Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs about Emotion and their Perceived and Observed Emotion Socialization Practices

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

The way adults express their emotions, respond to children’s emotions, and discuss emotions comprise emotion socialization. Adults’ socialization of emotion is associated with children’s social and emotional skills and later outcomes (Fabes et al., 2001; Hooven et al., 2008). Gottman (et al., 1997) calls beliefs about emotion “meta-emotion mindsets” and suggests that meta-emotion mindsets manifest as socialization patterns in adults. “Emotion coaches” validate and teach children about emotions, while “emotion dismissers” and “disapprovers” ignore or punish expressions of emotion. While most research has been done with parents, studies are beginning to show similar patterns with teachers (Denham & Bassett, 2017). However, self-reports of these beliefs do not always predict skills or practices, in part because teachers may overestimate their tendency to respond to children as “emotion coaches” and underestimate their tendency to respond as “emotion dismissers” or “disapprovers” (Brackett et al., 2006, Paulhus et al., 1998). The current study compared patterns of preschool teachers’ observed emotion socialization with their perceptions of socialization and their meta-emotion mindset. Participants were 47 teachers from 26 preschools across a Northeastern US state. Teachers reported as 64% White/Caucasian, 26% Black/African American, 7% other race, and 3% multiracial; 35% reported as Hispanic/Latino. Teachers varied in experience (M years teaching=11.85, SD years teaching=8.97, min-max years teaching=0-55), and 76% held an Associate’s degree or higher. Teachers completed the Emotion Mindset Questionnaire (i.e., meta-emotion mindset; α=.80; Floman et al., 2020) and the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale-Teacher Edition (CCNES-T; Fabes et al., 1990, Denham et al., 2017). The CCNES-T measured teachers’ perceptions of how they would respond to students’ displays of negative emotions, from which Emotion Coaching (α=.80) and Emotion Dismissing/Disapproving (α=.79) subscales were created. Teacher-child interactions were observed in classrooms using the Emotionally Intelligent Teaching Checklist measuring how teachers’ socialize children’s emotions (α=.78; Authors et al., 2020). Analyses were conducted in Stata 16.1. No variance was found between schools, and single-level analyses with robust standard errors were used. Teachers’ observed emotion socialization was regressed onto their reported experience and education, access and use of an SEL program, their perceived emotion socialization (i.e., Emotion Coaching and Emotion Dismissing/Disapproving), and their perceived meta-emotion mindset. Associations were not statistically significant, ps=.179-.992 and collectively explained only 9% of the variance. Results suggest that teachers’ meta-emotion mindsets and perceived emotion socialization practices were not associated with their observed emotion socialization classroom practices. A similar pattern of results was found by Brackett and colleagues (2006) and others (e.g., Paulhus et al., 1998). Although teachers may value emotion, these beliefs may not translate into practice. In our sample, teachers tended to value emotion, scored high in Emotion Coaching, and scored low in Emotion Dismissing/Disapproving. Despite this, teachers tended to score low in their observed emotion socialization practices. Future research should unpack these associations and explore factors that promote effective emotion socialization in preschool classrooms.

Authors

• Meghan Tuttle, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Craig S. Bailey, Yale School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Irem Korucu, Yale University
  Non-Presenting Author