Challenging the Dichotomy: Examining Parent Goals and Socialization Behaviors Regarding Positive Affect in Bangalore, India

• In Event: Parent Positive Affect Socialization Responses Vary Across Cultural Identities and Contexts

Abstract

Parent’s responses to youth positive emotion (i.e., socialization behaviors) have historically been dichotomized as enhancing (e.g., capitalizing, increasing engagement) and dampening (i.e., minimizing, ignoring; Katz et al., 2014). However, given differences in emotion-related cultural scripts (e.g., in emotional experience, expression, and regulation), it is likely that parent goals and behaviors regarding PA also vary across cultures. For example, individuals from Asian countries tend to prefer a balance between positive and negative emotions, while individuals in White American populations often prefer maximizing positive affect (PA) and minimizing negative affect (NA; Miyamoto & Ryff, 2011). We used exploratory factor analysis to examine a new measure of parental goals about happiness and an adapted version of the child-reported Responses to Adolescent Happy Affect Scale (RAHAS) to test the structure of parental PA socialization goals and behaviors as well as their relations to one another in Bangalore, India.
Across two time points five months apart, 377 adolescent-parent dyads participated in our study. Two factors of parental goals about adolescent happiness emerged (Table 1): “Maximizing and Sharing” (M&S) included items representing wanting their child to be happy to the fullest extent possible while sharing it with others; “Balancing and Controlling” (B&C) included items regarding wanting their child to achieve moderate happiness, while staying in control and not overreacting. Next, the adapted RAHAS measure surfaced three factors of parental behaviors (Table 2): “Enhancing,” “Dampening,” and “Balancing.” While “Enhancing” performed similarly to that of the original RAHAS enhancing factor (e.g., increasing engagement, encouraging positive activities) it also included items encouraging the child to share their positive emotions with others. All “Dampening” items were similar to those on the original RAHAS dampening factor (e.g., raising concerns, punishing PA). Some previous dampening items, however, loaded onto the new “Balancing” factor. This factor included items that reminded youth to limit PA and not lose control. For instance, praising a child’s accomplishment while also emphasizing that these behaviors should continue. Notably, these same types of responses are viewed as minimizing/punishing in the U.S.
As expected, M&S goals were correlated with “Enhancing” (r = .34), “Balancing” (r = .12), and inversely with “Dampening” (r = -.17). B&C goals were only correlated to “Balancing” (r = .19). Among socialization behaviors, “Enhancing” and “Dampening” were inversely related (r = -.17), while “Balancing” related positively to both (renh = .28; rdamp =.38). Longitudinally, B&C and M&S goals were related to an increase and decrease in “Dampening,” respectively (bB&C = .018, bM&S = -.030).
This study is the first to create a measure assessing parental goals about adolescent happiness and provide evidence against the previously established dichotomous view of PA socialization behaviors. The cross-reporter and specific relations between these variables, primarily cross-sectionally, bolster these novel findings. Although it’s possible that balancing is salient only in Asian countries, balancing may also be an area of omission across PA socialization literature even in Western countries. Thus, this study encourages future discussions surrounding the structure of PA socialization frameworks and the presence of a balancing factor across cultural contexts.

Authors

• Samantha Bernice Wick, Miami University - Ohio
  Presenting Author

• Vaishali V Raval, Miami University - Ohio

• Anuradha Sathiyaseelan, Christ University

• Aaron M. Luebbe, Miami University - Ohio