Examining cross-cultural differences in emotion expression between Chinese-American and Mexican-American preschool-age children

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Emotion expression is a central part of socioemotional functioning and children’s socioemotional development, and emotion regulation (ER) is defined as the regulation of emotion experience through emotion expression (Carlson & Wang, 2007). ER is a crucial task in the preschool years that is linked to positive socioemotional and academic outcomes, and a lack of ER is often linked with internalizing and externalizing problems that affect the rest of development (Binion & Zalewski, 2018). Studies suggest cultural differences between Mexican American (MA) and Chinese American (CA) samples. MA college students more oriented to Mexican culture displayed more negative emotional behavior than those less oriented to Mexican culture, with the converse being true for the CA sample, which can be traced to Mexican culture’s emphasis on honest emotion expression, although no significant between-group differences were found (Soto et al., 2005). In one study, MA preschoolers expressed more sadness than CA preschoolers, which suggests cross-cultural differences in emotion expression of sadness (Chung et al., 2019). To our knowledge, no study has looked at cultural differences in emotionally frustrated situation, and there is a gap in the literature regarding cultural differences in emotion expression and regulation of preschoolers for these ethnic minorities. This study aims to examine cultural differences in children’s emotion expression and regulation using observational data of preschool-age children from CA and MA immigrant families. We hypothesized that the children from MA families will express more anger and sadness from children from CA families. In a sample of 43 CA preschool-age children (58% girls, age range = 38-70 months, M = 53.5 months, SD = 7.31) and 46 MA preschool-age children (61% girls, age range = 43-67 months , M= 55.5 months, SD = 6.79) from low-income immigrant families, an observational task (the Attractive Toy task from LAB-TAB Preschool Battery) was used to measure children’s emotion expression. In this task, children picked a toy that they liked, and the experimenter locked it in a transparent box. They were given a set of incorrect keys, were told to open the box with the keys to play with the toy and received the correct keys after 4 minutes. Videos were segmented and subsequently coded in ELAN. Children’s regulatory behaviors and expressed positive affect, anger, and sadness were coded in 5-second epochs by bilingual coders. Coders would score each variable independently and resolve any coding conflicts through consensus meetings. For data analyses, we will do a t-test and ANCOVA to see cultural group differences in children’s emotion expression and emotion regulation controlling for family socioeconomic status, child age, gender, and generation status. Moreover, we will do exploratory analyses on children’s persistence in staying on task, and multiple regressions will be conducted to test the unique relations of emotion expression and regulatory behaviors, controlling for demographic variables. Coding will be completed by December 2020, which is also when data analysis will begin; therefore, I plan to finish data analysis by February/ March 2021 the latest.

Authors

• Michelle Taw, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Megan Chan, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lilliana Conradi, University of California, Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher De Anda, University of California, Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xinyi Chen, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Qing Zhou, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author