Parent Positive Affect Socialization Responses Vary Across Cultural Identities and Contexts

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

How parents respond to their child’s positive affect (PA; i.e., socialization behaviors) is related to how youth come to experience, express, and regulate emotion, with links to adjustment outcomes over time. Given differences in cultural scripts about emotion across contexts/identities, it is likely that parent socialization behaviors also vary. Most research on PA socialization has been conducted with White American samples and may not represent all youth experiences. This symposium, composed of three papers using diverse methodology within historically under-represented samples, explores the measurement of, and outcomes associated with, parent PA socialization behaviors across ethnic and racial groups.
Paper one demonstrates that a dichotomous view of PA socialization does not account for the experiences of youth in India. Parents also engage in a third behavior, balancing PA with negative affect, that is uniquely associated with specific socialization goals. Paper two finds that a widely used measure of PA socialization exhibits insufficient invariance across racial-ethnic subgroups within the U.S. and provides suggestions for modification of the measure to facilitate inter-group comparisons. Paper three finds that, in an Appalachian sample, levels of specific PA socialization behaviors differ between parents of different ethnicities, and that ethnicity moderates the relation between PA socialization and adolescent depression. Collectively, papers suggest that parent PA socialization differs across cultural contexts and identities, particularly in structure, measurement, frequency, and outcomes of these behaviors. Results challenge current frameworks and push for re-conceptualizations that capture the full range of how parents respond to youth experiences of positive emotions.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Samantha Bernice Wick, Miami University - Ohio

Discussant

• Aaron M. Luebbe, Miami University - Ohio

Individual Presentations

• Challenging the Dichotomy: Examining Parent Goals and Socialization Behaviors Regarding Positive Affect in Bangalore, India - Presenting Author: Samantha Bernice Wick, Miami University - Ohio; Vaishali V Raval, Miami University - Ohio; Anuradha Sathiyaseelan, Christ University; Aaron M. Luebbe, Miami University - Ohio

• Establishing Racial-Ethnic Measurement Invariance for the Parental Reactions to Children’s Positive Emotions Scale - Presenting Author: Chelsea Reaume, University of Guelph; Kristel Thomassin, University of Guelph

• Parental Socialization of Positive Affect and Depressive Symptoms Among Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Race/Ethnicity - Presenting Author: Yeawon Park, West Virginia University; Tyia Wilson, University of Pittsburgh; Avneet Batra; Elizabeth Wright; Amy Elizabeth Kennedy Root, West Virginia University; Amy L Gentzler, West Virginia University