Poster #54 - A Person-Centered Analysis of Parent Socialization of Emotion at Ages Two and Five

• In Event: Poster Session 05

Abstract

Parents help foster children’s emotional development, in part, through parent socialization of emotion (PSE) which has been linked to development of emotion-regulation and understanding (Cunningham et al., 2009). In most empirical work, PSE behaviors are classified dichotomously as supportive and unsupportive with supportive PSE typically being linked to adaptive development and unsupportive PSE being linked to maladaptive development (Eisenberg et al., 1998). Recent work has critiqued this dichotomous approach for failing to capture the nuances of PSE, failing to capture how parents can use a combination of behaviors, and oversimplifying the construct by implying that supportive strategies are always good and unsupportive strategies are always bad. Using person-centered analyses is an approach that can capture different patterns of PSE behaviors that move past this binary distinction. However, this body of research is still relatively novel, and these studies have found a variety of different profiles of PSE, perhaps due to differences in ages of study populations and large age-ranges of participants within these studies. Because of differing developmental needs, parents are likely to use different PSE strategies for children of different ages (Settler & Katz, 2014).
We aim to contribute to this literature by identifying and validating profiles of PSE at two separate ages –2 and 5 years old drawn from a larger longitudinal study. Parents report on their PSE behaviors at age 2 with the CCNES-T and at age 5 with the CCNES (Eisenberg et al., 1996; Fabes et al, 1990). LPAs are utilized to identify profiles of PSE at both ages. To validate the profiles identified we examine associations between profile membership and parenting style, a known correlate of PSE (Chan et al., 2009) reported with the PPQ (Robinson et al., 1995).
At age 2, a 3-profile solution provided the best fit (Figure 1). At age 5, a 2-profile solution provided the best fit (Figure 2). Examination of descriptive differences in profiles revealed two profiles that were similar across ages - a moderate profile showing moderate levels of all behaviors and a profile characterized as supportive. At age 2, there was an additional profile that was high on problem focused and emotion focused responses. Following identification of profiles, we examined differences in parenting style (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive) between the profiles. At age 2, parents in the supportive profile were more likely to endorse authoritative practices than the other profiles, F(2,114)=12.24,p<.001 and, parents in the moderate profile were more likely to endorse authoritarian F(2,114)=13.08,p<.001 and permissive F(2,114)=4.25,p=.02 practices. For age 5, t-tests revealed no significant differences in parenting style between the two profiles. These results suggest that parents do use different combinations of PSE behaviors for children at different ages. Therefore, future studies using a person-centered approach to measure PSE should consider examining profiles of PSE within ages, as profiles of PSE vary by age. Additional analyses will examine associations between negative affectivity, a known correlate of PSE, and PSE profile membership and longitudinal associations between PSE profiles and children’s emotion-regulation.

Authors

• Nora Anne Tucker, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park