Poster #218 - Teachers’ Reactions to Elementary Students’ Negative Emotions Affect Academic Relationships: Moderation by Students’ Temperament

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Productive, supportive relationships with teachers and peers prompt elementary students’ engagement and academic achievement (McCormick et al., 2013). Emotional competence contributes to forming and maintaining these high-quality relationships (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Nonetheless, scholars have only recently examined teachers’ emotion socialization behaviors (e.g., Denham et al., 2017; Lang et al., 2017), despite that young students spend the majority of the school day with a single lead teacher, during developmentally sensitive periods. Teachers’ socialization behaviors, such as reactions during students’ heightened-emotion states, likely affect interpersonal classroom interactions. Moreover, students’ temperaments may be differentially susceptible to teachers’ socialization, yet only a single study has tested whether temperament moderates associations (surgency; Bassett et al., 2017).

Accounting for Grade 1 (G1) outcomes and teacher demographics, we examined (a) whether Grade 2 (G2) teachers’ proportion positive reactions when students displayed negative emotions were associated with student-teacher closeness/conflict, social competence, or peer victimization, and (b) whether students’ effortful control (EC), impulsivity, or shyness moderated associations.

Participants were 291 second-graders (46% girls; M=7.66 years; 75% Caucasian), their parents, and their 116 teachers (97% women; 66% Master’s degree; M=11.84 years teaching experience), across 75 elementary schools. G2 teachers reported likely reactions during 11 typical situations children might experience at school which evoke distress and negative affect (“If a child were participating in some group activity, made a mistake, and then looked embarrassed, I would tell the child that s/he is over-reacting” 1=very unlikely, 7=very likely; Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale: Fabes et al., 2002). In a PCA, emotion-focused, expressive-encouragement, and problem-focused reactions loaded as positive reactions, whereas minimization and punitive reactions loaded as negative reactions. Because the affective balance of reactions reflects the reality of children’s development (Denham et al., 1997), we created a proportion positive reactions score as the ratio positive-to-total (positive+negative) reactions. G1/G2 teachers rated G1/G2 student-teacher closeness/conflict (Student-Teacher Relationship Scale: Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Parents rated children’s social competence (Perceived Competence Scale for Children: Eisenberg et al., 1997), peer victimization (Crick et al., 1999), and temperament (Children’s Behavior Questionnaire: Rothbart et al., 2001).

Mplus 8 models conducted with the TYPE=TWOLEVEL COMPLEX feature (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017; G2 classroom/G2 school=cluster variables) showed that G2 teachers’ reactions were positively associated with student-teacher closeness and peer victimization, negatively associated with conflict, and unrelated to social competence, and that children’s temperament moderated some associations (Table 1). Simple slope plots (Figure 1) indicated associations were strongest for children low in EC (Panel A) and high in impulsivity (B) and shyness (C). Peer victimization results (Panel D) suggest teachers may have increased the frequency and intensity of positive reactions with poorly regulated children being bullied (shyness results were similar), whereas reactions served a protective role for other aspects of academic relationships.

Findings offer novel evidence linking a specific emotion-socialization behavioral practice of teachers to changes in elementary academic relationships, contributing to an emerging literature exploring teachers’ roles as primary socializers of social-emotional competence. High levels of positive reactions appear particularly important to children prone to emotional under- or over-regulation.

Authors

• Jodi Swanson, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Carlos Valiente, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author