Poster #60 - Emotion-Specific Differences in Parental Responses to Children’s Negative Emotions

• In Event: Poster Session 16

Abstract

Background: Differences in how parents teach children about emotions and respond to children’s emotions is important in predicting child psychosocial outcomes in many domains (Denham, 2007). Extant empirical evidence supports the notion that children’s emotional expressions are likely to elicit different types of responses from parents; therefore, it can be beneficial to focus on specific emotions instead of reducing emotions into broad categories when examining parental emotion socialization (ES) responses (Breaux et al., 2022; O’Neal & Magai, 2002). The literature on emotion-specific responses is largely limited to examining anger and sadness, whereas emotions such as fear have been under-researched (Garside & Klimes-Dougan, 2002). Further, ES is influenced by characteristics of the family system such as gender role attitudes (Brody, 1999). Gender differences in ES can occur as early as preschool age (Chaplin et al., 2005), although detection of gender differences in familial emotional processes is inconsistent across the valence and intensity of specific emotions, suggesting that gender-specific socialization may also be emotion-specific (Brody & Hall 2010). The current study aims to address (1) if there are emotion-specific differences in ES practices and (2) if emotion-specific socialization practices vary by child gender.
Methods: The sample consisted of 110 biological mothers (ages 20-43, 47% Black/African American, 43% White/European American) and their children ages 3 to 5. Child participants were 39% female. Data for the current study utilize the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes et al., 2002). The CCNES presents hypothetical vignettes in which a parent is asked how they might respond to a child’s negative emotions; parental responses include three types of supportive responses (emotion-focused, problem-focused, and expressive encouragement) and unsupportive responses (minimizing, distress, and punitive). Two independent coders reviewed the CCNES items; with 100% agreement, the coders categorized the vignettes to reflect child expressions of fear, anger, and sadness.
Results: Overall, emotion-focused responses were most common, followed by problem-focused and punitive responses. A mixed-model ANOVA was conducted with CCNES subscales that measured parental ES responses by emotion. Child gender had non-significant main and interaction effects. Post-hoc one-way ANOVAs with Benjamini-Hochberg correction (see Table 1) indicated emotion differences on distress reactions (highest for sadness), minimization reactions (lowest for fear), punitive reactions (lowest for anger), expressive encouragement reactions (lowest for anger), and problem-focused reactions (highest for anger).
Conclusion: Our findings revealed that parental ES responses vary by the specific emotion being displayed by a child; however, this association did not vary based on child gender. Future research will investigate the potential role of racial/cultural differences in emotion-specific responses to children’s negative emotions.

Authors

• Jenna Brianne Terry, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Sydney H James, University of Georgia

• Taylor Brumbaugh, University of Georgia

• Cynthia Mary Suveg, University of Georgia

• Anne E Shaffer, University of Georgia