Emotion learning through questions: How parental questions differentiate in reference to self conscious emotions

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

Children acquire emotion knowledge through parent-child conversations (Martin, 2017). Recent studies suggest that within parent-child talk, parents’ focus and attention differentiates based on the emotion (Knothe & Walle, 2018). However, there is limited research on whether parental questions differ across emotion as well. The current study explored parental questions asked about self-conscious emotions in parent-infant conversations.

One hundred and sixty-six infants (77 females; Mage = 2.46 years, SD = 0.26) participated in a storybook task with their primary caregiver. Parents were presented with a picture book where each page had an image of an individual reacting to an event with a distinct self-conscious emotion (Figure 1). Each page was displayed in random order and the gender of the individual in the picture was counterbalanced. The narrations were transcribed using TEMI voice transcription software. Parental questions about each image were coded by trained researchers. Coding of parental questions involved closed questions (e.g., is she sad?), causal questions, (e.g., what happened to the kitty?), and knowledge questions (e.g., what animal is that?). Questions unrelated to the storybook were excluded.

Separate repeated measures generalized linear mixed models examined the three types of questions (i.e., closed, causal, knowledge) and whether they differed across self-conscious emotions. Child age, gender, and the total number of questions asked were included as covariates. Results indicated no significant effects of picture emotion for closed parental questions, F(4,764) = 1.20, p = .31. However, there were significant effects of picture emotion for causal questions, F(4,764) = 8.33, p < .001, and knowledge questions, F(4,764) = 5.47, p < .001. In particular, parents asked significantly less causal questions for awe and pride pic emotions than for embarrassment, shame, and guilt (ps ≤ .001, see Figure 2a). Additionally, parents asked significantly more causal questions for awe than pride (p ≤ .05). Conversely, parents asked significantly more knowledge questions for awe and pride than for embarrassment, shame, and guilt (ps ≤ .05, see Figure 2b). Parents also asked significantly more knowledge questions for awe than pride (p ≤ .05).

Results indicated that the type of parental question differentials across different emotions and that through questions parents teach their children about emotions (Bornstein et al., 1992; Ervin-Tripp & Miller, 1977). More specifically, it seems that parents ask more about what is happening (i.e., causal) in the emotional context of negative emotions (i.e., embarrassment, shame, and guilt) than for positive emotions (i.e., pride and awe), supporting current research (Knothe & Walle, 2018). Parents use causal questions to direct more attention to all the factors within the emotional context when discussing negative emotions versus positive emotions. Whereas, positive emotions may not require as much contextual understanding and therefore, require less causal questioning. Additional implications for parent-child talk and future directions will be discussed.

Group Authors

Alexandra M. Cooper, Luiza Pradera, Kaylie Sorensen, & Dr. Peter J. Reschke

Authors

• Alexandra M Cooper, Brigham Young University
  Presenting Author

• Luiza Pradera, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kaylie C. Sorensen, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peter J Reschke, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author