 2006).

Standardized regression coefficients and model statistics are presented in Table 2. Parents were more supportive of negative emotions in younger children and children higher in effortful control. Parents were more unsupportive of and distressed by negative emotions when children were higher in surgency and lower in effortful control. The main effects on unsupportive reactions were qualified by significant interaction. Child age was positively associated with unsupportive reactions to negative emotions among children who were low in surgency (Beta = .62, p < .001) but not among children who were high in surgency (Beta = .07, p = .19). Regions of significance analyses indicated that slopes representing children high (+1 SD) versus low (-1 SD) in surgency differed significantly when children were 4.84 years or younger and 8.02 years or older. Parents of children low versus high in surgency were less unsupportive of negative emotions when their children were 1 to 4 years, but more unsupportive of negative emotions when their children were 8 to 11 years.

Consistent with models on the determinants of parenting (Belsky, 1984) and emotion socialization (Eisenberg et al., 1998), we found both temperament and age were associated with how parents teach their children about negative emotions.

Authors

• Jessica Stoltzfus Grady, University of the Pacific
  Presenting Author

• Katie Elizabeth Rasmussen, West Virginia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amy Kennedy Root, West Virginia University
  Non-Presenting Author