The Effects of Parent Socialization and Strategy Instruction on Emotion Regulation in Early Childhood.

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER), the ability to control one’s experience and expression of emotion (Thompson, 2011), has been associated with various positive outcomes (Calkins & Mackler, 2011). Substantial research has been dedicated to understanding mothers’ roles in children’s development of ER (Eisenberg, 2020). Supportive parent socialization of emotion (PSE) has emerged as a significant predictor of children’s ER abilities (Rogers et al., 2016). Effective ER is also supported by the use of regulatory strategies that children learn as they develop, through interactions with parents and other social partners. Prior work has shown that children can use cognitive strategies, like distraction and reappraisal, when adults instruct them to do so, with benefits for emotional responding (Davis et al., 2015). The current study aims to understand how supportive PSE interacts with experimenter-provided instructions to use cognitive ER strategies to predict children’s emotional responding in a task designed to elicit sadness. We hypothesized that ER instructions would be associated with less expressed sadness among children whose parents endorsed using more supportive PSE.
Data for the current study was drawn from a larger study of children’s socioemotional development, during a laboratory visit in the spring of their kindergarten year, children (n = 101, 46% female) viewed film clips designed to elicit discrete negative emotions. We focused on the film designed to elicit sadness (The Land Before Time; Davis et al., 2015). Children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions with different instructions about how to regulate their emotions given before the film: Distraction (“think about something fun you like to do”), reappraisal (“think about how it’s just a movie”), and control (“pay attention to the film”). Offline, trained coders observed children’s behaviors while watching the film and reliably scored the duration of children’s facial and bodily sadness. We combined these scores to create a composite of expressed sadness. At the same visit, mothers filled out Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes, et al., 2002). Per Spinrad et al., 2007, Supportive PSE was assessed as a composite of the Emotion Focused, Problem Focused, and Expressive Encouragement subscales of the CCNES.
We collapsed across the two ER instruction conditions in our analyses, to compare effects of receiving versus not receiving ER instructions on children’s emotional responding. Supportive PSE (ß = -1.69, t(3,89) = -4.52, p < .001) and assignment to the ER instruction conditions (ß = -1.69, t(3,89) = -3.37, p =.001) both predicted less expressed sadness. The interaction between condition and maternal supportive PSE was also significant and is plotted in Figure 1 (ß = 1.809, t(3,88) = 3.34, p = .001). Maternal supportive PSE predicted less sadness during the film, but only for children in the control condition.
These findings provide insight into the role of PSE and ER strategy instruction in shaping children’s emotional responding. Children who did not receive instruction and whose parents endorsed less supportive PSE showed the highest levels of sadness. Future research should examine other combinations of input regarding ER that children receive from adults.

Authors

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

• Austen Trainer, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth L Davis, University of California - Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author